Two Orthodoxies, and the Cultures They Create
Moshe Koppel’s new book Judaism Straight Up looks at today’s progressive and traditional moral psychologies and finds one wanting. Read the full …
commentary
Christopher Nolan’s Tenet and the Tenets of Progressive Faith
A few nights after I saw Tenet, the new Christopher Nolan movie, the rioters in Portland attacked the Oregon Historical …
How the Political Behavior of Black and Jewish Americans Became Their Cultural Identity
What I find most intriguing about Steadfast Democrats and, as we will see, why I think it is a book with relevance …
The Sorry Significance of Susan Sontag
In a new biography, the critic emerges as an advanced exemplar of a nexus of glamor and moral self-regard. Read …
The Middle Eastern Jews Who Were Some of Israel’s Earliest Undercover Spies
On a summer night in 1949, two men approached the Jordanian soldiers at a military post in the Old City …
Does a 350-page Comic Book About Herzl Avoid the Pitfalls of the Graphic Novel?
To answer that question means confronting some hard truths not only about Jewish graphic novels in particular but about graphic …
How American Jews Came to Believe That Tikkun Olam Was at the Core of Their Tradition
Tikkun Olam’s easy path to enshrinement as the Jewish truth has depended on the widespread ignorance among millions of Jews …
From King David to Larry David: A New Look at Jewish Humor
For better, and for worse, Jeremy Dauber’s Jewish Comedy: A Serious History tells the story of Jewish comedy as the story of …
Is French Postmodernism Good for the Jews?
“If you believe that liberal democracy is not to be cherished but overthrown, if you believe that moral value attaches …
Shmatte Business
Why are Jewish children’s books so bad? Anyone seeking a perfect metaphor for the limitations of Jewish children’s literature will find …
Why Won’t American Jews Learn Hebrew?
The stubborn American Jewish refusal to treat Hebrew as a language that can be learned, spoken, and used is nothing …
Philadelphia Story
Dan Burt’s memoir of Jewish Philadelphia in the 1940s and 50s is a tale of immigrants, brawlers, cops, and crooks. …
A Response to “The Spirit of Jewish Conservatism”
Eric Cohen’s call for “a new Jewish conservatism” is constructive and forward-looking, which is as it should be. While it …
Drawing Conclusions: Joann Sfar and the Jews of France
On March 19, 2012, a French jihadi on a shooting spree targeted a Jewish school in Toulouse, murdering three children …
Memoirs of a Jewish Extremist
For anyone interested in modern Israel, Like Dreamers: The Story of the Israeli Paratroopers Who Reunited Jerusalem and Divided a …
Culture and the Classroom
Programs of Jewish studies in colleges and universities have added greatly to the possibilities for Jewish self-understanding. But they offer …
Post-Protestant–Catholic–Jew
Impressionistic, idiosyncratic, Joseph Bottum’s An Anxious Age: The Post-Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of America swoops and veers like the …
investigations and fantasies 