Book review

'Proclaim Liberty Throughout the Land': America’s relationship with the Torah - review

The language America reaches for, at its best moments and its worst, has always been ours. Not borrowed. Ours. We wrote the story it keeps retelling. We are still here to see how it ends.

JULY 5, 2026|ByRAFFI CROUSE

Rare medieval Sefardi Torah scroll from the late 13th or early 14th century on display at ANU, Museum of the Jewish People in Tel Aviv.

'Stalin’s Apostles': The Cambridge Five and the lost world of Jewish Communism - review

From elite universities to Soviet handlers, the Cambridge Five helped Stalin penetrate Britain’s security and decision-making core.

JULY 5, 2026|ByCOLIN SHINDLER

A JEWISH GIRL and her Chinese friends in the Shanghai Ghetto, 1945, from the collection of the Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum.

'Kotsuji's Gift': The Japanese scholar who rescued Jewish refugees during World War II - review

The picture is cropped. A Japanese man standing to one side has been cut away. That man is Kotsuji, and the book is the long work of putting him back.

JUNE 28, 2026|ByRAFFI CROUSE

CHABAD ‘SHLUCHIM’ gather in front of 770 Eastern Parkway, New York, in 2022.

'Engaging the Essence': The Lubavitcher Rebbe as philosopher - review

While the Rebbe did not write a system, he spoke to occasions for 40 years. Bronstein anchors the structure of the Rebbe’s talks in his first discourse of 1951.

JUNE 22, 2026|ByNOAH ROTHSTEIN

'Kissing Girls on Shabbat': A frank memoir of a woman's inner turmoil - review

Kissing Girls on Shabbat is a ruthlessly frank memoir of her inner turmoil, trying to live the expected married life with a self-absorbed Gur Hassid.

FEBRUARY 17, 2025ByNEAL GENDLER

An ultra-Orthodox couple are seen walking down the street.

'Books Like Sapphires': A jewel of a collection - review

Brandeis University has just issued Books Like Sapphires, written by Ann Brener, who highlights a selection of the books in the Library of Congress.

FEBRUARY 17, 2025ByMORDECHAI BECK

The interior of the Library of Congress.

‘Rebecca of Ivanhoe’: Alison Bass’s Jewish sequel to Sir Walter Scott’s classic - review

This sequel to Sir Walter Scott’s classic dares to continue a beloved tale and weaves a rich tapestry of intrigue, romance, and personal discovery that stands proudly on its own.

FEBRUARY 16, 2025BySHULA KOPF

‘Rebecca on the Parapet of Torquilstone Castle,’ drawing by George Cruikshank (1837)

'We Are Black Jews': The courageous journey of Ethiopian Jews to Israel - review

Scattered across northern and northwestern Ethiopia in small villages, the Beta Israel lived alongside Christian and Muslim neighbors for over 2,000 years, resisting conversion.

FEBRUARY 16, 2025ByNEVILLE TELLER

An infant from Ethiopia whose family was brought to Israel in Operation Moses receives medical treatment at the Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem, January 1985.

What happens in Gaza, Israel the day after? Lessons from Soviet Jewry - opinion

“The day after” Gazans can take a page from the once impoverished Jewish survivors.

FEBRUARY 15, 2025ByHAROLD GOLDMEIER

Protests on Aza Street in Jerusalem call for the immediate release of hostages.

IDF spokesperson to show archaeological proof of Jewish indigeneity to Israel in new book

IDF Maj. Doron Spielman summed up his book "When Stones Speak" thusly: The proof that we have pulled out of the ground shows without a doubt that Jews are indigenous to Jerusalem and Israel.

FEBRUARY 14, 2025ByMARION FISCHEL

DORON SPIELMAN guides former US ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley on the Pilgrim Road excavation, 2020.

'Netanyahu’s Israel': A look at the best and worst of the longtime prime minister - review

Jotam Confino gives his readers both the best and the worst of the man in a work that throws light into some dark corners and is very well worth the study.

FEBRUARY 2, 2025ByNEVILLE TELLER