Israel’s Labor Party—the political organization that erected the governing structures of the country—has now been reduced to a mere three seats in the Knesset. What happened?

The author of “Shibboleths and Sun Salutations: Should Religious Jews Practice Yoga?” joins us to defend his ideas.

Is there a difference between pestilence and plague?

In his new book, Ross Douthat writes convincingly of America’s descent into decadence and torpor. Can anything stop the slide?

Houdini’s was the prototypically self-made American tale. But even while turning himself into the world’s greatest breaker of constraints, he remained a proudly identified Jew.

An Italian Yiddish was never in the cards, as the case of “Judeo-Mantuan” makes clear, because Jews were more closely integrated into Italian society than they were in Eastern Europe.

And most of them reveal a hidden admiration for the person who’s had the wit and the grit to get away with it.

The memoirs of this 17th-century Jewish woman have long fascinated historians. For the first time, a complete English edition brings her to life for today’s readers.

The figure of the great fairy king in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is descended from Judah Maccabee.

Six more Mosaic writers share their favorites, featuring shadow strikes, orchards, gleanings, constitutional evolutions and revolutions, serotonin, odd women, and more.

Seven of our regular writers pick several favorites each, featuring sieges, spies, cultural revolutions, family papers, useful enemies, new fields of inquiry, and more.

Let us sing of rodomont, Sinon, proditomania, and, in particular, grobian.