Life and Action

Angetevka: Asking for It

After her dog dies, her daughter has surgery, and she gets sick, our columnist realizes that there are times when asking is as important as giving.

Arts and Culture

Ready to Explode

By David Brusin

Can Jews do terrible things to other human beings given what they have endured, given what Jews continue to carry in their collective memory? According to the late S. Yizhar, the answer is yes. David Brusin reviews the first English translation of Yizhar’s legendary 1949 novella, Khirbet Khizeh.

Arts and Culture

Just a Shot Away: The Fortieth Anniversary of Gimme Shelter

By Charlie Bertsch

Gimme Shelter bears witness to a world in which there’s no longer any place to hide. Although the film shows us The Rolling Stones at the height of their powers, the ultimate lesson it imparts is that charismatic leadership shrinks to human size before those who refuse to look the other way.

Arts and Culture

The Tale of an Olive Tree

By Benjamin Tammuz

Benjamin Tammuz (1919-1989) was one of Israel’s most well-known writers, artists, and critics. “The Tale of an Olive Tree” reveals Tammuz’s famed gift for satire. Though first published in 1950, this story sounds remarkably contemporary and demonstrates that even the founders of Israeli culture were able to make pointed indictments of their society’s shortcomings. – Adam Rovner, Hebrew translations editor

Faith and Practice

Judaism in Crisis, Judaism in Transition

By Jo Ellen Green Kaiser

Dana Evan Kaplan’s Contemporary American Judaism is exhaustive in detail and broad in scope, touching on the fundamental challenges to contemporary American Judaism.

Faith and Practice

The Enemy Within

By Moshe Yaroni

Whether they live in Israel or in the Diaspora, Jewish rightists consistently take the lead in defining the so-called enemy. But what about the enemy within?

Arts and Culture

Temple Talismans

By Yona Verwer

Amulets were traditionally made to be worn or placed in locations to promote healing, protect against evil & to bring good luck. Kabbalists made extensive use of amulets. Ancient talismanic images such as the hamsa, the fish, and the all-seeing eye inform Verwer’s series Temple Talismans.

Life and Action

Impermanence

By Jay Michaelson

When sadness, loneliness, or other ‘shadow emotions’ arise, they often carry with them an illusory weight of permanence. The transitory experience of loneliness is not, in itself, unpleasant – but the thought that it will never pass is.

Life and Action

Entrances and Exits

By Angela Himsel

When I leave the Indianapolis airport and go through a tollbooth where “Santa Exit” is written across the top of the lane, it’s clear that I’ve exited one world and entered another.

Arts and Culture

Zeek Reviews City of Borders; Director Yun Suh Responds

By Shai Ginsburg

City of Borders is a thoughtful attempt at explaining the importance of queer politics in helping resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict. According to Zeek film editor Shai Ginsburg, unfortunately the documentary lapses into an oversimplified appreciation of queerness, failing to recognize the complexities it has to contend with when boundaries are going up, quite literally, everywhere.