Arts & Culture


Drawing on Hitler’s Book

By Mark Cohen

On the way to the Contemporary Jewish Museum of San Francisco where Our Struggle: Responding to Mein Kampf opened on February 11 for a five-month run, a cranky neighborhood in my mind muttered, “History is bunk.” Then I remembered that the phrase was coined by Henry Ford, the carmaker and antisemite, and I was tossed back into history.Read More

Un-Righteous Indignation

By Jay Michaelson

For a columnist, there’s no such thing as a bad reaction. Agreement feels good, of course, but disagreement is better than apathy, and bitter disagreement means, at the very least, that one’s managed to say something. Thus, over the past few months, I’ve relished the opportunity to engage with smart critiques of my opinions on Israel, spirituality, authenticity and other subjects, and have been gratified by the seriousness with which these conversations have proceeded.Read More

Do Islamic Leaders Mean What They Say?

Richard L. Rubenstein, my doctoral advisor, first rose to prominence with his path-breaking 1966 book, “After Auschwitz: Radical Theology and Contemporary Judaism.” Improperly regarded as the Jewish contribution to the then fashionable “death of God debate,” it argued that no theology could speak to the Jewish condition unless it grappled with the twin realities of contemporary Jewish life: the Holocaust and the State of Israel. Rubenstein’s points were so valid that they forced a significant redirection of Jewish thought and set the theological agenda for most of the next three decades.Read More

Natural-Born Storyteller

By Matthew Rovner

‘Irving was a natural-born storyteller. He had a flair for telling movie stories, and he knew about the medium — more than most writers knew.” Quite a compliment, from no less than Ben Hecht, one of Hollywood and Broadway’s greatest writers. What makes Hecht’s praise unusual is that he said it not of a fellow scribbler, but of a Hollywood studio executive.Read More

The Shlemiel as Experimental Mensch

By Gwen Orel

Isaac Bashevis Singer’s tales are never quite what they seem, and the musical “Shlemiel the First,” adapted from a play that Singer based on his Chelm stories, is no exception in providing surprising depths. Who but Singer could make adultery (at least the characters think it’s adultery) seem so innocent?Read More

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