The recently produced film Immigrant Songs: Yiddish Theater and the American Jewish Experience depicts one of the most delightful yet often overlooked chapters of American Jewish cultural history. While giving viewers a pleasurable 46 [...]
The Hebrew word seder (סֵדֶר) literally means "order" or "arrangement." During Passover, it refers to the ritual dinner and service held on the first or second night of the holiday. Jews in Israel observe the seder on one night; Jews outside Israel observe it on two nights. The name highlights that the evening follows a very specific structured sequence of 15 ceremonial steps—including storytelling, [...]
My dad, Rabbi Dr. Nathan Drazin (1906-1976), was a brilliant man. Unlike virtually all other rabbis, he not only earned rabbinical ordination at Yeshivah University in New York but also a Yadin Yadin degree, thereby qualifying him to serve as a judge. Because he wanted to be as helpful as possible to fellow Jews, [...]
There are two questions we can ask about the matzah, unleavened bread, whose answers reveal the basis of Judaism and offer an important life lesson. The first is why do the siddur and machzor, the prayer books, call Passover Chag Hamatzot, the holiday of matzot (plural of matzah), and not Chag Pesach, the holiday [...]
Dr. Steven Nadler, professor of philosophy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is the author of numerous publications, including works on Spinoza, Descartes, Leibniz, and medieval and Jewish philosophy. He published the brief 136-page book Why Read Maimonides Today in 2026. He was born on November 11, 1958, and is an American academic and [...]
Publisher : Maggid Publication date : February 10, 2026 Language : English Print length : 456 pages ISBN-10 : 1592646905 ISBN-13 : 978-1592646906 Hardcover price : $34.95 II Samuel by Amnon Bazak Rabbi Amnon Bazak’s second volume on the biblical book of Samuel is [...]
ASIN : B0FHT9M1D3 Publisher : McGilligan Publishing Publication date : July 15, 2025 Print length : 549 pages Paperback : $25.99 Review of Kabbalah Demystified Rabbi Dr. Michael Leo Samuel’s book, “Kabbalah Demystified: A Comprehensive Resource,” is brilliant. I enjoyed it immensely. I have been a follower of [...]
Publisher : Maggid Publication date : October 28, 2025 Language : English Print length : 428 pages ISBN-10 : 1592646859 ISBN-13 : 978-1592646852 Hardcover : $37.39 The Jewish Journey Through Loss: From Death to Healing Both Jews and non-Jews will derive a wealth of important [...]
New-Russia: Images from a Journey This book by I. J. Singer was translated by Joshua A. Fogel in 2026. Israel Joshua Singer was a Polish-Jewish novelist who wrote in Yiddish. He was born on November 30, 1893, and died on February 10, 1944, at age 50 in New York City. He was the brother [...]
Readers of The Gavriel Tirosh Affair will find that the book increases their understanding of the history of the reestablishment of the State of Israel in 1948, why despite the multiple advantages the small Jewish population in Palestine in the 1930s gave to the Arab population the Arabs could not accept Jews in the [...]
Albo: Collected Writings, edited by Shira Weiss, is an important and welcome contribution to the study of medieval Jewish philosophy, making the thought of the Spaniard Joseph Albo (1380-1444) newly accessible to contemporary readers. Bringing together a full presentation of Sefer ha-Ikkarim along with Albo’s lesser-known responsum, this volume offers both breadth and depth, [...]
The Hebrew phrase ezer kenegdo (עֵזֶר כְּנֶגְדּוֹ) appears in the Torah, the Hebrew Bible, in Genesis 2:18 and 20, when the Bible speaks of the creation of Eve, the wife of Adam. The words are not mentioned again. They describe the Torah's view of the proper relationship between a man and his wife. Verse 18 depicts God [...]
Viktoria helped me to redo our website. Now at age 90, I no longer feel the need to see my books published in hardcover. I stopped sending books to Gefen Publishing House to publish after I finished writing them, and Darlene Jospe edited them, created an index, and a list of sources. Among other [...]
The fifth weekly biblical portion in Deuteronomy is Shoftim, “Judges.” The rabbis who were descendants of the ancient Pharisees viewed this portion as supporting the Pharisees’ views, rather than those of the Sadducees. The ancient Sadducees ceased to exist after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, and were later followed by the [...]
