Allison Hoffman

Allison Hoffman is a senior writer for Tablet Magazine.

Israel a Hot Topic at Presidential Debate

Created opportunity for unscripted dialogue between candidates

Why Doesn’t Federation Blush Anymore?

JFNA would honor several unsavory folks, if they pass political litmus test

Shaken Up

Egypt’s politically expedient ban on the export of palm fronds has altered the lulav market in unexpected ways

Fast Talk

Diplomat Dennis Ross and Times columnist Tom Friedman give an annual Yom Kippur seminar at Kol Shalom in Rockville, Md., a synagogue they helped start

Talking Points

After the Arab Spring, a summer of Israeli protests, and the Palestinian bid for statehood, what will rabbis say in their High Holiday sermons?

Bibi’s Brain

Ron Dermer, a Florida-born Jew who started in politics working on the 1994 Republican Revolution, is Benjamin Netanyahu’s most influential aide

Friday Night Lights

Ten years after Sept. 11, in a Lower Manhattan neighborhood that hasn’t had a dedicated Jewish sanctuary since before the Civil War, a new synagogue opens

Mother Russia

The new Lifetime reality show Russian Dolls portrays the Russian-American Jews of Brighton Beach as celebrating neither America nor their Judaism but the freedom to be stereotypically Russian

Common Ground

With a looming deadline, deep-seated distrust, and competing claims to resources, Washington’s effort to reach a debt deal is a stateside version of the ongoing quest for Israeli-Palestinian peace

A Spin

Jordan’s late King Hussein and his unsuccessful efforts to make peace get a courtier’s treatment in the new memoir from Jack O’Connell, a former CIA station chief in Amman