Literature — Adam Kirsch
Who Can Follow These Rules?
This week’s Talmud reading prompts strikingly contemporary questions about observance and belief
Columnists
The Tattler — Rachel Shukert
Sitting Shiva for Smash
The show’s demise is a blow for musical theater—the art that incorporates virtually every other form of art
Literature — Adam Kirsch
The Irrelevance of Pleasure
As the rabbis remind us again this week, the law is the law—whether it pleases you or not
The Tattler — Rachel Shukert
Gatsby’s Jew
How will Baz Luhrmann’s film portray Meyer Wolfsheim, a 2-D figment in a 3-D extravaganza?
Agents of Influence — Lee Smith
The Golan Heights Chimera
How Israel’s annexation* of the contested border region continues to keep the peace
Continental Drift — James Kirchick
The Good Murdoch
Media magnate Axel Springer’s significant, and unheralded, role in repairing German-Jewish relations
Food — Joan Nathan
The Ultimate Blintzes
Video: How to make delicious cheese-filled crepes from scratch—the perfect dairy recipe for Shavuot
Marjorie Ingall
The Woman Behind the Dolls
Madame Alexander launched her iconic doll company 90 years ago—decades before Barbie was born
Literature — Adam Kirsch
You Only Live Once
The Talmudic rabbis saw the world as a wedding—a place of charity and pleasures to be enjoyed while it lasts
The Tattler — Rachel Shukert
The Netherlands’ Jewish Mother
Beatrix abdicated so she could usher in a new era—of heads of state who have never experienced war
The Mideast Crack-Up
Robert Worth, David Goldman, Edward Luttwak, Amos Harel, Nathan Thrall, and Lee Smith on the new Arab map
Dumb and Dumber
How neocons and Obama liberals have created catastrophe by consensus in the Middle East
The Napkin Artist
Remembering Yiddishist, linguistics scholar, Holocaust survivor, and painter Edward Stankiewicz, who died this year
Bar Mitzvahs on the Beach
Destination bar and bat mitzvahs take Jewish ceremonies to exotic locations—far from the synagogue back home
Dangling Men
Saul Bellow was a complicated father to his three sons. In a new book, the eldest tries to parse his inheritance.
Even Criminals Rest in Peace
What would Jewish law have to say about alleged Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s burial?
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When Berlin Meant Business
Berlin was once home to 50,000 Jewish-owned businesses. A historian is now obsessively reconstructing their demise.
In Praise of Dairy Restaurants
A visit to B&H Restaurant on Second Avenue brings back memories of milchig establishments of yore
Curse of the Survivor
Singer Vera Gran was haunted by allegations of Nazi collaboration. A new book asks if survival made her guilty.
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