Culture

What was Alexander Hamilton's relationship to Judaism? In his review of a new book about Hamilton's Jewish world, Lehrhaus editor Yisroel Ben-Porat explores the arguments to be made for a "Jewish" founding father.

In tribute to his son's hanahat tefilin and Bar Mitzvah, Lehrhaus Consulting Editor Jeffrey Saks explores a little-known, mysterious practice that appears in Agnon's short story Two Pairs.

Talya Jankovits presents a chilling narrative on the tragedy of a woman chained to her marriage.

What motivated the first Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi of Israel, Rav Herzog, to work tirelessly on the seemingly quixotic project of running the modern State of Israel on the basis of Halakhah? Reviewing Alexandar Kaye's new book on the subject, Rabbi Shalom Carmy explains.

Moshe Koppel Reviews Chaim Saiman's Halakhah: The Rabbinic Idea of Law.

On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War, published here are excerpts from letters of an American student studying in Israel in 1973. These letters, written during and immediately after the war, shed light on Yeshivat Har Etzion in its formative years and the lasting impact of the Yom Kippur War.

Eli Rubin reviews Alan Rosen's The Holocaust’s Jewish Calendars: Keeping Time Sacred, Making Time Holy.

Sarah Rindner reviews Shababniks and its portrait of haredi life.

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.