Arts & Culture

No Room in Zion?

Tent camps are appearing across Israel in protest over the high cost of housing. The high cost of everything in Israel (recall the cottage cheese boycott earlier this year) has led to widespread economic and social dissatisfaction, with otherwise serious commentators making overheated analogies to Tahrir Square and the Arab Spring.

Minorities in the IDF

Recently, while driving by the Israeli settlement of Nokdim (where Avigdor Lieberman lives), I picked up a hitchhiking soldier. We started chatting, and I asked the soldier his name. "Mustafa," he said. "You're a Muslim?" I asked. "Yes," he answered, "from Haifa."

The New Biblical Archeology

Every summer, the Israel Antiquities Authority holds a reception for foreign archeological teams excavating in Israel. This year's reception was attended by over 200 archeologists, who are investigating sites ranging in age from the Paleolithic through Islamic periods.

The Loyalties of the Sephardim

In a recent Haaretz column, Gideon Levy, the radical leftist polemicist, sounded the warning that Israel's religious Zionists—"the knitted skullcaps"—have joined hands with the ultra-Orthodox and the Sephardim to form "a united tribe of zealots."

Meet Sholem Aleichem

In the 1880's, the Ukrainian Jew Solomon Rabinowitz began his literary career under an assumed name—assumed because he was writing in Yiddish, rather than a respectable language such as Hebrew or Russian. The pseudonym he chose was Sholem Aleichem.

David Mamet’s Homecoming

A new book by the playwright, director, and author David Mamet is by definition a significant literary event—but to judge from its critical reception, The Secret Knowledge is not only a bad book but possibly an evil one. Why such heat?

A Tale of Two Nation-States

What made Greece, long a pro-Arab country with a history of anti-Semitism and a notoriously soft line on terrorism, stop political activists from sailing a flotilla to Gaza? What led Greece to rush fire-fighting helicopters to the Mt. Carmel fire?

Through Soviet Jewish Eyes

It is never not depressing: Any tale from the Soviet Union has to be depressing, whether it is conceived of as grotesque folly or simple tragedy, and if Jews are involved, all the more so. Jews are implicated in the creation of the Soviet Union, as its ardent supporters, and, inevitably, as victims of its apparatus of repression.

Imaginary Vampires, Imagined Jews

1897 was a watershed year in Jewish history. And now, Jewish historians may consider adding a surprising entry to the list of that year's events that proved so repercussive in Jewish history: the publication of Bram Stoker's Dracula.

A Two-Day Weekend in Israel?

With July 4th behind them, Americans can look forward to closing out the summer season with Labor Day on September 5th. All told, they will enjoy ten national holidays. And, of course, they have the leisure of weekends.