The current practice is to celebrate Purim as a one-day holiday. Cities that were walled at the time of Joshua’s conquest of Israel – most notably Jerusalem – celebrate Purim on Adar 15 to recall the end of hostilities in the walled city of Shushan, where the battles occurred on Adar 13 and [...]
Passover is one of the most significant holidays of Judaism. Many Jews consider it second to the Shabbat. It is the first command given to the Israelite ancestors during the period when Moses was rescuing the Israelites from Egyptian slavery. It teaches that Judaism stresses the need for all people, not only Jews, [...]
Many philosophers contend that only the body dies at the end of life, while human intelligence endures. They differ on what happens to intelligence after the body’s death. Some argue that it is not intelligence that survives death, but the soul. Others reject the idea that there is a soul. For example, the Hebrew [...]
Most people believe they can know the truth about many things, such as what is right and wrong, what God is, and that science is correct. They are wrong. This is the view of Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), a German philosopher of the Enlightenment, renowned for his discussions of logic and empiricism and for his [...]
Maimonides (1138-1204) listed thirteen fundamental principles of Judaism in his Introduction to the chapter Chelek. Many scholars feel sure that he wrote them for uneducated Jews, who needed to think that all of these principles are true, as “necessary truths,” what the Greek philosopher Philo called “noble lies,” even though they are not all [...]
Charles H. Freundlich's books are outstanding. He began writing his short stories when he was eighty and published a volume of them each year. Now, at age ninety-two, he is gifting us with his twelfth book, "Summing Up." There are seven tales in the 155-page volume. Each is charming, easy to read, fascinating, and [...]
I think that William Shakespeare was stating what I consider to be true, and it is possible, but doubtful, that he was Jewish. Shakespeare wrote, "This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man." The [...]
There is an interpretation of the Garden of Eden episode in Genesis three that I like. God placed the first human in a paradise where they would live with a gift of intelligence, eating fruits and vegetables, not needing to work, and never harming any living being. However, the humans failed to use the [...]
Many people in many cultures feel it is good to change their behavior at the beginning of a new year, to make it a better year for themselves and their families. This makes sense. The problem is that they do not know how to make the change. As a result, most of these people [...]
Movies about Bible events are very popular. Many have well-known actors in top roles. They always add actions and conversations that are not in the Bible, usually depict events more violently, and generally reflect the film writer’s view of what Scripture says. Many viewers are convinced they are watching a dramatization of what the [...]
When we understand what history is, when it began to be considered, how it changed over time, and what truth is, we will realize that history can't be entirely accurate. History is an attempt to understand the past by studying and interpreting human and non-human occurrences, using all available evidence to create narratives that [...]
There are two non-biblical books about the Maccabean revolt against the Seleucid Empire in the 2nd century BCE. They differ in style and purpose. 1 Maccabees is more chronological and focuses on the military fight and initial victory. In contrast, 2 Maccabees addresses the religious aspects. It focuses on martyrdom, divine intervention, and the purification of the [...]
My prior essay spoke about mistranslations. This one continues the discussion by focusing on two holy days with somewhat similar names, but they are totally different. Each occurred on the tenth day of the Jewish month Kislev, ten days after Rosh Hashanah, the New Year holiday, but in other eras. The first to occur, [...]
Very few books have had a profound impact on humanity and hold an enduring, influential place in people's minds and behaviors, such as the King James Bible. It was published in 1611 under the patronage of King James VI and I. It shaped not only religious life for centuries but also the very contours of [...]
Pirkei Avot, "Ethics of the Fathers," is a Jewish text that compiles ethical teachings and moral wisdom from a wide range of rabbinic sages. It is unique among the Mishna's tractates for focusing on character development and daily life rather than legalistic rules. It was composed around 190–230 CE. Is it more important than Jewish [...]
The 515-page 2025 exceptional book “Accepting and Excepting: On Pluralism and Chosenness out of the Sources of Judaism” is by Raphael Jospe, one of the most respected contemporary voices in Jewish philosophy. Jospe gives readers very readable, profound, learned, and deeply humane ideas on one of the central questions of our time: how religious people [...]
