Listen to Peter Cole Reading from The Poetry of Kabbalah Each Day Nut Garden In an interview with Ready Steady Book, poet and translator Peter Cole reflected on the medieval Hebrew poetry of Muslim and Christian Spain, remarking that he was attracted by “the notion of beauty it embodies…and its potency
Richard Dawkins famously argues that religion is “the root of all evil,” leading inevitably to intolerance, violence, and worse. Yet in Abraham’s Children: Liberty and Tolerance in an Age of Religious Conflict, the collection’s editor Kelly James Clark sets himself firmly against such arguments. “How does one determine,” Clark asks,
For our latest “Eminent Biography” installment, Joshua Rubenstein reflects on his writing of the tumultuous political career of Leon Trotsky: A Revolutionary’s Life, the latest in Yale University Press’s Jewish Lives series. Often remembered as persecutor turned persecuted, Leon Trotsky was a central figure in the global political drama between
It’s not every day that you get a reflection on life, religion, and spirituality from a professor of computer science. Frankly, you might expect him to launch into a tirade on his favorite programming language. But David Gelernter is certainly no ordinary tech guru. When Gelernter sat down for his
No image of prerevolutionary Russian Jewish life is more iconic than the fiddler on the roof. But in the half century before 1917, Jewish musicians were actually descending from their shtetl roofs and streaming in dazzling numbers to Russia’s new classical conservatories. At a time of both rising anti-Semitism and
The cover story on the new (March/April) issue of Tikkun magazine is “God and the 21st Century” and its centerpiece is Rabbi Arthur Green’s thought-provoking and original new book Radical Judaism, published by YUP this month. Tikkun decided to use excerpts from the book to start a new discussion about
Just in time for Easter, the New York Times reviewed a selection of books about the Resurrection. These books correct some common myths among Jews and Christians. The New York Times reports, “The very idea of resurrection is widely and badly misunderstood.” To correct these errors, the New York Times
Richard M. Cook’s Alfred Kazin: A Biography, about one of the most important literary critics of the 20th century, has in turn become the subject of articles by literary critics from The New York Sun, The Los Angeles Times Book Review, and The New York Times Book Review. In his
Michael Makovsky, author of Churchill’s Promised Land: Zionism and Statecraft, has been named one of five finalists for this year’s Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature. The Jewish Book Council, who administers the award, considers Churchill’s Promised Land to be “a book of exceptional literary merit that stimulates an interest
In the past month, important political figures have been seen with books published by Yale University Press: Charm Offensive: How China’s Soft Power Is Transforming the World by Joshua Kurlantzick and Churchill’s Promised Land: Zionism and Statecraft by Michael Makovsky. On September 6, 2007, President Bush met with Kevin Rudd,