An Italian Writer’s Idiosyncratic, and Very Jewish, Retelling of the Bible

In The Book of All Books—published last year in English translation just after the author’s death—Roberto Calasso attempts to do for the Tanakh what he in a previous work did for Greek myths: reinterpret it in a modern literary form. Robert Alter writes in his review:

Calasso’s retelling is intentionally an intellectual potpourri, and that is the source both of its appeal and its weakness. He begins with a midrash, the characteristic early rabbinic mode of exegesis that amplifies, elaborates, and sometimes reinvents the spare biblical text. Other midrashim are then introduced from time to time, as well as “midrashim” that one assumes are Calasso’s own invention. For some stretches of the book, he simply retells the canonical narrative, and these sections are not likely to be of much interest to anyone already familiar with the Bible. More welcome are the frequent junctures in which he midrashically fleshes out what is tersely told in the Bible.

This retelling of the Bible is also enlivened by its range of intertextual references—Racine, Kafka, Freud, Nietzsche—to whom Calasso adds the Veda, the Indian text he cherished. In a few instances, a surprising comparison is combined with a genuine insight into the biblical story: “Saul hid among the bags—something Harpo Marx would do—paralyzed by the terror of election that more than any other would afflict his people in the future, the terror of the drawn lot, the chance that a moment later might select him.”

Yet for all these winning moments, there is much that is flawed in this book. Calasso gets certain details wrong. . . . Perhaps what is most curious is that though Calasso is chiefly interested in Jewish readings of Scripture—the midrash, the Zohar, Maimonides and not Aquinas—there are intermittent passages that invoke discredited supersessionist notions of the Old Testament as an anticipation or prefiguration of the New.

He is also drawn to the bizarre, which explains why he devotes a chapter not to Isaiah or Jeremiah but to Ezekiel, surely the weirdest of all the biblical prophets. And his modern references definitely impart an allure to his narrative. Why not pick up a diary entry by Kafka as a clue to something going on in the Bible, or why not invite us to see the fearfully diffident Saul by way of Harpo Marx?

Read more at Spectator

More about: Hebrew Bible, King Saul, Literature, Midrash, Supersessionism

Egypt Is Trapped by the Gaza Dilemma It Helped to Create

Feb. 14 2025

Recent satellite imagery has shown a buildup of Egyptian tanks near the Israeli border, in violation of Egypt-Israel agreements going back to the 1970s. It’s possible Cairo wants to prevent Palestinians from entering the Sinai from Gaza, or perhaps it wants to send a message to the U.S. that it will take all measures necessary to keep that from happening. But there is also a chance, however small, that it could be preparing for something more dangerous. David Wurmser examines President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi’s predicament:

Egypt’s abysmal behavior in allowing its common border with Gaza to be used for the dangerous smuggling of weapons, money, and materiel to Hamas built the problem that exploded on October 7. Hamas could arm only to the level that Egypt enabled it. Once exposed, rather than help Israel fix the problem it enabled, Egypt manufactured tensions with Israel to divert attention from its own culpability.

Now that the Trump administration is threatening to remove the population of Gaza, President Sisi is reaping the consequences of a problem he and his predecessors helped to sow. That, writes Wurmser, leaves him with a dilemma:

On one hand, Egypt fears for its regime’s survival if it accepts Trump’s plan. It would position Cairo as a participant in a second disaster, or nakba. It knows from its own history; King Farouk was overthrown in 1952 in part for his failure to prevent the first nakba in 1948. Any leader who fails to stop a second nakba, let alone participates in it, risks losing legitimacy and being seen as weak. The perception of buckling on the Palestine issue also resulted in the Egyptian president Anwar Sadat’s assassination in 1981. President Sisi risks being seen by his own population as too weak to stand up to Israel or the United States, as not upholding his manliness.

In a worst-case scenario, Wurmser argues, Sisi might decide that he’d rather fight a disastrous war with Israel and blow up his relationship with Washington than display that kind of weakness.

Read more at The Editors

More about: Egypt, Gaza War 2023