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...
A Jerusalem that doesn’t ring true to life
Review
“Jerusalem as a Second Language” by Rochelle Distelheim. Ashburn, Va.: Aubade Publishing, 2020. 283 pages. $17.95.
If Rochelle Distelheim paints an accurate portrait, the Jews...
Two Jewish families living the colonial high life
Review
"The Last Kings of Shanghai: The Rival Jewish Dynasties That Helped Create Modern China" by Jonathan Kaufman. New York: Viking Press, 2020. 298 pages....
Pediatrician and math teacher team up for children’s book
Raph the dodo isn’t like most birds. He can’t fly. But with those strong legs, he comes to find he’s proficient at another skill:...