After One-Hundred-and-Twenty: Reflecting on Death, Mourning, and the Afterlife in the Jewish Tradition
I know I’m not alone in wrestling with my own mortality. I was asked these questions many times during my rabbinic career as people aged and as loved ones died – but never did I think they related to me personally. Now I find myself looking for answers to these questions, and I’ve found answers in Hillel Halkin’s After One-Hundred-and-Twenty: Reflecting on Death, Mourning, and the Afterlife in the Jewish Tradition.
Dreams Deferred: A Concise Guide to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and the Movement to Boycott Israel
For all the talk about Israel being the “third rail” of Jewish life – and there is no denying that its politics can be divisive – in truth, communities can find a lot of common ground. Most American Jews occupy the spacious center located between the poles of the extreme right, with its ideology of “Greater Israel,” and the extreme left, which rejects the very foundations of Israel’s right to exist
Steven Spielberg: A Life in Films
Venerable film critic Molly Haskell unveils a warm respect for the blockbuster filmmaker, discussing his evolution from wunderkind to serious filmmaker through the lens of his very personal struggle with Judaism.
The Family Gene: A Mission to Turn My Deadly Inheritance into a Hopeful Future
As scientists learn more about disease-causing mutations in the Ashkenazi Jewish gene pool, it becomes increasingly urgent for couples in this demographic to undergo genetic testing before having children.
Raising Secular Jews
More than two million Jews from Eastern Europe arrived in the United States between 1880 and 1924, the majority of them secular.
The Six-Day War: The Breaking of the Middle East
For Jews of a certain age, June 5, 1967 is and always will be a date as familiar as one’s own birthday. It was on that day that Israel launched a preemptive strike in response to the mobilization of Egyptian forces along the Israeli border in the Sinai Peninsula and Syrian forces in the Golan Heights.
Hank Greenberg in 1938: Hatred and Home Runs in the Shadow of War
In 1938, Hank Greenberg came three home runs shy of eclipsing Babe Ruth’s record of 60 homers in a season.
Pirkei Avot: A Social Justice Commentary
Pirkei Avot (Ethics of Our Ancestors) stands out among the 63 tractates of the Mishnah as a treatise devoted to ethical exhortation and guidance. Some scholars claim it was originally a manual directed at rabbi-judges.
The Lions' Den: Zionism and the Left from Hannah Arendt to Noam Chomsky
Sometimes a book arrives at a necessary moment, a moment in which it can become part of the public conversation and help set the stage for political arguments to come. The Lions’ Den: Zionism and the Left from Hannah Arendt to Noam Chomsky is such a book.
...And Often the First Jew
Rabbi Stephen Fuchs and his wife, Victoria, had a choice to make, a choice that would transform their lives. Should they cut all ties with Germany, where their parents were born and survived the Holocaust, or should they begin a positive dialogue with Germans?