Review

Survivor’s Guilt

In his Novi Sad trilogy of post-Holocaust fictions, the Serbian novelist Aleksandar Tišma examines the psychologically warping effects of antisemitism.

Jess Bergman December 14, 2021

Review

The Making of Satmar Williamsburg

In a new history of the Hasidic “fortress in Brooklyn,” a community’s struggle for the right to the city is not always waged in the common interest.

Samuel Stein November 23, 2021

Review

Bad Education

In The Loneliest Americans, Jay Caspian Kang suggests that for Asian Americans, the process of political consciousness raising has gone terribly wrong.

Zoe Hu November 17, 2021

Review

Trick of the Light

In a film adaptation of Nella Larsen’s Passing, racial passing is about seeing as much as being seen.

Adrienne Brown November 15, 2021

Review

That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore

In The Netanyahus, Joshua Cohen tries and fails to reanimate the canonical Jewish American novel.

Nathan Goldman September 29, 2021

Review

What the Record Doesn’t Show

By offering the group as a model for present-day politics, Sarah Schulman’s history of ACT UP reproduces the movement’s failures and exclusions.

Vicky Osterweil September 22, 2021

Review

Portraits of Empire

George W. Bush’s recent book of paintings betrays liberal empire’s role not as fascism’s alternative but as its co-conspirator.

Claire Schwartz September 10, 2021

Review

The Guilty Conscience of Jewish Empire

In The Wondering Jew, the influential Israeli philosopher Micah Goodman—who has argued for “shrinking” the occupation—contends that liberal Judaism requires maximalist Zionism.

Daniel May June 28, 2021

Review

Eternal Return

In Natalia Ginzburg’s fiction—including three recently reissued works—painful things cannot be put off forever.

Jess Bergman June 18, 2021

Review

Who Owns American Judaism?

Lila Corwin Berman’s new book traces the explosion of the American Jewish philanthropic sector over the past 70 years—and its corrosive effect on contemporary Jewish life.

Raphael Magarik June 1, 2021

Review

The End of the World as We Know It

Three recent books reveal the potential—and the limits—of apocalyptic thinking.

Dan Sinykin May 26, 2021

Review

Lost and Unfounded

Will Kafka’s work survive the distorted representations made in his name?

Judith Butler May 3, 2021

Review

A City Without a Country

Mayor, a documentary about Ramallah mayor Musa Hadid, is a devastating satire of local governance under occupation.

Alex Yablon January 28, 2021

Review

Suburban Legends

Jason Diamond’s The Sprawl is a useful reminder that there is no single story to tell about the American suburbs.

Nora Caplan-Bricker December 14, 2020

Review

A Little Bit Nazi

Yishai Sarid’s new novel, The Memory Monster, is a bleak, brilliant reckoning with Israeli Holocaust memorialization.

Mitchell Abidor December 3, 2020

Review

Shelter in Place

Malicroix—a 1948 French novel about a man who has isolated himself in a house to fulfill the strange terms of his inheritance—resonates uncannily with our contemporary experience of quarantine.

Bridget Bergin November 16, 2020

Review

A Compendium of Severance

Susan Taubes’s Divorcing traces the separation of a wife from her husband, a family from their homeland, and a people from their God.

Jess Bergman October 27, 2020

Review

Blueprint for Feminism

Feminist City helps us dream up alternative futures, even if it doesn’t do the dreaming itself.

Kristen Ghodsee October 14, 2020

Review

Shaping the Neo-Hasidic Canon

A New Hasidism, a recent two-volume anthology, offers a compelling alternative to mainstream Jewish spirituality, but fails to fully confront the tradition’s consequences in the world.

Daniel Kraft September 17, 2020