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Choose Your Poison

Why do some say l'chaim when blessing wine: to confirm that the drink hasn't been poisoned, to dispel grim associations, or simply to make sure that all present are ready for the blessing?     Diaspora and Disagreement

It was never enough for Zionists to proclaim the virtues of life in Israel—they had to argue that Jews could only expect assimilation or anti-Semitism from the Diaspora. Were they wrong?Varieties of Religious Experience

Major American politicians seem unusually promiscuous in their religious affinities, not just switching houses of worship but totally altering the substance of their faith.Vayeishev: “They went that-a-way!”

  Arlo Guthrie, the Jewish folk singer, likes to call him "the 'they-went-that-a-way' guy."  He is the man who tells Joseph where to find his brothers. If Joseph did not find them, Guthrie points out, his brothers would have no opportunity to throw him into a pit and he would not have been sold down to Egypt.Whose Light in What Darkness?

Interpreted variously by Zionists, Jewish American liberals, and Lubavitcher Hasidim, Hanukkah is a major battleground for the heart and soul of Judaism.The Perils of Pauline Kael

"Remember how it was in the '60s and '70s, when movies were hot and we were hot?"  Perhaps.  One fellow film critic remembers that period—and the players in Kael's orbit—quite differently.      Transforming Paradise

Is heaven a garden? Is it the abode of the dead? What language is spoken there? Early Judaism and Christianity offered up some surprising theories. The Man Who Reformed Reform

Eric Yoffie's legacy is one of engagement—not only with other religious and political groups, but with Reform Judaism's own commitments to ethics, Torah study, and synagogue worship.