Monthly Essay ·
What Saul Bellow Saw
By Ruth WisseThe Jewish writer who became America’s most decorated novelist spent his early years prodding the nation’s soul. Then, sensing danger to it, he took up the role of guardian.
Subject
Arts & Culture
Latest Mosaic Content for Arts & Culture
Observation ·
Nobody Wants All Hell to Break Loose. But Who’s Breaking, and from Where?
By PhilologosCommitted to developing and supporting the intellectual, religious, and political leaders of the Jewish people and the Jewish state.
Observation ·
Podcast: Cynthia Ozick on “The Conversion of the Jews” (Rebroadcast)
By Tikvah Podcast at MosaicCommitted to developing and supporting the intellectual, religious, and political leaders of the Jewish people and the Jewish state.
Observation ·
Podcast: Abe Unger on America’s First Jewish Classical School
By Tikvah Podcast at MosaicCommitted to developing and supporting the intellectual, religious, and political leaders of the Jewish people and the Jewish state.
Response ·
Christians Believe in Divine Art. Jews Believe in Divinely Inspired Art. What Does the Difference Mean?
By Dr. Jacob WisseIn the Christian ideal of art, the artist is nowhere to be found. In the Jewish one, the artist is imbued with a divine spark and in special cases can achieve holiness.
Response ·
Twisted Tales: Christian Art Re-Presents the Hebrew Bible
By Larry SilverJacob Wisse teaches the full range of Western art history at Yeshiva University to a committed Jewish audience, so it is only natural that he notes —for them and with them—how much the Hebrew Bible h...
Response ·
The Messages about Jews in Christian Art
By Edward RothsteinThe 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...
Observation ·
The Hebrew Language’s Wildly Unpredictable Gender System
By PhilologosCommitted to developing and supporting the intellectual, religious, and political leaders of the Jewish people and the Jewish state.
Monthly Essay ·
How Western Artists Used and Abused the Hebrew Bible
By Dr. Jacob WisseFor centuries, visual artists, nearly all Christian, turned to the Hebrew Bible for inspiration even more often than the New Testament. What did they find there, and did they treat it well?
Observation ·
An Unusual and Beautiful Hebrew Poem by a 19th-Century Catholic Priest
By PhilologosCommitted to developing and supporting the intellectual, religious, and political leaders of the Jewish people and the Jewish state.
Observation ·
Podcast: Jeffrey Saks on the Genius of S.Y. Agnon
By Tikvah Podcast at MosaicCommitted to developing and supporting the intellectual, religious, and political leaders of the Jewish people and the Jewish state.
Response ·
To Do Better in Our Time, We Must Learn What Abraham Cahan Accomplished in His
By Ruth R. WisseHow fortunate that my essay on Abraham Cahan should have quickly achieved its primary purpose of getting us to think again about the man, his work, and his influence. Two historians enrich our discuss...
Observation ·
Why Goats Show Up in So Many Idioms
By PhilologosCommitted to developing and supporting the intellectual, religious, and political leaders of the Jewish people and the Jewish state.
Response ·
The Cold Litvak
By Gennady EstraikhI ’m grateful to Ruth Wisse for her impressive essay on Abraham Cahan , and for bringing his legacy to a broader audience. Yet, in reading it, I found myself wondering how exactly one could prove her...
Response ·
Watch Gary Saul Morson and Jacob Howland Discuss the Dostoevsky Problem
By Gary Saul Morson, Jacob Howland, Jonathan SilverIn this month’s feature Mosaic essay , the literary scholar Gary Saul Morson argues that the great Russian writer Fyodor Dostoevsky presents a conundrum: On the one hand, he was the great writer of...
Response ·
The Special Sway Dostoevsky Held over Soviet Jewish Minds
By Marat GrinbergAndrei Zorin, a well-known scholar of Russian literature at Oxford and a biographer of Tolstoy, stated in a recent interview that if we want to understand today’s manifestations of Russian imperial th...
Observation ·
The Best Books of 2023, Part II
By Andrew Koss, Jonathan Silver, Meir SoloveichikCommitted to developing and supporting the intellectual, religious, and political leaders of the Jewish people and the Jewish state.
Observation ·
The Best Books of 2023, Part I
By Elliott Abrams, Cynthia Ozick, Neil Rogachevsky, Ruth R. WisseCommitted to developing and supporting the intellectual, religious, and political leaders of the Jewish people and the Jewish state.
Response ·
Anti-Semitism Appeals to Intellectuals Because It Feels Like an Idea
By Adam KirschGary Saul Morson’s characteristically learned and insightful essay on Dostoevsky raises the question of how a writer with such a profound understanding of good and evil could fall prey to such a rudim...
Observation ·
Does the Slang Word “Shamus” Come from the Yiddish “Shammash” or the Irish “Seamus”?
By PhilologosCommitted to developing and supporting the intellectual, religious, and political leaders of the Jewish people and the Jewish state.
Monthly Essay ·
Why Dostoevsky Loved Humanity and Hated the Jews
By Gary Saul MorsonThe case of the literary master helps explain why people who devote themselves to compassion for all so often make an exception for Jews.
Observation ·
“This Is the Yom Kippur of”
By PhilologosCommitted to developing and supporting the intellectual, religious, and political leaders of the Jewish people and the Jewish state.
Response ·
The Presence of Peretz: A Discussion with Ruth Wisse and Andrew Koss
By Ruth R. Wisse, Andrew KossListen Read This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity. Andrew Koss : I’m Andrew Koss, the senior editor of Mosaic , and I’m here with Ruth R. Wisse, who has written Mosaic ‘s August essay...
Monthly Essay ·
I.L. Peretz and the Golden Chain
By Ruth R. WisseThe great Yiddish writer envisioned an unbroken transmission of Jewishness through the generations, from biblical prophets to talmudic sages to literary giants like Heine—and himself.
Observation ·
Podcast: Izzy Pludwinski on the Art and Beauty of Hebrew Calligraphy
By Tikvah Podcast at MosaicCommitted to developing and supporting the intellectual, religious, and political leaders of the Jewish people and the Jewish state.
Observation ·
Podcast: Cynthia Ozick on “The Conversion of the Jews”
By Tikvah Podcast at Mosaic, Cynthia OzickCommitted to developing and supporting the intellectual, religious, and political leaders of the Jewish people and the Jewish state.
Observation ·
The Wheels of Jewish Language in the New Netflix Show “Rough Diamonds”
By PhilologosCommitted to developing and supporting the intellectual, religious, and political leaders of the Jewish people and the Jewish state.
Observation ·
Podcast: Jordan B. Gorfinkel on His New Illustrated Book of Esther
By Tikvah Podcast at MosaicCommitted to developing and supporting the intellectual, religious, and political leaders of the Jewish people and the Jewish state.
Observation ·
A Religious Musical in Secular Tel Aviv
By Sarah RindnerCommitted to developing and supporting the intellectual, religious, and political leaders of the Jewish people and the Jewish state.
Response ·
Watch Mosaic’s Dramatic Reading of “The Dawning of the Day”
By The Editors, Jonathan Silver, Daniel BouskilaA simple Jerusalem laundryman is tested by a vanished voice from his past and the destruction of his treasured way of life Set in and around Jerusalem’s famous shuk, and featuring three top-notch acto...
