The justice who put the bad old days behind us
Review
“Justice, Justice You Shalt Pursue: A Life’s Work Fighting for a More Perfect Union”
By Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Amanda L. Tyler
University of California...
The biographer in Philip Roth’s corner
Review
‘Philip Roth: The Biography’
By Blake Bailey
W.W. Norton & Co.
Philip Roth was born March 19, 1933 in Newark, N.J., and, until his death in 2018,...
Aaron Leibel’s ‘crazy or courageous’ Israel odyssey
In 1972, Aaron Leibel moved from Maryland to Israel without even having set eyes on the country. A 30 year old with a doctorate...
Getting serious about fighting back
Review
“The Wrong Jew: Defeating Those Who Want Us Dead” by Hesh Kestin. New York: Wicked Son Books, 2021. 200 pages. $27.
When he was in...
Married woman seeks get at knifepoint
Review
“The Slaughterman’s Daughter,”
by Yaniv Iczkovits,
translated by Orr Scharf
The year is 5654 in the Pale of Settlement (1894 to you Gregorians out there)....
Beauty hurts in editor’s essays
Review
“Everybody (Else) Is Perfect:
How I Survived Hypocrisy, Beauty, Clicks, and Likes”
Gabrielle Korn
Atria Books
When Gabrielle Korn was a Jewish teenager growing up on Long...
The holiness of a pastrami sandwich
Review
“Beyond the Synagogue:
Jewish Nostalgia as Religious Practice”
Rachel B. Gross
NYU Press
Rachel B. Gross, a professor of Jewish studies at San Francisco State University, is...
An Orthodox Jew looks at Israel’s secular-Orthodox divide
Review
“The Wondering Jew: Israel and the Search for Jewish Identity” by Micah Goodman. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press 2020. 190 pages. $30.
Many religious...
Max Jacob, parricide extraordinaire
Review
“Max Jacob: A Life in Art and Letters”
Rosanna Warren
W.W. Norton & Co.
The European Jewish artists, writers and thinkers of Max Jacob’s generation tended to...
Fictionalizing life in Bangkok with Iris Mitlin Lav
When Iris Mitlin Lav was readying for retirement in 2016, she sat down to jot out some notes about what she might do. After...
