Jewish Review of Books

18/11/2024

"One day when I was young and easy under the red-roof tiles and as happy with my growing family as the Hollywood Hills were green (when you could see them through the smog), I walked up to the corner of Sherbourne and Pico on some small errand and ran into a guy I’ll call Charles. We weren’t exactly friends, but we’d met the previous year in Jerusalem. He was a grad student in a prestigious humanities program (a status to which I aspired) and the first person I’d ever heard use the word “problematize” in more or less casual conversation. I tried to avoid him, but he walked straight up to me. 'Well,' he said, 'this is a good little golus you’ve got here.'”

Read Abe Socher's "A Good Golus" here: https://tinyurl.com/8rfawtjh

11/11/2024

Emil Stern wrote about his visit to the confused and confusing Jewish exhibit at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures:

"When the exhibit launched in May, its curator exulted that it was even better than it would have been had it been part of the museum’s opening. Anticipation was high. But then some attendees read the wall text and noted the use of words like “predator,” “tyrant,” “frugal,” “womanizer,” and “oppressive” in describing the Jewish moguls. It was, an open letter noted, “the only section of the museum that vilifies those it purports to celebrate.” They had a point. I had been to the museum last year to see Regeneration: Black Cinema, 1898–1971, which was sensational, but I could not recall learning a single thing about anyone’s vices or proclivities."

Read Stern's full review here: https://tinyurl.com/ye23d8bx

07/11/2024

Don't miss Allan Arkush's incisive review of Joshua Leifer's "Tablets Shattered." Arkush Writes:

"Leifer intertwines much of his historical narrative with personal recollections, but he wasn’t yet born at this time and can’t do so for the 1960s. I was, and my own memories don’t align very well with his reconstruction of events. The euphoria in June 1967 wasn’t just a burst of jingoistic glee at the sight of Jewish jets. It had much deeper causes than that."

Read more: https://tinyurl.com/3zej4pxr

04/11/2024

Stressed out by the election? Take a break from the news to read about the very first Jewish election: the anointment of King David. https://jewishreviewofbooks.com/articles/1873/who-is-david/

28/10/2024

"Matisyahu might have seemed like a novelty act to Kimmel and friends, but Shake Off the Dust . . . Arise, the debut album he recorded while studying in a Chabad yeshiva, hit number four on the US charts and number one on the reggae charts. For a while, Matisyahu was American Judaism’s biggest star, with four albums in the top forty and global tours that brought him and his beard to Israel, Spain, Norway, Australia, and Japan. Twenty years after the release of his astonishing first album, Matisyahu, though in a very different incarnation, is still rocking."

Read "The Lion of Judah" by Akiva Schick https://tinyurl.com/ef6zbwj7

23/10/2024

Is Genesis all about Eve? Check out the link in our bio to find out.

23/10/2024

Is Genesis all about Eve?

What did Eve really want and what did Adam need?

21/10/2024

"I had participated Simchat Torah all my life, but the symbolic significance of dancing while holding the Torah and dancing while holding a child had not occurred to me until I thought deeply about the Central European minhag of binding the Torah with the baby’s circumcision cloth. Why were Torah and children paired? How did the central ritual object of Judaism become associated with the male child?"

Read Harvey E. Goldberg's full article here: https://jewishreviewofbooks.com/torah/17216/of-torahs-and-children/

16/10/2024

What's the deal the etrogs? Take a look back through our archives to find out more about why we use this unusual fruit. Check out the link in our bio.

07/10/2024

I said "this wasn’t in the aliyah handbook ” He replied instantly. “No, it wasn’t in the aliyah handbook, but it was in all the history books.”

If we knew anything at all about Jewish—and even recent Israeli—history, why were we so surprised on October 7?

01/10/2024

Don't miss the amazing articles in our new fall issue! Shai Secunda considers the towering legacy of David Weiss Halivni, Roslyn Weiss asks if the Creation story is really all about Eve, Emil Stern looks for any Jews in a Hollywood museum, and more!

Letters, Fall 2024 Statement on Anti-Israelism and Academic Jewish Studies; Invisible Truth; Union Seders; and Notes on Camp

30/09/2024

Can American Jewry survive without unprecedented change? Is Hollywood embarrassed by its Jewish founders? Was Matisyahu's beard the source of all his power? Read the newest issue of the Jewish Review of books to find out!

Letters, Fall 2024 Statement on Anti-Israelism and Academic Jewish Studies; Invisible Truth; Union Seders; and Notes on Camp

25/09/2024

Rabbi Shai Held joined the Jewish Review of Books Podcast to discuss God's love, Jewish life, and the ways to reclaim an ancient value.

Rabbi Shai Held joins the Jewish Review of Books Podcast to discuss his new book, "Judaism is About Love."