David Novak

No one, save a prophet, could have predicted the radical change in the relationship between Jews and Christians since Western civilization narrowly escaped physical and moral annihilation in the Second World War. Having narrowly escaped physical annihilation, Jews have had to look at the world . . . . Continue Reading »

“Why should the Jewish state exist at all?” Until quite recently, there was a ready answer to the basic question Yoram Hazony raises at the beginning of this provocative book: the Jewish state needs to exist in order to provide a homeland for homeless Jews in the world. Indeed, from its . . . . Continue Reading »

It seems unavoidable that history will always link the reestablishment of the State of Israel with the tragedy of the Holocaust. There were only fifteen years between January 1933, when Hitler and the Nazi regime came to power in Germany, and May 1948, when the independence of the State of Israel . . . . Continue Reading »

It is of course the case that only God knows what will happen in the next century and the next millennium. But we human beings are created with an irrepressible disposition toward the future, as well as a capacity to recall the past. In the last year we published a “millennium series” of . . . . Continue Reading »

Matters of Life and Death: A Jewish Approach to Modern Medical Ethics.By Elliot N. Dorff.Jewish Publication Society. 456 pp. $34.95.The fact that the now regular advances in biomedical technology affect the lives of everybody in our society in new, unprecedented ways has made biomedical ethics a . . . . Continue Reading »

The recent canonization of Edith Stein as Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross by the Roman Catholic Church poses a number of very serious challenges to living Jews, we who are still members of the people to whom Edith Stein believed she also belonged, even at her death in Auschwitz. Theologically . . . . Continue Reading »

Kaddish.By Leon Wieseltier.Knopf. 588 pp. $27.50. Probably the most important cultural phenomenon in contemporary Jewry is the rise of what some have called the “ ba’al teshuvah movement.” This is the return to traditional Judaism by a number of young Jews who had heretofore been estranged . . . . Continue Reading »

The following is the second in a series that examines through the prism of a key figure each century of the millennium now coming to a close. David Novak considers the twelfth century and Moses Maimonides. Next month: Romanus Cessario on the thirteenth century and Thomas Aquinas. —The Editors . . . . Continue Reading »

Something very significant has happened to Jewish-Christian relations, especially Jewish-Catholic relations. Last March, the Vatican issued the statement “We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah,” which was prepared under the direction of Edward Idris Cardinal Cassidy, president of the . . . . Continue Reading »

The Way of the Lord Jesus, Vol. 3: Difficult Moral QuestionsBy Germain Grisez.Franciscan. 927 pp. $35. This massive book is a collection of two hundred responses to personal inquiries about particular moral dilemmas written by one of the most important––and most controversial––Catholic moral . . . . Continue Reading »