“Thou shalt not murder” is one of the Ten Commandments. Yet, twice a year – during Rosh Hashanah and Shabbat Vayera – Jews read the Akedah, the binding of Isaac, which could also be called “the attempted murder of Isaac.” God tests Abraham by commanding him to sacrifice his son. …
Sometimes the way you feel about a book depends not only on your mood, but what else you’ve read recently. Before reading the novels in this review, I’d been actively engaged in two different, very exciting fantasy series. The second in one series ended with a cliff hanger and I so wante…
A great deal has been written about the current flowering of Jewish literature. There has been far less discussion about Jewish art. In “Jewish Identity in American Art: A Golden Age Since the 1970s” (Syracuse University Press), Matthew Baigell notes that this artwork deserves far more a…
Most Jewish histories focus on Europe, the United States or the Middle East. That’s understandable since the majority of Jews throughout the centuries lived in those areas. While perhaps not as rich in Jewish history, China offers some lesser known, but fascinating, stories about two Jewis…
Tales of intergenerational conflict fuel novels and memoirs. The majority of these works focus on bad parenting and/or the inability to accept a child’s differences. Both are true of two recent works: Ilana Masad’s novel “All My Mother’s Lovers” (Dutton) and David Adjmi’s memoir …
