Ketuvim

Purim - Armed with feminist and political theory, Don Seeman probes the depths of Malbim's Esther commentary.

Malka Simkovich hunts for Jewish texts in some unlikely places.

Tzvi Sinensky suggests that the Megillah itself confronts the question of Purim's legitimacy.

In time for Tisha Be-Av, Marc Eichenbaum offers a meaningful new reading of Eikha using modern psychological concepts like grief, trauma, and narrative construction.

Mitchell First reviews Yehuda Landy's Purim and the Persian Empire.

How did Esther shape the way Puritans saw the ideal role of the contemporary woman? Cotton Mather, a major player in the Salem Witch Trials, had much to say in his Ornaments for the Daughters of Zion. Stuart Halpern of Yeshiva University explains, wishing us all a Puritan Purim.

Natan Oliff explores the evolving role of truth throughout Tanakh and later Jewish history.

In advance of Shavuot, Stuart Halpern reviews Reading Ruth, a succinct but poignant new literary commentary on the Book of Ruth, by Leon Kass and his granddaughter Hannah Mandelbaum.

Benjamin Barer traces the word Hevel through Jewish texts, showing how the use of the same word can teach us both about the wisdom of Kohelet we read this past Shabbat and the character of Hevel who we will read about in this week's Parashah.

Tzvi Sinensky argues compellingly for a new way to understand the relationship between Shir HaShirim and Pesach in times of quarantine.