Timely Thoughts

Yaakov Taubes examines three hypothetical “What if?” books and what they can teach us about history, science, and halakhah.

Historian Malka Simkovich explores ancient diasporic responses to collective trauma and what they can tell us about our responses to the aftermath of October 7th.

  Zach Truboff In 1933, as the month of Elul approached, the Jewish people faced a frightening array of dangers. That year, Hitler consolidated power as...

Dr. Devora Steinmetz offers a meditation on the significance of Hanukkah and darkness.

Ezra Sivan asks: Where is the justice in the tenth plague?

Stephen Denker reconstructs Bert Katz's experience of Kristallnacht in Nentershausen.

"Who Knows" seems to have become a recurring question for so many of us. Erica Brown shares personal and biblical reflections on the meaning of this phrase for the age of coronavirus.

In advance of Tisha Be-Av, Tzvi Novick annotates and interprets the kinnah of a’adeh ad hug shamayim by the master poet R. Eleazar ha-Kalir, unlocking its complex acrostic to determine who its speaker is meant to be.

In unpacking the meaning of a tricky verse from Eikhah that we say as part of the Shofar service on Rosh Hashanah, Mitchell First introduces us to the literary principle called hendiadys, which can help us understand various phrases throughout Tanakh.

Natalie Zemon Davis, a Jewish historian known for shining a light on the lives of marginalized people in the early modern period, passed away in October. Ronnie Perelis commemorates Dr. Zemon Davis by reflecting on the experience of teaching her revolutionary work to his students at Stern College for Women.