Article Archives

AIPAC and the Politics of Reaffirmation

Politics is a matter of emotions as much as intellect, and rituals and ceremonies are central. The annual AIPAC policy conference in Washington, D.C. is, perhaps above all, a ceremony of reaffirmation of the relationships among American Jews, non-Jewish Americans, the American state, and Israel.

The Butcher and the Surgeon

They call Bashar al-Assad "son of the butcher," but he is merely a butcher twice removed. The original butcher of Syria was Abul Abbas al-Saffah, the last appellation meaning "shedder of blood." 

Old-New Leonard

After 60 years of publishing and recording, seventysomething Leonard Cohen has something else to say; and, lo and behold, the "Camp"—the Bergen-Belsen of the remembered newsreels of his childhood—comes up. He also gets the "Eye"—Jerusalem's Eye of the Needle—in there, a Jewish metaphor from the Talmud and the New Testament.

Hitting the Jackpot

Who doesn't like Purim? Besides the costumes and candy, the story itself has all the politics, sex, and violence of a juicy HBO series. In case you missed it: "Haman the son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, the enemy of all the Jews, had plotted to destroy the Jews, and had cast a pur—that is, a lottery—with intent to crush and exterminate them."

Cyrus, Ahmadinejad, and the Politics of Purim

At this week's pre-Purim meeting in Washington between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu to discuss Iran's nuclear threat to Israel, Netanyahu gave Obama a present: the book (or m'gilah, scroll) of Esther, which tells how the Jewish heroine foiled Haman's plot to kill the Jews of ancient Persia.

A Convenient Hatred

With some 1,000 books currently in print on the subject, does the world desperately need another tome on anti-Semitism? What difference will it make, when anti-Israelism provides only the latest justification for Europe's persistent prejudice against Jews and anti-Semitic views are shared by 15 percent of Americans and 90 percent of Muslims worldwide?

What Would Ariel Sharon Do?

Biographies of father by sons are an uncertain genre. Closeness necessarily entails distortion, positive or negative. But at a time when the vast majority of Israeli and world leaders seem strikingly small, it is worth considering the portrait of Ariel Sharon provided by his youngest son.

Footnotes to Footnote

Director Joseph Cedar's film Hearat Shulayim (Footnote) takes place in the Hebrew University Talmud Department, the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, and the (unnamed) Shalom Hartman Institute—the Jerusalem cloisters of the small network of Israel's talmudic academic elite.

Jews, Damned Jews, and Sociologists

What is this thing called Jewishness? What does it look like? What are its boundaries? Even the most neutral-sounding answer reflects some position on one side or the other of the crazy-quilt of conflicts that have defined and continue to define Jewish life over the last 200 years.

Gertrude Stein, Fascist?

Does it say something that the most indelible portraits of Gertrude Stein come from the outside? Or, to frame the question a different way: what does it say when our most lasting impressions of a writer are based not on her words, but on the visions and appropriations of others?