Literature

The question of whether or not your writing is Jewish is not up to you, because writing ultimately belongs to the reader. Krauss’ avatar answers Ozick perfectly: “Jewish literature would have to wait, as all Jewish things wait for a perfection that in our hearts we don’t really want to come.” In the end, perhaps all we can do is kvetch and vacillate between different answers to the question of what is Jewish literature—because, of course, the answer was never the point.

Malka Simkovich hunts for Jewish texts in some unlikely places.

Yaakov Jaffe analyzes and compares the "Song of the Sea" and the "Rime of the Ancient Mariner."

In a continuing series on great, modern Israeli thinkers, Joe Wolfson explores the powerful themes in a novel by Rav Haim Sabato.

Eileen Watts examines the similarities between Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Rav Soloveitchik's Lonely Man of Faith.

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.

What do Adam, Enkidu, and Reish Lakish all have in common? Eli Putterman explores.

Eileen Watts explores how Bernard Malamud's "The German Refugee" amplifies the themes of Tisha B'Av.

Jewishness, antisemitism, popular culture and Russian television in the postwar era? Historian Maya Balakirsky Katz explains.

Author Risa Miller reviews Beth Kissileff's debut novel, Questioning Return.