The major activity of the prophets was interference Remonstrating about wrongs inflicted on other people Meddling in affairs which were seemingly neither their concern Nor their responsibility A prudent woman is she who minds her…
To us a single act of injustice (Cheating in business, exploitation of the poor) Is slight To the prophets A disaster To us injustice is injurious to the welfare of the people To the prophets…
First published in The Ecumenist, 1997. Edward T. Linenthal, Preserving Memory: The Struggle to Create America’s Holocaust Museum. New York: Penguin USA, 1995. $27.95, U.S.A; $36.99, Canada. Throughout this spring, there have been several…
In 1974 Rabbi Yitz Greenberg averred No statement theological or otherwise Is credible unless it’s credible In the presence of burning children The U.S. government cares passionately Rhetorically about the burning children Victimized by our…
“[Shoshani] didn’t teach piety; he taught the texts. The texts are more fundamental—and vaster—than piety. “ –Emmanuel Levinas
This essay was first published in Tikkun, November-December 2002. In his 1986 Nobel lecture, Elie Wiesel spoke with characteristic gravity on any attempt to reckon with the Holocaust: “There are no theological answers, there are no…
Dear friends, and here I say friends the broad sense of the word: Wife, sister, associates, relatives, Schoolmates of both sexes, People seen only once Or frequented all my life; Provided that between us, for…
“The Not-Word: German-Jewish Poetry after the Holocaust” What does it mean to write in German as a Jewish author after the Holocaust? Can poetry recover, reclaim, and renew language after unspeakable trauma? How do we…
You who live secure In your warm houses Who return at evening to find Hot food and friendly faces: Consider whether this is a man, Who labours in the mud Who knows no peace Who…
Soon after my father’s death, I started reading Leon Wieseltier’s Kaddish, his journal of reflections on his year of going to shul and saying Kaddish. In the days and weeks ahead, Wieseltier offered me some…