February 15, 2022
The TRADITION Podcast recently caught up with R. Shubert Spero, who just published “The Problematic Metaphors of Righteousness,” his 26th essay in our pages. We discussed the wide range of his philosophical interests over his long rabbinic and academic careers, the formative influences on his thought, and the central role Religious Zionism plays in his work.
February 13, 2022
As the preeminent scholar of American Jewish History Jonathan Sarna’s teaching, writing, and research have expanded the scope of the field. Zev Eleff’s review of two new books helps us gauge how Sarna has helped us understand ourselves and our past.
February 10, 2022
Israeli illustrator Shay Charka explains how Art Spiegelman’s “Maus” liberated Jewish culture by appropriating anti-Semitic stereotypes: “Spiegelman’s most significant contribution to the rehabilitation of the Jewish spirit after millennia of persecution culminating in the Holocaust is specifically through his depictions of Jews as mice.”
February 8, 2022
Tova Warburg Sinensky reads R. Norman Lamm’s classic work “A Hedge of Roses” and demonstrates how her grandfather’s 1966 overview of the laws of Jewish family purity is much more than a defense of a once-neglected halakha. In fact, it is a subtle and profound philosophical treatise about how Jewish law serves to protect loving relationships, including, but not limited to, the marital union.