The light of Jewish culture shines

By Danielle Berrin
Published on November 22, 2007

Circuit briefs.

Kushner’s (old) testament to Lincoln

By Naomi Pfefferman
Published on October 25, 2007

Interview with playwright Tony Kushner.

Writer spins thrillers from his own undercover adventures

By Sandee Brawarsky
Published on November 16, 2006

Jet lag launched Haggai Carmon into his career as an author. The international lawyer found himself in a small, unheated hotel room in a remote country he won't identify. He was on U.S. government assignment, collecting intelligence on a violent criminal organization, but his security cover had been blown, and he was advised by Interpol not to leave his hotel room.Tired, but too scared to sleep, Carmon sat at a child-sized desk with his laptop computer and spun 100 pages of a thriller based on, but disguising, his experiences. Those first 100 pages became the basis for "Triple Identity," the first in a series of three thrillers featuring Dan Gordon, a lawyer and former Mossad agent working for the U.S. Department of Justice.

Books: Interest grows in neglected 19th-Century female author Amy Levy

By Jessica George Firger
Published on November 16, 2006

Oscar Wilde adored her, calling the young writer "a girl of genius," while modern critics, in their flippancy and an attempt to articulate who this virtually unknown Victorian author was, have coined Amy Levy the "Jewish Sylvia Plath," referring to both her precocious talent and her early, tragic demise.In the past few years, there has been an uptick in interest in Levy's work, including the publication of a biography in 2000, a conference held in 2002 in London specifically on her work and scholarship tied to it and, most recently, the annotated editions of Levy's two novels, "The Romance of a Shop" and "Reuben Sachs."

Prolific Neusner Takes on Mishnah

By David Klinghoffer
Published on November 25, 2004

I don't know how many times I've been in a conversation with a Christian who suddenly out of nowhere asked, "What do you think of Neusner?" They don't even feel a need to mention the man's first name, which is Jacob, assuming that as a Jew I would obviously be familiar with the rabbi and scholar who, for non-Jews interested in Judaism, is the No. 1 go-to guy.

When a Christian wants to know something about Judaism, which lately more and more do, a typical first course of action is a visit to Barnes & Noble, to the Jacob Neusner section of the Judaica shelves. His singularity is worth pondering.