Books

The Story of Redemption

It's what all Haggadahs, old and new, have in common

By:

SPEAKING VOLUMES Every Passover, publishers unveil a string of the "newest" Haggadot, most of them capitalizing on a current societal trend that seeks to make the ancient book "more relevant" for a contemporary audience -- or, at the very least, more accessible. Over the last half-century or so, there have been Haggadot geared to the traditional family, the interfaith family,...

Books

Approaching the Great Questions ...

... and tackling them with clarity and precision

By:

Robert Leiter

As he was writing Judaism: A Way of Being , David Gelernter printed portions of the work as several long essays in Commentary magazine. Reading each new installment, I remember thinking that the completed manuscript would surely be a distinctive piece of work. But little could I have known from these samples alone just how exceptional it would be, unlike...

Books

Potok's Papers Go to University

The Rare Book and Manuscript Library at the University of Pennsylvania is now the home of a wealth of papers from bestselling novelist Chaim Potok. The writer -- a Penn alum -- was also a professor and a rabbi during his multifaceted career, as well as editor-in-chief of Philadelphia's Jewish Publication Society. The archive contains lectures, sermons, correspondence, promotional materials...

Books

Envisioning the Man Behind the Man

By:

Robert Leiter

Emmanuel Radnitzky, an ambitious, art-minded young man, born to Russian immigrant parents in Philadelphia in 1890, began his career as a painter. But by the time the 1920s rolled around, he had taken himself to Paris and completely reimagined his persona; he'd already adopted the moniker Man Ray (extracted from his given and family names) and, though he created many...

Books

Anne in the World

By:

Robert Leiter

"Of the making of books, there is no end." If this was the attitude held about printed matter by the Bible writers all those centuries ago, what would they have to say about the seemingly endless flow of books that have been devoted to a single subject like Anne Frank since her cruel and senseless death at the hands of...