A quarterly magazine of Jewish criticism, religion, and culture and monthly web-exclusive reviews and essays.

Cleveland, OH
Joined December 2010
“I didn’t know any Yiddish expressions, even oy. I had never eaten at a delicatessen. I had never lit Hanukkah candles.” Nicholas Lemann on growing up Jewish in New Orleans. Jenna Weissman Joselit reviews Returning: jewishreviewofbooks.com/amer…
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“Identity, Lemann comes to discover, is no mere bequest, static and undemanding, but a process, a negotiation, perhaps even a covenant.” Jenna Weissman Joselit on Nicholas Lemann’s Returning: jewishreviewofbooks.com/amer…
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“We were insiders who were also outsiders. We led comfortable lives that had very strict limitations.” Nicholas Lemann on his Jewish family in New Orleans. Jenna Weissman Joselit reviews his new book, Returning: jewishreviewofbooks.com/amer…
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For our Substack, our Founding Editor Abe Socher writes about the slur "Zio," Hebrew commas, and the history of modern Hebrew jewishreviewofbooks.substack…
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After the Holocaust, about 1,200 Jewish survivors married Allied soldiers, a figure unknown until Robin Judd’s research. Amy Newman Smith reviews Between Two Worlds, now in paperback: jewishreviewofbooks.com/holo…
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Ahead of the Israeli elections, read Shai Secunda's piece on eight very different Israelis and their thoughts about the state of their country: substack.com/redirect/c2cb64…
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"The lives of Judd’s war brides moved forward under conditions that demanded speed, adaptation, and compromise even as they grieved." Read Amy Newman Smith on Jewish survivors who married Allied soldiers: jewishreviewofbooks.com/holo…
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After the Holocaust, about 1,200 survivors married Allied soldiers, a figure unknown until Robin Judd’s research. In “Captives of Circumstance,” @amynewsmith reviews Judd’s Between Two Worlds, now out in paperback from @UNC_Press: jewishreviewofbooks.com/holo…
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For our Substack, read contributing editor Allan Arkush writes about the first Jews to win the Nobel Peace Prize: jewishreviewofbooks.substack…
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Was the early modern period the high point of Jewish women’s communal agency, until our time? Read Avinoam J. Stillman's review of A Woman Is Responsible for Everything: jewishreviewofbooks.com/jewi…
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A Yom Kippur rebuke, a witchcraft rumor in 1732 Hamburg, a fight over burial shrouds in Prague. Avinoam J. Stillman reviews a new history of early modern Jewish women, hiding in plain sight in the community records: jewishreviewofbooks.com/jewi…
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Avinoam J. Stillman reviews "A Woman Is Responsible for Everything," a book by Debra Kaplan and Elisheva Carlebach on the role of Ashkenazi Women in early modern Jewish society: jewishreviewofbooks.com/jewi…
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"As My glory passes by... I will cover you with My hand until I have passed by. And I will take away My hand and you will see My back; but My face will not be seen." Read Roslyn Weiss on Moses's encoutner with God's Face and Back, from our Fall issue: jewishreviewofbooks.com/unca…
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Jewish Review of Books retweeted
“Timshel,” the supposedly Hebrew word at the heart of Steinbeck’s East of Eden, doesn’t quite work in Hebrew. In the archives (Fall 2022), Sheila Tuller Keiter offers a theory for how the error happened. jewishreviewofbooks.substack…
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"If, as I have argued, God’s face is His compassion or mercy, then His back must be His justice or judgment—in the language of the rabbinic tradition, middat ha-rachamim and middat ha-din, respectively." jewishreviewofbooks.com/unca…
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“Timshel,” the supposedly Hebrew word at the heart of Steinbeck’s East of Eden, doesn’t quite work in Hebrew. In the archives (Fall 2022), Sheila Tuller Keiter offers a theory for how the error happened. jewishreviewofbooks.substack…
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“Maimonides notwithstanding, God’s face is not His essence; it is His mercy.” Roslyn Weiss rereads Exodus 33–34 on what Moses saw, and what he couldn’t. Read “‘All My Goodness’: God’s Face and Back”: jewishreviewofbooks.com/unca…
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"Speaking with a reporter months before he died, Edmond [de Rotschild] declared: We only want one thing: to live in common and in friendship with the Arabs." Read "King of the Zionists" by Abigail Green: jewishreviewofbooks.com/zion…
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"He had the passion, the wealth, and the arrogance to believe he could build a new world and control the people who lived in it." Read Abigail Green's essay on Edmond de Rotschild's new biography, out now with @yalepress @jewishlives jewishreviewofbooks.com/zion…
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