Returning to Pearl Harbor

On Sunday, December 7, 1941, Vernon Olsen was a 21-year-old seaman assigned to mess hall duty aboard the USS Arizona, a battleship moored in the calm waters of Pearl Harbor.  At 7:55 that morning, the ship's air raid alarm sounded.

Jewish Ossuaries  Eric Meyers,  Biblical Institute Press.  Ossuaries, urns or vaults holding the bones of the dead, are critical to reconstructing Judaism and Jewish life in the era of the Second Temple.  SAVE

Abraham’s Family Saga  Michael Carasik,  Jewish Ideas Daily.  Even the breaker of his family's idols was "gathered to his kin" upon his death.  SAVE

Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision  Roberta Wohlstetter,  Stanford University Press.  The definitive history of the intelligence failures that led to the Japanese surprise attack.  SAVE

The USS Arizona Memorial  Pacific Historic Parks.  The structure, says its architect, "sags in the center but stands strong and vigorous at the ends, expressing initial defeat and ultimate victory."  SAVE

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In the Jewish Dark Continent

Most American Jews descend from ancestors who resided in the Pale of Settlement, the territory from the Black Sea to the Baltic in which Jews were confined by the Czars.  A new book describes one effort to chart that territory.

Still Lives  Vox Tablet,  Tablet.  An interview with the authors of a book on newly discovered photographs from the An-Sky expedition. (With slideshow)  SAVE

Of Devils and Dybbuks  Allan Nadler,  Jewish Ideas Daily.  Far more than modern Jews care to admit, demons, imps, and spirits permeate the history, and even the present-day consciousness, of many of their co-religionists.  SAVE

The Weaver  Gabriella Safran,  Jewish Review of Books.  An-Sky the revolutionary hoped that by reminding Jews of their ancestors' lives and crafts, he could make them more creative, more socialist, and less capitalist.  SAVE

Photographic Memory  Jewish Ideas Daily.  Roman Vishniac created a famous book of photographs of shtetl Jews—but left out images that didn't fit his story.  SAVE

The Phonoarchive of Jewish Folklore  Lyudmila Sholochova,  National Library of Ukraine.  The story of the Jewish music archive at the Vernadsky National Library, which contains original wax cylinder recordings from the An-Sky expedition.  SAVE

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Mourning, Memory, and Art

David Roberts (1796–1864) was a Scottish painter who in the late 1830's traveled extensively in the Levant and Egypt documenting "Orientalist" sites in drawings and watercolors. Among Roberts's paintings was a massive 1849 work, The Destruction of Jerusalem.

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"The Sickening Question": God, Cancer, and Us

Many scholars of the Bible and ancient Judaism prefer to focus exclusively on ancient texts and the world that produced them, refraining from engaging with the implications of their work for contemporary religious life. James L. Kugel has never been one of those scholars.

Man Stands Powerless Before Elevator  James L. Kugel,  Free Press.  In an interview, the renowned Bible scholar discusses the "starkness" of religion, what modern Arabs owe to their Mesopotamian forebears, and living through a diagnosis of cancer.  SAVE

L’Chaim and Its Limits  Leon Kass,  First Things.  What does Judaism have to say about the moral challenges posed by biomedical technology, with its growing power to control life and its techniques to conquer aging?  SAVE

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