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Hillel Halkin Law in the Desert: A Commentary • Vanessa L. Ochs Passover in DC JEWISH REVIEW OF BOOKS Volume 2, Number 1 Spring 2011 $6.95 What Comes Next? Natan Sharansky Efraim Inbar The Democratic The Strategic Case for Case for Optimism Pessimism How to Think About Revolutions in the Middle East Shlomo Avineri • Amr Bargisi • Eva Bellin • Daniel Kurtzer Menahem Milson • Itamar Rabinovich • Michael Walzer David J. Wolpe: The Chief Rabbi’s Achievement PLUS Jewish Parenting, Joan Nathan’s French Cholent, and the Life & Fate of Lucky Grossman Editor Abraham Socher Publisher Eric Cohen Senior Contributing Editor Harvard Allan Arkush The WashingTon haggadah Editorial Board Joel ben simeon Robert Alter inTroducTions by Shlomo Avineri david sTern and KaTrin Kogman-appel Leora Batnitzky Ruth Gavison “By one of the most important and prolific scribes and illustrators in the history of the Jewish book, Joel ben Simeon, this unusually well preserved and beautifully illustrated Moshe Halbertal haggadah marks an important moment in the history of Jewish culture. It provides a Hillel Halkin rare window into the world of its producers and readers, the Jews of late fifteenth- Jon D. Levenson century Europe.” —David Stern, from the introduction Anita Shapira Belknap Press / new in cloth / $39.95 Michael Walzer J. H.H. Weiler “i have alWays loved The holy Tongue” Leon Wieseltier isaac casaubon, the Jews, and a Forgotten chapter in Ruth R. Wisse renaissance scholarship Steven J. Zipperstein anThony graFTon and Joanna Weinberg Assistant Editor “These two superb [authors] have pooled their considerable talents to conjure for Philip Getz us a world of such immense and varied learning that it is bound, in Montesquieu’s words, to ‘astonish our small souls.’” — Eric Nelson, New Republic Art Director Betsy Klarfeld “A gorgeously produced volume; more importantly, it is accessibly written. I confess a combination of admiration and envy for the astonishing textual detective work Business Manager on display.” — Jeffrey Shoulson, Jewish Review of Books Lori Dorr Belknap Press / new in cloth / $35.00 Editorial Fellow Michael Moss palaces oF Time Jewish calendar and culture in early modern europe elisheva carlebach Elisheva Carlebach has unearthed a trove of beautifully illustrated calendars, to show The Jewish Review of Books (Print ISSN 2153-1978, how Jewish men and women both adapted to the Christian world and forged their own Online ISSN 2153-1994) is a quarterly publication meanings through time. of ideas and criticism published in Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter, by Bee.Ideas, LLC., “Carlebach takes a narrow subject and mines it for its considerable riches . This well- 745 Fifth Avenue, Suite 1400, New York, NY 10151. organized and extensively researched book is a magnificent piece of scholarship and a For all subscriptions, please visit pleasure to read.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) www.jewishreviewofbooks.com or send $19.95 Belknap Press / new in cloth / $35.00 ($29.95 outside of the US) to: Jewish Review of Books, PO Box 3000, Denville, NJ 07834. For customer service and subscription-related Wandering soul issues, please call (877) 753-0337 or write to The Dybbuk’s creator, s. an-sky [email protected]. Letters to the Editor should be emailed to letters@ gabriella saFran jewishreviewofbooks.com or to oureditorial office, “A marvelously detailed biography . Watching An-sky in context, we 3091 Mayfield Road, Suite 412, Cleveland Heights, can start to understand what he was and what he meant.” OH 44118. Please send all unsolicited reviews and manuscripts to the attention of the editors at —Alice Nakhimovsky, Jewish Review of Books [email protected], or to our “[Safran’s] tour de force is a tonic for our own anxious age, a midrash editorial office.Advertising inquiries should be sent to [email protected] copies on creative Jewish ambivalence.” —Stuart Schoffman, Haaretz should be sent to the attention of the Assistant Editor New in cloth / $29.95 at our editorial office. JEWISH REVIEW OF BOOKS HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS | www.hup.harvard.edu JEWISH REVIEW Spring 2011 OF BOOKS LETTERS 4 Independence in Prayer, With Respect to Argument, The Heirs of Secularism FEATURES 5 Natan Sharansky The Stakes in the Middle East Reformers and democrats represent the real hope for a future of peace, liberty, and—not least—stability in the Middle East. 7 Efraim Inbar Israel and the Old-New Middle East The social and political realities of the Middle East make democracy unlikely. A rough neighborhood may be getting rougher. 