There’s a Word for That
by Joyce Eisenberg and Ellen Scolnic
Guess who’s coming to dinner? The machetunim.
That’s the Yiddish word you’ll probably use soon after your daughter has announced her engagement,...
Inside the Surprising History of the Spice Trade
For Gary Paul Nabhan, spices tell a story that goes far beyond “Add two teaspoons of cinnamon.” The chair in Sustainable Food Systems at the...
A Post-War Conversion
by Melissa Suran
She lights the Shabbat candles in the dining room, where there is a picture her brother Manfred painted of a smiling, portly man...
Jewish Word // Haredi
The term haredi comes from the Hebrew root meaning “to tremble” (hared) and a verse in Isaiah, in which God says, “But to this one I will look, to him who is humble and contrite of spirit, and who trembles at my word.” “Haredi really means those who are in awe, or who tremble or quake,” says Samuel Heilman, professor of sociology at Queens College of the City University of New York.
Origins of Mishegas Manual Revealed
by Jay Neugeboren
When the American Psychiatric Association’s newly revised 1,000-page “bible of psychiatry,” The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-V (DSM-V) was published in...
Darkness at Noon: Revealed in Translation
by Izak Dimenstein
By the irony of fate, Arthur Koestler’s Darkness at Noon, the 1940 book that influenced the outcome of the election in France after World...
UPDATE: Sheldon Adelson Speaks Out on Knesset Bill
Sheldon Adelson, the owner of Israel's free daily newspaper Israel Hayom, spoke out against a new bill in the Knesset that would mandate nationally distributed newspapers...
The Promise of the Promised Land
by Sarah Kreimer
The taxi drove off, and I wondered if we had come to the right place. Footsteps crunching on gravel, we walked across an...
“My Promised Land” Revisited
by Melvin Dow
Considering the numerous reviews written from divergent viewpoints, one might reasonably conclude that everything worth saying about Ari Shavit’s book, My Promised Land,...
Redeeming Haim Hazaz
by Darren Pinsker
When the Israeli writer Haim Hazaz died in 1973, his reputation was so lofty in the world of modern Hebrew letters that one...
Anti-Semitism: Misdiagnosed in America?
In our March/April issue, we explore the thorny and ever-present issue of anti-Semitism: Where does it come from? Why does it persist? Here we highlight...
Anti-Semitism: Where Does It Come From? Why Does It Persist?
In our March/April issue, we examine two big questions with deep contemporary resonance: Where does anti-Semitism come from? Why does it persist? Here we highlight...