Literature
Looking back to the venerable genre, I’m struck by how often anti-Semitism presents itself. The late John Le Carré is only the most recent to be accused of that unpleasant condition.
The characters in her new story collection are fully formed creatures of that transitional 20th-century moment between European Jewish survivors and American forgetters.
In his new essay collection, my friend Hillel Halkin offers an autobiographical overview, unorthodoxly given, in a lifetime’s worth of literary attempts.
“The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus and “The Silver Platter” by Natan Alterman distill, reinforce, and hallow what makes each nation distinctive.
The novelist in search of a literary father.
Morningside Heights.
Over the last 30 years, books for young Jews have dropped religious and national identity and become obsessed with the Holocaust. Can they be put on a better track?
Jews can, and should, appreciate John Milton’s reimagining of the Hebrew Bible.
A matter of family pride.
The figure of the great fairy king in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is descended from Judah Maccabee.
Seven of our regular writers pick several favorites each, featuring sieges, spies, cultural revolutions, family papers, useful enemies, new fields of inquiry, and more.
And his longtime collaborator, Hyman Hurwitz.
A great Yiddish writer reflects on what, exactly, the novel is for.