More in ‘Adam Kirsch’

Today in Tablet Magazine, Adam Kirsch considers a new book’s innovative argument: that the rise of secular political philosophy with Locke, Hobbes, and the rest was helped by Protestantism’s interest in Jewish law and government. Mideast columnist Lee Smith weighs the complex question of how Jews should feel about evangelical Christian support for Israel. Following ...

Today in Tablet Magazine, prominent historian Benny Morris tries to get to the bottom of the decline and fall of the Israeli left-wing over the past two decades. Book critic Adam Kirsch reviews a biography of Moses Montefiore, discussing the Victorian Englishman’s cultivation of an international Jewish community. This week’s Emails of Zion features a ...

Today in Tablet Magazine, contributing editor Daphne Merkin praises The White Ribbon, Michael Haneke’s “heart-stoppingly beautiful” Best Foreign Language Film nominee, to the stars. Book critic Adam Kirsch briefly puts on his poetry-critic cap and celebrates the late Israeli bard Dahlia Ravikovitch. For his weekly haftorah column, Liel Leibovitz contrasts life as Ezekiel presents it ...

Today in Tablet Magazine, read part 2 of the first week’s installment of Steve Stern’s serialized novel, The Frozen Rabbi. Memoirist Marina Benjamin remembers visiting Baghdad, where her family lived for countless generations, and mourns the loss of the city’s vibrant Jewish community and culture, slowly disappearing altogether into the sand. Book critic Adam Kirsch ...

The Jewish Review of Books just published its inaugural issue, and the new quarterly journal looks to be worth bookmarking. In name, content, and even look, its clear inspiration is the New York Review of Books; like that venerable publication, it consists of extended essays on books and ideas by leading intellectual lights. Only, you ...

Today in Tablet Magazine, we celebrate Mardi Gras with Justin Vogt’s look at the Krewe du Jieux and the Krewe du Mishigas, both designed to humorously rectify longstanding official Jewish exclusion from the New Orleans festivities. (A slideshow confirms the craziness.) Book critic Adam Kirsch discusses how the Nazis put an anti-Zionist twist on their ...

Today in Tablet Magazine, Adam Kirsch introduces Yehuda Halevi, the new biography by Hillel Halkin (and published by Nextbook Press), arguing that Jews today can better understand themselves by considering the life of this 12th-century poet. Mideast columnist Lee Smith reveals how the influential husband-and-wife team of Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett have pushed the ...

Today in Tablet Magazine, Judith Miller, our reporter at the Herzliya Conference, talks Iran—or talks about not talking about Iran—with Netanyahu’s national security adviser, Uzi Arad. Middle East columnist Lee Smith profiles Mohsen Sazegara, whose Website has proved integral to the anti-regime street protests in Iran, and Richard Haass, the classic foreign policy old wise ...

Today in Tablet Magazine, Mideast columnist Lee Smith reports from Beirut on the vertigo the traditional regional Sunni Arab powers—primarily Egypt and Saudi Arabia—are feeling now that momentum has shifted toward non-Arab states Iran, Turkey, and Israel. Book critic Adam Kirsch considers a new history of the shtetl, and specifically its demise during (when else?) ...

Today in Tablet Magazine, coverage of Rabbi Leib Tropper continues with Allison Hoffman’s look at other prominent rabbis’ notable reaction—or, really, notable lack of reaction—to the scandals surrounding the conversion guru. In his inaugural column, Lee Smith reports a widespread sense that the Obama administration has been tone-deaf in its dealings with Saudi Arabia. Adam ...