Famous Amos
Judas, the latest novel by Amos Oz, is ostensibly an allegory about both the state of Israel and the betrayal …
literature
Jonathan Levi’s Septimania
He is heir to the Islamic Caliphate, the Holy Roman Empire, and the Jewish kingdom of Septimania–but does he get …
What Happened When the Messiah Met Machiavelli
Reubeni, Prince of the Jews, a surprisingly contemporary 1925 novel by Kafka’s close friend Max Brod, reminds us of the perils …
A Fraternal Note (by James Reiss)
One brother emigrated to Israel, the other remained in the United States. Both became poets, searching for words the other …
A Cipher and His Songs
If you are a lover of Israeli music then you certainly know Avraham Halfi (1906–1980), though perhaps not by name. …
In the Crucifix Kingdom
In a dark Yiddish masterpiece that predated the Holocaust by two decades, the poet Uri Zvi Greenberg envisioned the annihilation …
An Israeli Writer’s Great American Novel
Israeli reviewers have repeatedly invoked the word “ambitious” to describe Reuven Namdar’s Hebrew novel, Habayit asher neḥerav (“The House That Was …
The Russians Have Pushkin, the Jews Have Bialik
A powerful new film, available online, shows us the man who more than any other shaped the modern Hebrew language. A …
Patrick Modiano’s (Jewish?) Sorrow
In awarding the 2014 Nobel Prize for literature to Patrick Modiano, a French novelist whose father was Jewish, did the …
A British Eyewitness to Israel’s Birth
This is Jerusalem in every Man, A Tent & Tabernacle of Mutual Forgiveness, Male & Female Clothings. And Jerusalem is …
Bialik’s “To the Bird”
“El-hatsipor” (To the Bird) was Chaim Nachman Bialik’s first published poem. He began its composition while he was still a …
Max and Mirra, Edo and Enam
The true story of Max Eitingon is still being written. A member of Sigmund Freud’s inner circle and financial supporter …
Ivanhoe and Jewish Politics
I have fond if vague memories of the 1952 film “Ivanhoe,” with Elizabeth Taylor in the role of Rebecca, and which …
Róźycki’s Colonies
The poet devours God in “Ants and Sharks,” the twenty-sixth poem in Tomasz Róźycki’s sonnet sequence Colonies, displacing God at …
Tevye’s Secret
Tevye is Sholem Aleichem’s most beloved character and the Tevye stories his most widely acclaimed literary works. A good deal …
Rafik Schami and the Dark Side of Syria
One could do worse, in trying to gain some perspective on the bloodbath that is Syria, than read Rafik Schami’s …
Taking Ourselves Seriously
No Joke: Making Jewish Humor, the latest volume in the Library of Ideas series launched by Princeton University Press and …
Tap Dancing Through Black Holes
I won’t do it anymore. I won’t call Robert Whitehill-Bashan “the Hebrew poet from Texas.” Yes, he did grow up …
Mark Helprin’s Refiner’s Fire
“Winter’s Tale,” the new film based on Mark Helprin’s lauded second novel, is garnering mostly negative reviews. Perhaps it is …
Generic Israeli Poet
Joanna Chen’s essay on Israeli poet Agi Mishol in the usually excellent Los Angeles Review of Books is an unfortunate snooze. Chen, …
