Magazine

When confronted by our own absurdity and inadequacy, Judaism turns the tables and asks us to eat festive meals, sing optimistic songs, and make Rosh Hashanah into a holy celebration.

In Who Is American? Belonging and the Question of Jewish Citizenship, Prof. Lila Corwin Berman explores the intertwined, controversial issues surrounding the history of Jewish citizenship in the US.

The point of Rosh Hashanah is that we get a chance to pray to God for a year that will be better than we expect, both for us and for our country. So what should we be praying for this holiday?

While September 11 is not being scrubbed from the record, demography, partisan fights, and a shift in public language all point to fading lived memory and a softer or redirected story.

At its core, the shofar is the sound of self-sacrifice. It echoes Abraham’s willingness to sublimate his own wishes to those of God, prompting all of us to submit to a greater good.

Rosh Hashanah invites us to remove, even if only for a moment, the coverings that conceal us throughout the year, and to look inward, toward the place where our soul resides. 

The year leaves us with a divided picture: God’s presence has felt startlingly close, even as it has grown more obscured in the moral and cultural chaos around us.

A weekly selection of opinions and analyses of the Arab media around the world.

Milo Rau is clearly determined to dive into the multi-layered, dense underbelly of various situations to divine the whys and wherefores and, hopefully, uncover the real state of play. 

Jerusalem of Gold, a group exhibition featuring five Israeli artists, is open now and will be on display at the Jerusalem Theatre’s Salon Gallery until the end of September.