
Category Archives: Essay



New York Socialists in the Legislature—and Out
Five socialists are headed to the New York state legislature. The story of the five socialists elected in 1919 provides a sobering warning.
Read More
The Sound of Messianic Time
Yo La Tengo’s new drone album, released into the formlessness of quarantine, evokes the unfulfilled waiting of Jewish messianism.
Read More
In the Dark
Covid-19 has illustrated the stakes of a lack of access to information in prisons.
Read More
Yavne: A Jewish Case for Equality in Israel-Palestine
The two-state solution is dead. It’s time for liberal Zionists to abandon Jewish–Palestinian separation and embrace equality.
Read More
Against Analogy
To build solidarity in this moment, white Jews should resist the impulse to highlight similarities between histories of antisemitism and anti-Blackness.
Read More
Translating Black Lives Matter into Yiddish
Amid an eruption of protests over police brutality, a Black performer of Yiddish music reflects on an attempt to “touch Blackness from inside Yiddish.”
Read More

On a Man’s Greatness
One of Israel’s most esteemed poets celebrates her teacher, scholar Paul Ernst Kahle, for his quiet heroism in Nazi Germany.
Read More