Matthew Berke

The sanctity and infinite worth of every human being is a quintessential Jewish value, grounded in the biblical notion that man is made in the image and likeness of God. According to the Mishnah (Sanhedrin 4:5): “Whoever destroys one life is as if he destroyed a whole world, and whoever . . . . Continue Reading »

The Myth of Rescue: Why the Democracies Could Not Have Saved More Jews from the Nazis By William D. Rubinstein Routledge 267 pp. $25 There is now a large and growing body of Holocaust scholarship that blames the democracies”especially Britain and the United States”for not preventing or . . . . Continue Reading »

Some time this year the Reform movement will issue its new High Holy Day prayerbook, for the first time putting between hard covers a major liturgical work incorporating “gender-sensitive” language. Gender sensitivity is the rubric that for two decades has been used to purge Reform worship of . . . . Continue Reading »

Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memoryby deborah lipstadt free press, 278 pages, $22.95  Assassins of the Memory: Essays on the Denial of the Holocaust by pierre vidal-naquet, translated by jeffery mehlman columbia university press, 205 pages, $27.50Ever since the end of . . . . Continue Reading »

Of books and Dissertations about Reinhold Niebuhr, it seems, there is no end. Having committed one such dissertation myself a few years ago, I am in no position to complain. Of course the real truth is that dedicated Niebuhrians leap at any chance to return to the moral and intellectual universe of . . . . Continue Reading »

Besides being the quincentenary of Columbus’ voyage, 1992 has also been the centenary of the birth of the American churchman Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971). From the 1930s through the 1950s, Niebuhr was regarded by many as a kind of prophet, a public theologian who could explain modern discontents . . . . Continue Reading »

Year after year we reap new harvests of Civil War literature, despite the admonition of some historians that the subject has been exhausted. We tell and retell the story of the Civil War, hoping through vicarious participation to gain a better sense of our national identity, vocation, and destiny. . . . . Continue Reading »

The interfaith dialogue between Christians and Jews has become such a familiar feature of contemporary religious life that it is hard to imagine a time when it was virtually unheard of. Yet this dialogue has existed in self-conscious form only since the end of World War II. Jewish Perspectives . . . . Continue Reading »

The Emergence of Jewish Theology in Americaby robert g. goldyindiana university press, 149 pages, $25 Judaism was born in the Fertile Crescent when a young Semite, deeply troubled by his own sense of incompleteness and guilt, answered God’s call, and in so doing started a chosen people that would . . . . Continue Reading »

Kazantzakis: Politics of the Spirit by peter bien princeton university press, 318 pages, $29.95  By the time he died in 1957, the Greek writer Nikos Kazantzakis had established himself as one of the major literary figures of the twentieth century. His extension of the Homerian epic. The . . . . Continue Reading »