More in ‘Leon Trotsky’

‘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 ...

When Leon Trotsky was assassinated in Mexico City by an agent of Stalin, in 1940, the American novelist James T. Farrell took to the pages of Partisan Review to memorialize him. “The life of Leon Trotsky is one of the great tragic dramas of modern history,” Farrell’s obituary began, and it only gets more idolatrous ...

A century ago, many Jews dreamed of a utopian world of universal brotherhood. Those dreams haven’t aged very well. Rosa Luxemburg’s claim that she felt “at home in the entire world wherever there are clouds and birds and human tears,” can make even a sympathetic listener roll his eyes. Ludwig Zamenhof’s universal language, Esperanto, seems ...