One Saturday night in late 1995, I was with a few other 18-year-olds at a kibbutz in northern Israel, watching a Hebrew B-movie called “Lemon Popsicle” on TV. Words began scrolling urgently at the bottom of the screen, a news flash: The prime minister, Yitzhak...
What my preschooler's taste in pop says about where the country is at The Israeli culture wars arrived in my kitchen a few months ago when I discovered that the cure for my daughter’s grumpy preschooler moods was a Hebrew dance hit called “Happiness Revolution.” The...
Before dawn one day early last year, I tagged along with a garbage truck picking up trash around the southern part of Jerusalem. The crew was Jewish and Arab, and so was the trash. (“Everyone eats the same potatoes,” one of the crew chiefs told...
Tablet Magazine, Jan. 5, 2015 Yaakov Stark died penniless and unknown. His murals at the Ades Synagogue are a masterpiece of early Zionist art. In 1901, in Ottoman Jerusalem, members of the wealthy Ades family funded the construction of a synagogue for Jews who had moved to the...
The Atlantic, Nov. 30, 2014 During the Gaza war this summer, it became clear that one of the most important aspects of the media-saturated conflict between Jews and Arabs is also the least covered: the press itself. The Western press has become less an observer of...
Tablet Magazine, August 26, 2014 The Israel Story Is there anything left to say about Israel and Gaza? Newspapers this summer have been full of little else. Television viewers see heaps of rubble and plumes of smoke in their sleep. A representative article from a recent issue of The New Yorker described...
From Tablet, an update on developments in the story of the Aleppo Codex in the two years since the book was published: I am not sure I expected the story of the long-forgotten Aleppo Codex, the perfect copy of the Hebrew Bible, to occupy me for...
This just arrived from Gloseum, publisher of The Aleppo Codex in South Korea: ...
Torontonians: Registration is now open for the Aleppo Codex lecture at the Toronto Jewish Literary Festival on May 26. It's "pay what you can." Details and registration right here....
Two upcoming Aleppo Codex-related events for New Yorkers and Torontonians: On May 21 I will be speaking at Beth Torah, one of the biggest Aleppo synagogues in New York. This promises to be an interesting evening, the first one to be held with the community at...