Jews of Silence

When I think of the generation of survivors—not only of the horror they endured during the Holocaust and its recollection, not only of the nobility or heroism many of them achieved, but of the virtually impossible small and great steps they were compelled to make to rehabilitate their lives and ours—it is Wiesel’s voice that underlies and often amplifies theirs. Continue Reading »

There and Back Again: A First-Century Jewish Tale

Michael Chabon once wrote a novel titled Jews with Swords, then re-titled something tamer (Gentlemen of the Road). Explaining his initial choice, he said: “The story of the Jews centers around—one might almost say that it stars—the hazards and accidents, the misfortunes and disasters, the feats of inspiration, the travail and despair, and intermittent moments of glory and grace, that entail upon journeys from home and back again.” Continue Reading »

An Orthodox Island

Summoned: Identification and Religious Life in a Jewish Neighborhood by iddo tavory chicago, 224 pages, $27.50 In a clear plastic Ikea storage bin that my wife and I have been hauling across North America every time I take a new academic job, I recently found an old Christmas card. The card says . . . . Continue Reading »

If the Law Isn't In Heaven, Where Is It?

In one of its more famous passages, the Talmud records a debate about the mundane (but important) issue of whether a certain oven can be used to cook kosher food. All of the rabbis except one, Rabbi Eliezer, rule that the oven cannot be used because it is impure. To prove that he is correct and that the oven is pure, Rabbi Eliezer calls on God to perform miracles in the presence of his colleagues—a carob tree is uprooted and moves across a field, a river reverses its course, and the walls of the rabbis’ study hall magically begin to cave in—but the rabbis remain unmoved. Continue Reading »

Nostra Aetate Fifty Years On

It was, on the face of it, a minor theological gesture, yet it brought about one of the greatest revolutions in religious history. Nostra Aetate, the Catholic Church’s 1965 statement of relationships with non-Christian faiths, declared that “the Jews should not be spoken of as rejected or . . . . Continue Reading »