Culture

In this imaginative short story from David Zvi Kalman, as synagogue attendance shrinks, the buildings themselves begin to grow.

A new poem from Zohar Atkins offers a poetic meditation on life in the COVID world.

Rav Ronen Neuwirth suggests that the strictures of social distancing enable us to reduce this year's Lag BaOmer bonfires - which he sees as a very good thing.

Yakov Ellenbogen reviews Susan Weingarten's Haroset: A Taste of Jewish History.

Yael Unterman reviews Diana Lipton’s From Forbidden Fruit to Milk and Honey.

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."

Would you be happy for the Messiah to arrive? In this short story, R.A. Alpert imagines the conflicts that arise when a Jewish businessman attempts to capitalize on the coming of the Messiah

What would Jewish life in outer space look like? In this short story, Joseph Helmreich imagines the Jewish community transplanted into a new life among the stars

For Parshat Zakhor, this short story by Shira Eliaser richly imagines the world of King Saul and the clandestine encounter that brought Haman’s Amalekite ancestors into the world.

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.