Shtisel Created and Written by Ori Elon and Yehonatan Indursky, Directed by Alon Zingman 42 Leon Wieseltier Eight Poetic Fragments by Avraham Ben Yizhak
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Sarah Abrevaya Stein on Sephardi Passports JEWISH REVIEW OF BOOKS Volume 7, Number 2 Summer 2016 $10.45 Neal Gabler Kibitzing in God’s Country Shlomo Riskin Rabbi Sacks, Religion & Power Leon Wieseltier A Modernist Genius Ariel Evan Mayse The First Lubavitcher Rebbe Michael Weingrad Of Elves & Solomonic Bric-a-Brac Adam Kirsch Enlightenment on Stage Shai Secunda Haredim on TV Editor New from Maggid Books Abraham Socher Senior Contributing Editor Allan Arkush Art Director Betsy Klarfeld Managing Editor Amy Newman Smith Editorial Assistant Kate Elinsky Editorial Board Robert Alter Shlomo Avineri Leora Batnitzky Ruth Gavison Moshe Halbertal Jon D. Levenson Anita Shapira Michael Walzer THE PSYCHOLOGY WITH MIGHT AND STRENGTH J. H.H. Weiler Leon Wieseltier OF TZIMTZUM The Autobiography of Rabbi Shlomo Goren Ruth R. Wisse Steven J. Zipperstein Mordechai Rotenberg Publisher New Eric Cohen in the series! 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OF BOOKS JEWISH REVIEW Volume 7, Number 2 Summer 2016 OF BOOKS www.jewishreviewofbooks.com LETTERS 4 Existential Presences on Slippery Slopes, Groucho's Being, Schoenberg Antinomian FEATURES 5 Neal Gabler Kibitzing in God's Country The Catskills: Its History and How It Changed America by Stephen M. Silverman and Raphael D. Silver • Summer Haven: The Catskills, the Holocaust, and the Literary Imagination edited by Holli Levitsky and Phil Brown • The Borscht Belt: Revisiting the Remains of America’s Jewish Vacationland by Marisa Scheinfeld, with essays by Stefan Kanfer and Jenna Weissman Joselit 8 Sarah Abrevaya Stein Passport Sepharad The recent offers of citizenship by Spain and Portugal tap into a long, rich, and complicated Sephardi history of dubious passports, desperate backup plans, and extraterritorial dreams. REVIEWS 11 Shlomo Riskin Religion and Power Not in God’s Name: Confronting Religious Violence by Jonathan Sacks 14 Ethan Schwartz Our Rabbis J, E, P, and D Revelation and Authority: Sinai in Jewish Scripture and Tradition by Benjamin D. Sommer 17 Eric Lawee The Secrets of the Efod The Secret Faith of Maestre Honoratus: Profayt Duran and Jewish Identity in Late Medieval Iberia by Maud Kozodoy 19 Ariel Evan Mayse The Alter Rebbe Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liady: The Origins of Chabad Hasidism by Immanuel Etkes, translated by Jeffrey M. Green 22 George Prochnik Summer of '36 Ostend: Stefan Zweig, Joseph Roth, and the Summer Before the Dark by Volker Weidermann, translated by Carol Brown Janeway 24 Michael Weingrad The Inklings The Fellowship: The Literary Lives of the Inklings: J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, Owen Barfield, Charles Williams by Philip Zaleski and Carol Zaleski • Charles Williams: The Third Inkling by Grevel Lindop 26 David G. Dalin Old Isaiah Louis D. Brandeis: American Prophet by Jeffrey Rosen 28 Allan Nadler Pious Censorship Changing the Immutable: How Orthodox Judaism Rewrites Its History by Marc B. Shapiro 32 Jonathan Karp The Hit Man Godfather of the Music Business: Morris Levy by Richard Carlin 34 Allan Arkush Promised Land or Homeland? A Political Theory for the Jewish People by Chaim Gans • Zionism and Judaism: A New Theoryby David Novak THE ARTS 38 Adam Kirsch Saladin, a Knight, and a Jew Walk Onto a Stage Nathan the Wise by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, performed by the Classic Stage Company 40 Shai Secunda Nuclear Family Shtisel created and written by Ori Elon and Yehonatan Indursky, directed by Alon Zingman 42 Leon Wieseltier Eight Poetic Fragments by Avraham ben Yizhak LAST WORD 43 Shlomo Avineri Max, Moritz, and Marx On the cover: Greetings from the Catskills by Mark Anderson. LETTERS Existential Presences and Slippery Slopes to the writer or artist direct and unmediated. rationalist notions of God as well as of human free- Leora Batnitzky’s feature essay on Michael Wyscho- The