More in ‘Karl Marx’

‘Beginning of the Sabbath,’ published by Anton Hohenstein c. 1868
CREDIT: Library of Congress

Shabbat, that microcosm of God’s seventh-day rest, is the subject of Judith Shulevitz’s graceful, erudite new book, The Sabbath World: Glimpses of a Different Order of Time (the subject of this week’s Vox Tablet podcast). But the weekly renewal of candlelighting, winedrinking, and ...

One day in the fall of 2001, not long after a final salute to the portrait of Abraham Cahan in the lobby of the Forward, I entered Borough Hall in Brooklyn to vote in the New York City mayoral primary. Greeted by a very nice poll watcher, I asked for a ballot that would permit me to vote for Herman Badillo. The lady leafed through the voter registration lists, looked up at me and said: “I’m afraid you can’t do that. You’re registered as a Democrat.” “What?” I exclaimed. “Badillo is a Republican?” She turned her palms up and gave me a look of finality. So it was that at the age of 55, after decades of being set down as a right-wing extremist and arch-collaborator of Robert L. Bartley of The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page, I actually changed my registration. If I couldn’t vote for Badillo that year, I would be prepared should he ever make another run for high office.

Daniel Deronda was the last novel George Eliot wrote, and the strangest. When it was published in 1876, Eliot was not just at the height of her fame as a novelist; she was revered as a kind of sage, able to combine the most radical religious and social opinions with an absolute commitment to traditional ...