Italy's Unheralded Role in Securing International Support for the Balfour Declaration, and Beyond

When, 100 years ago, the victors in World War I needed a push to get behind “the right of Jews to reconstitute in Palestine their National Home,” Italy was there.

Ofir Haivry

Jan. 10 2019 12:01AM

Did This Odd Hebrew Expression Come from an Afro-American Folktale?

The many hypothesized sources for the saying, “To have butter on one’s head.”

Philologos

Jan. 9 2019 12:01AM

A Pagan-Seeming Blessing in the Daily Prayers

Why do Jews praise the great lights?

Atar Hadari

Jan. 3 2019 12:01AM

Ascent; Or, Moving to Israel in the 1970s

For me, living in Israel is a moral imperative. There is no elegant or painless way to describe why, after a year, we left.

Ruth R. Wisse

Jan. 2 2019 12:01AM

Playing Defense in Lebanon

A new book explores the changing tactics, and essential continuities, in Israel’s decades-long but mostly undeclared war against Hizballah.

Matti Friedman

Dec. 27 2018 12:01AM

The Return of Shlomo Sand

The notorious author of The Invention of the Jewish People is back, this time with a screed against certain French intellectuals with a certain something in common.

Neil Rogachevsky

Dec. 26 2018 12:01AM

Rembrandt's Very Human, Very Accurate, Very Jewish (and Very Unclassical) David

Michelangelo’s universally admired depiction of one of history’s most famous Jews is not the least bit Jewish. Take, on the other hand, Rembrandt.

Meir Soloveichik

Dec. 20 2018 12:01AM

The Movement to De-Gender Hebrew is Linguistically Mad

It is practically impossible to utter a complete sentence in Hebrew that lacks gender.

Philologos

Dec. 19 2018 12:01AM

The Best Books of 2018, Chosen by Mosaic Authors

Letters, antidotes, eternal lives, outcasts, secret worlds, pogroms, and more.

Elliott Abrams, Haviv Rettig Gur, Moshe Koppel, Daniel Polisar, Sarah Rindner, Neil Rogachevsky, Michael Weingrad, Ruth R. Wisse and David Wolpe

Dec. 12 2018 12:01AM

What If You Trivialize Hitler?

The question has plagued artists ever since the Holocaust. At least one contemporary artist manages to pass the test.

Menachem Wecker

Dec. 6 2018 12:01AM

Why "Hanukkah Gelt" and not "Hanukkah Money"?

It sounds less mercenary—which is probably also why real coins eventually gave way to chocolate ones.

Philologos

Dec. 5 2018 12:01AM

Perseverance; or, My Fight to Study, and to Teach, Yiddish Literature

In the late 1960s, appointments in Jewish studies were springing up in tandem with the “adversarial culture.” But we intended to strengthen the universities, not to trash them.

Ruth R. Wisse

Nov. 29 2018 12:01AM