last time I met Michael, I told him that I had dom. In doing so, all three make a point of affirming grod (“Michael Wyschogrod and the Challenge some questions to ask him about theology. As we biblical anthropomorphism and thereby risk (but of God’s Scandalous Love,” Spring 2016) is on the talked, I mentioned that I had come to a point in also resist) reducing any notion of divine transcen- whole as engaging as it is illumining. One might my life where I felt more able than previously to get dence to human existence. Noting that Heidegger question, however, whether it makes sense to as- guidance in prayer. Rather than look puzzled or in- identifies human being with Dasein does not dis- sociate Heidegger’s notion of Dasein with the move credulous, he merely said, “Then what do you need qualify this basic point. of Buber and Wyschogrod to “prioritize existen- me for?” I asked him what he thought of the rabbinic I agree with Abigail Rosenthal that authors de- tial presence, or being-there (Dasein), over onto- view that prophecy has died out of Israel. He said serve to be read charitably. As I tried to make clear, logical essence (Sein).” Heidegger is most famous they were simply recording an empirical/historical Wyschogrod remains a powerful and important for identifying human being as Dasein, hardly the fact, not postulating a principle. Still pressing the Jewish thinker. But I also think that it is a sign of meaning Buber and Rosenzweig could have had in intellectual respect to take an author’s arguments mind when they translated as “Ich werde dasein” the seriously enough to think them through in ways in Hebrew “eheye” in Exodus 3:14. Moreover, the pas- which an author may not have. As I wrote, Wyscho- sage quoted leaves one with the impression (quite grod would and did want to resist some of the con- mistaken) that one could associate Heidegger’s on- clusions I draw about his thought. But wanting to re- tological notion of Sein with “essence,” Wesen, in sist particular conclusions is different from making any traditional sense. Further, human being-there arguments as to why such conclusions should not be for Heidegger is marked, in the first instance, by an reached. Unfortunately, I don’t think Wyschogrod’s existential “thrownness” (Geworfenheit), as being thought has the resources to make these arguments. “thrown” into its “there.” How could one square such an idea with the God who speaks to Moses from the burning bush? One might add that the thrown- A Pesca con Groucho ness that fundamentally distinguishes Heideggerian For a decidedly less analytical albeit funnier ap- Dasein hardly applies to Moses, who out of intel- proach than Lee Siegel’s Groucho Marx: A Com- lectual curiosity freely approaches the burning bush edy of Existence (“Jews on the Loose,” Spring 2016)— and who is first addressed by God on account of that although, well, who’s to say?—a version of Groucho’s free initiative (Ex. 3:4). We perhaps more aptly cast existence exists that includes his very being being as “Hiersein” the existential presence that character- thrown out of hotels from West Virginia to Wyo- izes the Moses of the initial speech-act (“hineini”) in ming, check out his friend Irving Brecher’s memoir, response to the divine call. The Wicked Wit of the West. (The title was Groucho’s Phillip Stambovsky point, I asked him whether he himself thought that non-chthonical nickname for Brecher.) Irv supplied New Haven, Connecticut God had stopped communicating with us in the pres- funny lines for his pal in Go West and At the Circus. ent era. He smiled. “Do you mean, has God retired The book’s title was changed by the Italian publisher and moved to Florida?” He didn’t think I was asking to A Pesca con Groucho due to a fishing trip the two Heartfelt thanks to Leora Batnitzky for her consid- whether the Bible had retired and moved to Florida. men took just before Julius Marx landed the You Bet ered, thoughtful, and instructive tribute to Michael Lastly, Professor Batnitzky sees a “danger” in Your Life gig that paid for the rest of his, um, existence.