The third in Moment’s “Our Nation” 2017 series exploring the American Jewish experience. As far as Gary Jacobs* knows, he is the only Jew in his unincorporated community of fewer than 20 people near Georgia’s Tallulah River. This northeastern Georgia region is an area where expressions such...
Fifty years. More than half of them, many more, have been years of acrimony. Was the Six-Day War just a great triumph—or a triumph whose consequence is grave devastation? Was it worth it? Pick the facts that support your viewpoint: The 1967 war resulted in...
In the world of Jewish education, government money is the Next Big Thing. Orthodox groups like Agudath Israel and the Orthodox Union have long pushed for state subsidies to private religious schools. Most non-Orthodox Jewish institutions have been against them, fearing that such policies will...
The “miraculous” victory of 1967 returned major holy places in Jerusalem and the West Bank to Jewish control, including the Temple Mount in the Old City (known as Haram al-Sharif to Muslims), the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron and Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem. This...
Ever since mid-March, when organizers of the International Women’s March suggested that Zionism was incompatible with feminism, the same debate has rippled across college campuses, including mine: Can one identify as both a feminist and a Zionist? On campuses, the critique starts with the narrow state...
Recently I picked up Elie Wiesel’s Somewhere a Master: Hasidic Portraits and Legends from my bookshelf, settled into my reading chair and opened its pages. Elie begins with the story of a young Hasid in great distress and confusion over life. He has tried to...
“Keep reminding yourself: This is not normal,” warned comedian John Oliver on Last Week Tonight. It was less than a week after Election Day, and the country was just beginning to process Donald Trump’s unexpected victory. Opponents of the president-elect were scrambling to discern what...
A double myth about Yitzhak Rabin has prevailed since his assassination in 1995. For the Israeli right, his peacemaking attempts were and still are evidence of traitorous subversion. For the Israeli left, and especially to much of the outside world, his memory is crowned with...
Leonardo Padura’s Heretics is a remarkable book. Padura, who is certainly the most prominent of a small number of Jewish Cuban authors, might also be the most famous writer in Cuba today. Best known in this country for his Inspector Mario Conde detective series...
A conversation with novelist Michael Chabon can easily jump from Michael Jackson song lyrics to the history of spaceships. And while his love of all things quixotic can be a lot to digest, his intellectual openness and curiosity have resulted in a compelling and innovative...