Cui Bono?
Today in Tablet Magazine, Lee Smith asks cui bono from the controversial and contested leaks of Israel’s Iran strategy and comes up with a list of surprising candidates; Not just Baku, Jerusalem,...
View ArticleFriedmometer: Map on the Damn Table
The Friedmometer tracks left-of-center conventional wisdom about the state of peace in the land between the river and the sea through the eyes of Thomas Friedman. When last we weighed in, Friedman was...
View ArticleOn Seriousness and Sontag
Today in Tablet Magazine, the newly published second volume of Susan Sontag’s journals prompts contributing editor Adam Kirsch to trace the writer’s contradictions and question whether the writer has...
View ArticleThe Ten Best Springsteen/Max Weinberg Songs
As Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band prepare for the second of two nights at the Izod Center in East Rutherford, in the Garden State, we pause and acknowledge the most prominent Jewish member of...
View ArticleHappy Baseball!
Check out this excerpt from Peter Ephross’ new book, Jewish Major Leaguers in Their Own Words: Oral Histories of 23 Players. Notes Ephross: Jewish players on the whole have fared better than average....
View ArticleGluten for Punishment
Today in Tablet Magazine, Stephanie Butnick reports on the questionable mitzvah of eating gluten-free matzoh. This Matzoh Isn’t a Mitzvah Earlier: It Oughta Be Kosher! Off the Table
View ArticleFor Jews, An Almost-Last Supper, Jesus-Style
We don’t know if the Last Supper was a Seder, but that is what tradition holds, and it certainly would have made sense: a big dinner among Jews on a fine Spring evening. Also, three of the four Gospels...
View ArticleSundown: Israel’s Plan for Iran
• Israel’s goals for the Iran nuclear talks set to begin April 13 or 14, according to Defense Minister Barak, are very ambitious, of course, but not bad as an opening bid: move all 20 percent-enriched...
View ArticleSweden’s ‘Damn Jew’ Problem
The store window had been smashed many times before. The shoe-repair shop is located in one of the rougher parts of Malmö, Sweden, and the Jewish owner, a native of the city, had gotten used to this...
View ArticleFighting Pharaohs in Beijing
A sandstorm was howling as I hosted a Seder last year in my home not far from Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. Spring winds from the Gobi Desert to the north had darkened the sky like a plague, and snarls...
View ArticleSouth Africa’s Exodus
This week, as tables across the globe become the gathering point for Passover Seders, one implicit note will be the regenerating narrative of exodus in Jewish history. But often overlooked in this...
View ArticleArab Israelis, Undivided
Two summers ago, I drove off of Route 6, the newish toll road that juts up against the West Bank near Tira, my destination, not far from the upscale Tel Aviv suburb of Kfar Saba. I was meeting a dean...
View ArticleDaybreak: New Terror Front, Eilat Attacked
• In a highlight of how the Sinai has become a terrorist launching pad, a Grad rocket was fired at the southern resort town of Eilat. [Haaretz] • Iran doesn’t want next week’s talks in Turkey. It would...
View ArticleWhy Was Gen. Grant Different From All Others?
We’re a little late ourselves, but did you remember to read the first half of Jonathan Sarna’s When General Grant Expelled the Jews, published by Nextbook Press, as per our little book club? No sweat...
View ArticleThe Lone Rainbow State
Today in Tablet Magazine, contributing editor Adam Chandler charts the latter day exodus of South African Jews to Houston—the city in Texas, not the street on the Lower East Side. South Africa’s Exodus
View ArticleA Tale of Two Tents
The settlers whom the Israeli government evacuated from a house in Hebron (after making noises about letting them stay there a while longer) are planning to pitch a tent near the site to protest their...
View ArticleLife Is Short, Art Is Important: Hilton Kramer
Each week, we select the most interesting Jewish obituary. This week, there were actually very few prominent deaths to consider (good for the Jews, bad for The Scroll), so let’s dip into one from last...
View ArticleThe Swedish Siege
Today in Tablet Magazine, Paulina Neuding reports that thanks to an indifferent and even hostile government, Jews are no longer safe in the Swedish city of Malmö. Sweden’s ‘Damn Jew’ Problem
View ArticleGive or Take 20%
Today in Tablet Magazine, Jo-Ann Mort discusses the life and work of Israeli Arab novelist, columnist and screenwriter Sayed Kashua, whose Hebrew novel Second Person Singular was just published in...
View ArticleGünter Grass’ Stupid Poem About Israel and Iran
Günter Grass, the 84-year-old German novelist who won a Nobel Prize in part for ostensibly reckoning honestly with Germany’s Nazi past (and who many years later revealed that, rather than having been a...
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