Edward Rothstein is Critic at Large at the Wall Street Journal. His essays in Mosaic include “The Problem with Jewish Museums,” “Jerusalem Syndrome at the Met,” and “The Unusual Relationship Between Abraham Lincoln and the Jews.”
Response ·
The letter “I” that begins the Latin translation of the first book of the Hebrew Bible is shaped by an unusual series of illuminations in the 13th-century Abbey Bible from Bologna, Italy. The letter’s...
Response ·
Why do they hate us? And what are we going to do about it? Those questions were asked a lot in the United States in the years after 9/11. They have also been asked a lot by Jews over many, many more y...
Response ·
The scandal of the Jewish Museum in New York, as Menachem Wecker’s fine essay shows, is a scandal caused by immense curatorial ignorance, both cultural and religious, combined with the arrogant beli...
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Can a leopard change its spots? Is anything new under the sun? How have the mighty fallen? Is there a phrase in the English language that has not been shaped by translations of the Hebrew Bible (Tan...
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Last fall, the art historian Victoria C. Gardner Coates published an op-ed article in the Wall Street Journal suggesting that the utopian multicultural paradise imagined by the Metropolitan Museum o...
Monthly Essay ·
An exhibition on the diverse multiculturalism of medieval Jerusalem has been ecstatically received. There's just one problem: the vision of history it promotes is a myth.
Response ·
Why are there Jewish museums? And what are they meant to accomplish? Among the many issues raised by the generous and thoughtful responses to my essay by Diana Muir Appelbaum , Walter Reich , and...
Monthly Essay ·
Ours is an era of museums celebrating the identity of nearly every group and ethnicity. But something else takes place when the identity in question is Jewish.
Observation ·
Committed to developing and supporting the intellectual, religious, and political leaders of the Jewish people and the Jewish state.
Observation ·
Committed to developing and supporting the intellectual, religious, and political leaders of the Jewish people and the Jewish state.
Observation ·
Committed to developing and supporting the intellectual, religious, and political leaders of the Jewish people and the Jewish state.
Response ·
Reading Nathan Shields’ powerful essay, “Wagner and the Jews,” reawakened memories from two decades ago when I attended the Bayreuth festival as a music critic. My most potent recollections are not of...
