Literature

In the next finalist installment from our short story competition, Lior Zoë Perets’ period fiction explores the rabbinic instruction to “rise up and strike first.”

A review of Yehoshua November’s The Concealment of Endless Light.

In this essay, Edelman and Steinberg argue for a literature curriculum that integrates Jewish thought.

In this timely article, Wendy Zierler examines how Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai's "Beterem" can provide readers with the inspiration they need leading up to the Days of Awe

In his latest for the Lehrhaus, Dan Ornstein creatively imagines the story of the Talmudic sage Rabbi Yohanan through his teachings on the Book of Job. The short story is followed by a reflection on the methodology and power of "contemporary midrash."

Marina Zilbergerts presents the philosophical questions posed by Chaim Grade's “My Quarrel with Hersh Rasseyner,” and compares his arguments to those of other major thinkers such as Voltaire, Rousseau, Dostoevsky, and Nietzsche.

What do you get when you read George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda alongside Rav Soloveitchik’s Kol Dodi Dofek? A cross between Zionism and feminism, argues Eileen Watts.

The debate about Torah u-Madda and pop culture continues. Noah Marlowe argues that Chaim Potok's literature offers a useful conceptual framework for, and embodiment of, a profound confrontation between Judaism and elite elements of general culture.

Sarah Rindner contemplates whether Torah u-Madda as it’s sometimes interpreted can engender unreflective allegiance to trends in contemporary society that might harm our religious communities.

The zogerke or firzogerin, once the vernacular translator in the women’s section of the synagogue, has faded into distant memory. Dalia Wolfson reimagines her for our times.