To Rebeccah

Aryeh Klapper recreating a patriarchal voice.

Gilgamesh and the Rabbis: Knowledge and its Price from Uruk to the Beit Midrash

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

The Dark Side of Torah u-Madda: Chaim Potok and Core-to-Core Cultural Confrontation

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.

Shadal, García Márquez, and the Stain of Honor

Daniel Klein on how violence in the Bible plays out in the writings of Shadal and Gabriel Gárcia Márquez

There’s Something About Wendy

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

Rak Shnenu

Unhappy Families: Elhanan Nir’s Rak Shnenu

The Agnon scholar, Jeffrey Saks, sees some Agnonian work in modern Israeli literature.

Shylock: An Unlikely Jew Named Jacob

Victor M. Erlich offers insight into an infamous Shakespearean character.
Nicole Krauss

A Return to Jewish Roots in Nicole Krauss’ Forest Dark

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.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and the Ancient Marine Rhyme: A Study...

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

The Zogerke’s Vort

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.