Tablet Magazine

In the midst of a war, the Passover Seder offers a chance to find something we can all agree on, even if we disagree about everything else

byElliot Cosgrove

The Passover Seder is always a night of questions. But this year, for many of us, the backdrop of Israel’s war with Hamas will make our annual intergenerational gathering around the Seder table more charged than ever. There are those Jews, understandably, whose focus remains on the atrocities of Oct. 7, on ghastly thoughts of hostages subjected to torture and serial rape, and the steps a vigilant Israel must take in response to a variety of Iranian-driven doomsday scenarios. Other Jews, understandably, see the gruesome images emanating from Gaza and openly wonder: At what cost of human life is war justified? Aware as they may be of the attacks of Oct. 7, not to mention Hamas’ cruel use of innocents as human shields, Israel’s response has prompted empathy for Palestinian suffering. Tens of thousands of Gazans have been killed, and far more are injured, displaced, and suffering from disease and hunger. Like the perforated grooves stamped onto a piece of matzo, Israel’s war in Gaza serves to disclose the fault lines of our people. Can we advocate on behalf of Israel and express compassion for Palestinians? Is it possible to mourn both the loss of Israeli and Palestinian life? Are we a people of empathy or vigilance? Compassion or vengeance? The questions run deep into the foundation of who we are as a Jewish people. ...

Continue reading →︎

My Own Private Haggadah

My father, Natan Sharansky, lived through his own Exodus. The seminal Passover text taught me how to tell his story.

byRachel Sharansky Danziger

“Were there animals in prison?” The table was beautifully set on the afternoon I asked this question, and my sister and I wore our Shabbat clothes, even though it was a weekday. My father, Natan Sharansky, wore the odd white kippa that a fellow inmate made for him from a boot sock back in the Soviet gulag.

Continue reading →︎

The Ballarat Synagogue, consecrated in 1861, is the oldest continuously used synagogue on Australia’s mainland

The Gold Rush Shul

Australia’s Ballarat Synagogue tries to preserve its unusual cultural history

byNomi Kaltmann

My Own Private Haggadah

My father, Natan Sharansky, lived through his own Exodus. The seminal Passover text taught me how to tell his story.

byRachel Sharansky Danziger

Continue reading →︎

The Gold Rush Shul

Australia’s Ballarat Synagogue tries to preserve its unusual cultural history

byNomi Kaltmann

A Letter to My Anonymous Donor

My toddler says the darndest things, and I thank his bio-dad for making that possible

bySara Ivry

My Son’s Bris Brought Me Back to Judaism

A father’s tale of underground mohels, the Catholic Church, and a never-too-late spiritual revival

byKenneth R. Rosen

The Slow Rise of the Bat Mitzvah

The first ceremony a century ago marked a turning point—in retrospect. But the new ritual didn’t catch on for years.

byJenna Weissman Joselit

Collection

The Many Meanings of Freedom

Passover commemorates our liberation from Egypt—but it can also offer a window into other struggles for liberty: physical, emotional, or political.

See the full collection →︎

My Own Private Haggadah

My father, Natan Sharansky, lived through his own Exodus. The seminal Passover text taught me how to tell his story.

byRachel Sharansky Danziger

Liberating Myself, Just in Time for Passover

Two years after my divorce, I’m finally learning how to stop focusing on what other people think of me

byTova Cohen

Next Year in Halifax

On Passover, celebrating our family’s arrival in Canada

byLes Tyler Johnson

Liberating Myself, Just in Time for Passover

Two years after my divorce, I’m finally learning how to stop focusing on what other people think of me

byTova Cohen

Next Year in Halifax

On Passover, celebrating our family’s arrival in Canada

byLes Tyler Johnson

Regaining Jerusalem

Jewish slaveowners celebrate Passover in 17th-century Suriname

byNatalie Zemon Davis

The Orthodox Jew and the Atheist

How I learned that righteousness and morality are a question of behavior, not belief

byRebecca Klempner

My friend Jeremy was driving me from St. Mary’s City, Maryland, to Baltimore one Saturday morning, 25 years ago. We’d passed through the picturesque rural scenery and had hit suburban sprawl. It was March, and although we were on spring break, spring hadn’t really hit. Around bland single-family homes, skeletal trees jabbed branches at the overcast sky and patches of grass still looked scruffy. Strip-mall parking lots had begun to fill with shoppers. “Do you honestly believe only people who believe in God can be upstanding citizens?” Jere asked. It was one of the last times I rode in a car on Shabbat. I’d tried to find someone to drive me to my great-aunt’s on Sunday, but this was the latest ride I could find. While not fully observant for another three or four years, I had begun to curtail activities prohibited on the Sabbath because of my increasing conviction that the Torah was given to the Jewish people by God....

Continue reading →︎

Taking Judaism Personally

If we want people who are Jewish from birth to engage more profoundly with their religion, we should look to converts—and Abraham Joshua Heschel—for answers

byElias Neibart

‘The Holocaust and Genocide Don’t Start With Bombs, They Start With Words’ By Abigail PogrebinTablet Magazine

Taking Judaism Personally

If we want people who are Jewish from birth to engage more profoundly with their religion, we should look to converts—and Abraham Joshua Heschel—for answers

byElias Neibart

‘The Holocaust and Genocide Don’t Start With Bombs, They Start With Words’ By Abigail PogrebinTablet Magazine

Newsletter

We believe you should sign up to get Tablet magazine’s newsletter each morning:

Success! You have subscribed to the Tablet newsletter! Check your inbox for a confirmation message.

Something went wrong. Please enter your email address again.

Returning to the Person That I Used to Be

Jewish rituals around sex—ones I’d never thought about before—helped me feel comfortable in my own skin after my mastectomy

bySarah Erdreich

My breasts will be removed in 10 hours. I stand naked in my bathroom, staring at my reflection in the mirror. There are three small, red puncture marks on my right breast, souvenirs of the biopsy that confirmed my cancer. My husband comes into the bathroom and stands next to me. “Do you want me to take pictures?” he asks tenderly. I shake my head, but don’t look away. I know that I’ll never want to look at pictures of what I once had: breast tissue, nipples, a softness and pliability that not even the very good implants I’ve chosen could replicate. My husband and I had sex last week, and I’d assumed we would have it again before my surgery. We still could; I could kiss him and lead him into the bedroom, lower myself onto him and ask him to squeeze my breasts hard and then harder still because after tomorrow I won’t feel anything. But if I do, all I’ll be able to think about is that it really would be the last time I’ll have sex in this body, and that seems unbearably sad. Instead, I hug my husband tightly, feeling my breasts flatten against his torso, and cry. ...

Continue reading →︎