jewish literature Archives

What These Jewish Literary Truths We Hold Mean

Wendy Zierler October 10, 2018

What Does Jewish Literature Have to Do With Jewish Education?

Jewish Journal November 8, 2017

Noteworthy books for the new year

Jewish Journal September 22, 2014

In my 20s, I studied French culture and became enamored of what the French call “la rentrée littéraire.”

On the tricky question of ‘who is a Jew[ish writer]?’

David Wolpe November 9, 2007

So we return, with the inevitability of quarrels in a shul, to the question posed at the outset: what makes a Jewish writer? I promised to avoid it, but there is a Wittgensteinian way out (and by the way, was he a Jewish philosopher?) A Jewish writer is someone whom we choose to call a \”Jewish\” writer. Would we rather have a clear category or fecundity and individuality of expression? Uniformity of commitment or divergence? The dilemma of modern Jewish writing is the same as that which bedevils modern Judaism: Where one can be everything, how likely is it that in the end, bristling with talent and showered with opportunity, one will come to nothing?

Shmuel of Arabia

David Suissa August 24, 2007

It must have been quite a scene in that little courthouse in Jerusalem. Rav Qapah, a Yemenite Jew who sat on the Jerusalem Beit Din (court of law), was hearing a case involving a commercial dispute between a Jew and an Arab.

In The Beginning, There Was Zionism

Rabbi Daniel Bouskila October 26, 2000

Zionism. Remember that term? We don\’t hear it too often anymore. Many Jews seem uncomfortable with the term Zionism, saying it\’s \”too strong\” or it \”breeds nationalism.\” Some of Israel\’s leading historians have gone as far as declaring this current period in Israel\’s history as the \”post-Zionist era\” – whatever that means. The virtual silencing of the word Zionism in our educational, religious or political vocabularies make the days when we enthusiastically took to the streets to fervently protest the United Nation\’s infamous \”Zionism is Racism\” resolution seem like ancient history.