Jerusalem and Athens

The holiday of Hanukkah is, in part, a celebration of the victory of traditionalist Jews over Jews bent on assimilation to Greek Seleucid culture.  As such, the second-century B.C.E. Maccabean revolt has resonated throughout the ages not only as a key historical contest, but as a wellspring for interpretations of the divergent views of the Hebrews and the Greeks. 

Hebraism and Hellenism Reconsidered  Louis H. Feldman,  Judaism.  For almost every supposed difference between the two systems of thought, one can point to exceptions or actual similarities; yet certain very real divisions remain.  SAVE

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The Trouble with Hitchens

When Christopher Hitchens passed away yesterday at the age of 62, the encomia started pouring in almost immediately. Most of this praise is deserved, as the acumen of Hitchens's muscular criticism and the wit of his ripostes will be with us for a long time to come.

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Leora Batnitzky.

Is Judaism a Religion?

There is no end to the conundrums involved in defining what it means to be a Jew. Must a Jew be someone who believes in the Jewish religion, in the way a Christian believes in Christianity or a Muslim in Islam?  That can't be the case, since many devoted Jews are atheists.

Religion or Culture?  Leora Batnitzky,  Jewish Week.  A common assumption is that Judaism began as a religion and only gradually grew into something more broad. But this has it exactly backward.  SAVE

Non serviam  Tomer Zarchin,  Haaretz.  In granting the writer Yoram Kaniuk the right to be officially registered as "without religion" (rather than Jewish), Israel has taken a giant step toward the legal separation of religion and state.  SAVE

Secularism and Its Discontents  Yehudah Mirsky,  Jewish Ideas Daily.  The familiar category of Jewish secularism is worth rethinking, but one author's attempt doesn't satisfy.  SAVE

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Settling for Statehood

The 66th session of the United Nations General Assembly has just begun.  Unless a diplomatic miracle happens, that body will soon be asked to approve what amounts to a unilateral declaration of Palestinian statehood.  Palestinian spokesmen say they had no choice but to make their end run around serious negotiations with Israel.

Cavour and Garibaldi, 1860  Denis Mack Smith,  Cambridge University Press.  In this classic study of Garibaldi's conflicts with Cavour, the flamboyant soldier emerges as a hardheaded realist.  SAVE

The Greek-Turkish Population Exchange  Yaprak Gursoy,  East European Quarterly.  Ataturk lost control of his home town after the Greco-Turkish War.  The Greek and Turkish populations lost a good deal more.  SAVE

The 1947-48 War  BBC.  An account of the bloody results of Lord Mountbatten's line.  SAVE

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Enmity; or, Yiddish in America

He was irascible, neurotic, self-obsessed, and socially inept; a brilliant misfit and misanthropic dilettante. Upon his death in July 2010, Harvey Pekar's few close friends insisted that the underground comic-book writer was also a gem in the rough, an out-of-date socialist naïf.

“I’ve been aggravated . . .”  YouTube.  Harvey Pekar gained notoriety for his clownishly antagonistic appearances on NBC’s David Letterman Show.  More from a formidable Pekar video archive here and here.  SAVE

“Whadya think?”  Harvey Pekar, Tara Seibel,  Jewish Review of Books.  A comic review of R. Crumb’s Book of Genesis, in which Pekar attests to the artistic versatility of his long-time collaborator.  SAVE

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