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 know, it’s all Jewish.
Some notable pieces from the Spring 2010 number:
• Tablet Magazine book critic Adam Kirsch reviews 36 Arguments for the Existence of God, a new novel from Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, who is also the author of Nextbook Press’s Betraying Spinoza (got all that?).
• Hillel Halkin—author of Nextbook Press’s brand-spankin’-new biography of Yehuda Halevi—considers a new American Orthodox siddur.
• Ron Rosenbaum discusses Bob Dylan as an explicitly Jewish figure.
• Michael Weingrad interrogates why, amid a sea of Christian allegories, there are few if any good Jewish-inspired fantasy novels.
• Harvey Pekar and Tara Seibel offer a graphic review of comic artist R. Crumb’s Book of Genesis.
Jewish Review of Books
A Jewish Journal of Ideas is Born [Forward]
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