Before the Big Bang

 by DANIEL C. MATT

Cosmologist Lawrence Krauss is quite sure he knows how the universe began. Novelist Alan Lightman takes a wild narrative guess. But where does the Kabbalah stand?

War & Peace & Judaism

 by ALLAN ARKUSH

Robert Eisen was walking to campus on 9/11 when he saw a dark cloud above the Pentagon. Alick Isaacs fought for the IDF in Lebanon. Their experiences prompted them to rethink peace and Judaism.

Lawfare

 by JEREMY RABKIN

What's the trouble with the international laws of war?

Reorientation

 by NORMAN A. STILLMAN

A sober look at Jews and Christians under medieval Islamic rule.

Are We All Protestants Now?

 by MICHAH GOTTLIEB

Leora Batnitzky's new book charts the development of modern Jewish thought.

Where Wisdom Begins

 by JONATHAN L. SILVER

Alain de Botton's atheism doesn't prevent him from seeing the value and beauty of religious life.

Who Is Man?

 by GARY A. ANDERSON

Two new books on sin and temptation.

A Neoplatonic Affair

 by NADIA KALMAN

As the tapestry of Hillel Halkin's first novel unfurls, we see how perfectly each part fits into the larger pattern.

The Mighty Jacobson

 by ADAM KIRSCH

For an American Jew to read the magnificently funny and serious Howard Jacobson is to understand just how different the situation of English Jews is from their own.

Israel's Arab Sholem Aleichem

 by ALAN MINTZ

Sayed Kashua's new novel presents a characteristic depiction of the dual identities of Israel's Arabs.

Dust-to-Dust Song

 by PAUL REITTER

Nelly Sachs was 50 years old when she fled the Nazis with her mother in 1940. Few would have perdicted that she would receive the Nobel Prize for Literature twenty-six years later.

Muddling Through

 by ANNE TRUBEK

In his new book about an Upper West Side Jewish family, Joshua Henkin proves himself as a skillful writer, alternately witty and moving.

Borges, the Jew

 by ILAN STAVANS

Jorge Luis Borges, the Argentinian Nobel Prize-winning writer was captivated by Judaism. In 1934, he lamented, "hope is dimming that I will ever be able to discover my link to the Table of the Breads and the Sea of Bronze; to Heine, Gleizer, and the ten Sephiroth; to Ecclesiastes and Chaplin."

Rereading Herzl's Old-New Land

 by SHLOMO AVINERI

Its many flaws notwithstanding, Theodor Herzl's Altneuland (Old-New Land) remains an ever timely and important text. It addresses several issues that are today at the core of Israel's politics and public discourse: the question of equal citizenship, the social and economic structure of the country, and the relations between state and religion.

Matisse and His Jewish Patrons

 by CATHERINE C. BOCK-WEISS

Some of Henri Matisse's earliest and most committed supporters (and buyers) were Jewish. That might explain why Histoires Juives, a book of Yiddish jokes in French translation, and other Jewish items can be found in his paintings.

Homage to Mahj

 by AMY NEWMAN SMITH

A traveling exhibit attempts to explain the Jewish fascination with Mah Jongg, a favorite past-time of mid-century Jewish suburbia, Jewish country clubs, and Catskill resorts.

Berdyczewski, Blasphemy, and Belief

 by YECHIEL YAAKOV WEINBERG, TRANSLATED BY MARC B. SHAPIRO

Rabbi Yechiel Yaakov Weinberg (1884-1966), one of the towering figures of the rabbinical establishment, was an avid reader of the Nietzschean heretic Micha Josef Berdyczewski (1865-1921). He thought there were deep lessons about faith in the writings of the modern Hebrew writer.

Letters

Too much Chometz? Leon Wieseltier responds to his critics.

Something Antigonus Said

 by ABRAHAM SOCHER

When the Saducees misinterpreted Antigonus of Sokho, they lost eternity--at least that's what the Rabbis thought.