February 12, 2010

Think Sherlock Holmes with a dash of Woody Allen. Philip Roth and Stephen King. Mystery plus comedy. Detective novel meets Yiddish folk tale. Then add a little history and you have Kenneth Wishnia’s “The Fifth Servant” (William Morrow: $25.99), a smart funny page turner that I hated to see end.\n

Who’s the better Jew? The Hassid who believes in the literal truth of the Bible, denies the findings of modern science and reprimands women who stray too far from the home or the Jew who goes to synagogue, observes the Sabbath, encourages his wife to get a PhD in astrophysics, and regards some of the Bible’s teachings as inapplicable to the modern world? If you said the Hassid, you are confusing literal-minded extremism with the true rabbinical tradition writes modern orthodox Rabbi Marc D. Angel, Ph.D., in his courageous new book, “Maimonides, Spinoza, and Us: Toward an Intellectually Vibrant Judaism” (Jewish Lights: $24.99). Angel smokes Jewish fundamentalists out of their lair and systematically destroys their claims to authority with his brilliance and peerless scholarship.

Year after year during the first decade of the current century, commentators have proclaimed the death of verifiable watchdog journalism across the United States. The leading cause, many doomsayers opine, is the rise of the Internet. Why would anybody pay for newspaper delivery, a magazine subscription, a cable television plan or even watch advertiser-supported over-the-airwaves television when the “free” Internet is a keyboard stroke away? But, the doomsayers say, depending on bloggers and other Internet denizens for responsible journalism is dangerous. As a result, democratic rule will wither across the nation because those in power will take advantage of trained journalists disappearing.\n\nWhy read an entire book about such a depressing topic?