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Issues 1-50

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That Galilee Affair – Julius Caesar

Henry Goldblum

Was the fate of Judea as a Roman province sealed from the moment Julius Caesar switched sides in the Hasmonean leadership struggle? Or could Herod’s brutal path to kingship still have been blocked? Either way, 47–46 BCE marked a turning poi

Quantum Leap – Albert Einstein

Galina Weinstein

This year marks the centennial of Einstein’s general theory of relativity and sixty years since the death of the absent-minded professor who revolutionized physics Galina Weinstein Albert Einstein was a nonconformist, a rebel, a

Too Short A Story – Franz Kafka

Zohar Maor

No one captured the modern terrors of alienation and bureaucracy better than Franz Kafka, penning some of the 20th century’s best-known short stories. Yet family, religion, and Zionism also drew him, though all three remained unattainable d

Healing Minds – Sigmund Freud

Gabriel Bukobza

Exchanging the lab for the analyst’s couch, Sigmund Freud defied the scientific conventions of his day. The man who attributed supreme importance to early childhood benefitted from his own adoring Jewish mother’s assurances that he was dest

George Gershwin – Gefilte Jazz

Ari Ktorza

The cultural meld of Jews and blacks working together in show business gave rise to a new style of American music. Captivated by black sounds and rhythms, composer George Gershwin interwove classical motifs and popular melodies into a black

Hasmonean Palaces

Eyal Regev

Did the later Hasmoneans really become Hellenized, as many have theorized? Or were they like their palaces – Hellenist on the outside but Jewish within? The Hasmoneans were among the first to struggle to forge a distinctively Jewish ethnic

Full Circle – Hora

Amit Assis

Though nostalgically associated with Israel’s early days, the hora was originally neither socialist nor Jewish. So how did this folk dance become synonymous with young Zionists circling under a starry sky? Amit Assis There was

Murder in Hamburg – The Missing Money Changers

Yemima Hovav

A Jewish money changer disappears one fine day in Hamburg, never to be heard of again. Three years later, another one vanishes. Only one woman connected the two events and dared to seek justice Yemima Hovav The late Middle Ages

Columns

From the Archives | A Lubavitcher Rebbe’s Letter

Hadassah Assouline

From the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe to his wife, written in America in the late 1920s Hadassah Assouline Sunday, 6 Iyar, on a train from Detroit to St. Louis To my dear wife, With gratitude to God for life and peace, On Friday, I