As much as New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg may wish to present himself as an ethnically neutral pragmatist, his Jewishness inevitably plays a role in people’s opinion of him

Rabbi Marc Schneier’s Hampton Synagogue caters to New York’s wealthiest at their summer playground. As his personal life spun out of control and into the tabloids, they returned the favor by closing ranks around him.

Zero Mostel, Emma Goldman, and George Gershwin all worked on the stretch of Manhattan’s West 28th Street once known as Tin Pan Alley. Now it’s Tablet Magazine’s home, too, so let’s explore the neighborhood.

In a Kosher restaurant in Brooklyn, news of Osama Bin Laden’s death prompted inconclusive but spirited talk of President Obama, Israel, Jews, and terrorism

Composer and bassist Omer Avital joins American jazz with Israeli and Arab styles, especially Yemeni and Moroccan, to create music with a new and vital connection to a shared Middle Eastern past

Friends and Politics, Part 2: Irving Howe. The prominent critic and I worked on Yiddish translations together, but a dispute over Israel and its Arab neighbors ruptured our relationship—until we reconnected over literature.

Friends and Politics, Part 1: Saul Bellow. The Nobel Prize-winner and I shared a love of literature and of Yiddish, but our friendship was tested by decades-long disagreements over politics.

Ed Koch, the 86-year-old former mayor of New York City, is still active as a writer and commentator. He spoke to Tablet Magazine about his politics, his Judaism, Israel, and his tombstone.

Elizabeth Wurtzel wishes Lou Reed a happy 69th birthday and explains that contrary to the assertions of Philip Roth and others, the problem with Jewish male artists is not that they are too nice

Israeli clarinetist Anat Cohen, a master of expressive improvisation, leads a talented wave of expatriate musicians flooding the New York jazz scene