Literature

In her latest short fiction, the great American Jewish writer retells the true story of Edgardo Mortara, a young Italian boy taken by the pope in 1858 and raised to become a priest.

Feb. 16 2024 12:01AM

Many Dostoevsky scholars have been Jews, perhaps because the anti-Semitic writer needed to be seen as theirs—as almost Jewish in his concerns.

Dec. 26 2023 12:01AM

“I ask myself whether I might one day be able to emigrate to Israel.”

Michel Houellebecq and Tamar Sebok
Dec. 22 2023 12:01AM

Featuring fears, fates, burdens of power, memory wars, Sabbath days, Russian writers and timeless questions, years of upheaval, Japanese Jews, and more.

Dec. 21 2023 12:01AM

Featuring prime ministers, kidnappings, popes, silences, exiled shadows, portraits, intellectual origins, the best minds, and more.

Dec. 20 2023 12:01AM

The long-running case of the word for private detective can finally be considered closed.

Dec. 12 2023 12:01AM

The case of the literary master helps explain why people who devote themselves to compassion for all so often make an exception for Jews.

Dec. 4 2023 3:59AM

The great Yiddish writer envisioned an unbroken transmission of Jewishness through the generations, from biblical prophets to talmudic sages to literary giants like Heine—and himself.

Aug. 7 2023 12:01AM

The late American novelist was no nihilist.

Alexander Riley
June 16 2023 12:01AM

Grigory Kanovich, 1929–1923.

Elena Guritanu and Elie Petit
April 4 2023 12:01AM

Chekhov, Singer, and the absent ending.

Joseph Epstein
Feb. 21 2023 12:01AM

The Passenger, Stella Maris, and scientism.

Abe Greenwald
Jan. 19 2023 12:01AM

The novelist and rabbi Haim Sabato infuses tradition into fiction as well as any of the Yiddish greats. The difference? His work is unencumbered by modern angst.

Dec. 5 2022 12:01AM

Timshel.

Sheila Tuller Keiter
Oct. 24 2022 12:01AM