10 Vanessa L. Ochs Passover on the Potomac Two new haggadahs from our nation’s capital—one new and one old— and the “audacious hope” of redemption. REviEwS 13 Norman A. Stillman Buried Treasure acred Trash: The Lost and Found World of the Cairo Geniza by Adina Hoffman and Peter Cole S 15 Marc B. Shapiro That in Aleppo Once Crown of Aleppo: The Mystery of the Oldest Hebrew Bible Codex by Hayim Tawil and Bernard Schneider 17 Maxim D. Shrayer Lucky Grossman The Road: Stories, Journalism, and Essays by Vasily Grossman Edited by Robert Chandler, translated from the Russian by Robert and Elizabeth Chandler with Olga Mukovnikova 20 Stephen J. Whitfield Our Exodus Leon Uris and the Americanization of Israel’s Founding Story by M. M. Silver • Leon Uris: Life of a Best Seller by Ira B. Nadel 22 Gerald Steinberg Begin’s Shakespeare The Prime Ministers: An Intimate Narrative of Israeli Leadershipby Yehuda Avner 25 Derek J. Penslar The Hands of Others The Arabs and the Holocaust: The Arab-Israeli War of Narratives by Gilbert Achcar 28 Samuel Helfont Qutb’s Milestones Sayyid Qutb and the Origins of Radical Islam by John Calvert 29 Beth Kissileff Biblical Start-Ups Beginnings: Reflections on the Bible’s Intriguing Firstsby Meir Shalev, translated by Stuart Schoffman 30 Michel Gurfinkiel Melting Pot Quiches, Kugels, and Couscous: My Search for Jewish Cooking in France by Joan Nathan 32 Abby Wisse Schachter Grading Parents The Blessings of a B Minusby Wendy Mogel 34 David J. Wolpe The Chief Rabbi’s Achievement Future Tense: Jews, Judaism, and Israel in the Twenty-First Century by Jonathan Sacks, and seven other books by Sacks ReadingS 38 Hillel Halkin Law in the Desert Studying the weekly portion with Jerome, Nachmanides, and others, the seemingly tedious parts of Exodus become compelling. SymPoSiUm 44 Thinking About Revolution and Democracy in the Middle East by Shlomo Avineri, Amr Bargisi, Eva Bellin, Daniel Kurtzer, Menahem Milson, Itamar Rabinovich, and Michael Walzer in MemoRiAm 50 Russell Jacoby Daniel Bell (1919-2011) Last word 51 Joshua Muravchik Trashing Dictatorship in Cairo On the cover: “Sphinx of the Perplexed” by Mark Anderson. LETTERS Independence in Prayer Margot Lurie Responds have also lectured at Al Quds University on Ameri- n her article “Minyan 2.0” (Winter 2011), Mar- The Hadar gabbaim focus on the issue of funding— can Constitutional law, my area of scholarship. Igot Lurie writes: “There is an open secret about a minor and subsidiary point in my review. I am Sari Nusseibeh has impressed many skeptics both Hadar: like many other minyanim, it is funded by glad to stipulate that Hadar differs from others in its American and Israeli as a sincere advocate of equal lots of organized community money, offered by in- fund-raising practices. But their letter does enable respect for both sides. stitutions eager to keep young Jews connected to me to clarify the misperception of Rabbi Micha’el In my view, not to trust Sari Nusseibeh is not to their heritage.” As is clear from the budget sum- Rosenberg. I do not claim, as he states, that indepen- trust the peace process. mary accessible to the public on our website, this dent minyanim are “populated by slacker 20- and Burton Caine is untrue. The current annual budget for Kehilat 30-somethings.” On the contrary, I criticize their Temple University - Beasley School of Law Hadar is $165,000, nearly all of which was raised corporatization. As I wrote, “The hands may be the from Kehilat Hadar participants. The exception is hands of chaverim, but the voice is the voice of the a $3000 micro-grant that we received from UJA- e-bankers, lawyers, and bright-eyed young profes- Peter Berkowitz Responds: Federation of New York to help fund scholarships sionals.” It is precisely because the cohort of min- Since he neither takes issue with my summary of for those in financial need to attend our annual yan-goers is so high-achieving—and yet neglects to Sari Nusseibeh’s argument nor addresses my criti- Shavuot retreat this year. Our sister organiza- acknowledge communal needs beyond its own nar- cisms, Burton Caine implies that the very act of tion, Mechon Hadar, makes no secret of raising row self-involvement—that I think the movement’s scrutinizing Nusseibeh’s views dishonors the man money from foundations, but it is not an indepen- claims are so dubious. Nor am I under any illusion and injures prospects for peace. One could wonder, dent minyan and is a separate not-for-profit or- that Kaunfer is Heschel or thinks that he’s Heschel. however, who treats Nusseibeh and the prospects ganization with different leadership, boards, and Nevertheless, his book repeatedly suggests that it is for peace with greater respect. Is it colleagues like constituencies. not merely a how-to-make-a-minyan guide, but an Professor Caine—and reviewers elsewhere, most Lurie may disagree with us about the merits of answer to the Jewish crisis of meaning—an answer instructively David Shulman in The New York the the independent minyan movement, but she that it conspicuously fails to provide. Review of Books—who ignore Nusseibeh’s emphatic should check her facts before going to print.