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On Robert Alter's Bible Barbara S. Burstin Pittsburgh's Jews and the Tree of Life JEWISH REVIEW OF BOOKS Volume 9, Number 4 Winter 2019 $10.45 On Robert Alter’s Bible Adele Berlin David Bentley Hart Shai Held Ronald Hendel Adam Kirsch Aviya Kushner Editor Abraham Socher BRANDEIS Senior Contributing Editor Allan Arkush UNIVERSITY PRESS Art Director Spinoza’s Challenge to Jewish Thought Betsy Klarfeld Writings on His Life, Philosophy, and Legacy Managing Editor Edited by Daniel B. Schwartz Amy Newman Smith “This collection of Jewish views on, and responses to, Spinoza over Web Editor the centuries is an extremely useful addition to the literature. That Rachel Scheinerman it has been edited by an expert on Spinoza’s legacy in the Jewish Editorial Assistant world only adds to its value.” Kate Elinsky Steven Nadler, University of Wisconsin March 2019 Editorial Board Robert Alter Shlomo Avineri Leora Batnitzky Ruth Gavison Moshe Halbertal Hillel Halkin Jon D. Levenson Anita Shapira Michael Walzer J. H.H. Weiler Ruth R. Wisse Steven J. Zipperstein Executive Director Eric Cohen Publisher Gil Press Chairman’s Council Blavatnik Family Foundation Publication Committee The Donigers of Not Bad for The Soul of the Stranger Marilyn and Michael Fedak Great Neck Delancey Street Reading God and Torah from A Mythologized Memoir The Rise of Billy Rose a Transgender Perspective Ahuva and Martin J. Gross Wendy Doniger Mark Cohen Joy Ladin Susan and Roger Hertog Roy J. Katzovicz “Walking through the snow to see “Comprehensive biography . “This heartfelt, difficult work will Wendy at the stately, gracious compelling story. Highly introduce Jews and other readers The Lauder Foundation– home of Rita and Lester Doniger recommended.” of the Torah to fresh, sensitive Leonard and Judy Lauder will forever remain in my memory.” Library Journal (starred review) approaches with room for broader Sandra Earl Mintz Francis Ford Coppola human dignity.” Tina and Steven Price Charitable Foundation Publishers Weekly (starred review) March 2019 Pamela and George Rohr Daniel Senor The Lost Library Jewish Legal Paul E. Singer The Legacy of Theories Vilna’s Strashun Writings on Library in the State, Religion, The Jewish Review of Books (Print ISSN 2153-1978, Online Aftermath of the and Morality ISSN 2153-1994) is a quarterly publication of ideas and Holocaust Edited by Leora criticism published in Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter, by Bee.Ideas, LLC., 165 East 56th Street, New York, NY 10022. Dan Rabinowitz Batnitzky and Yonatan Brafman For all subscriptions, please visit www.jewishreviewofbooks. com or send $39.95 ($49.95 outside of the U.S.; digital sub- scriptions: $19.99) to Jewish Review of Books, PO Box 3000, Denville, NJ 07834. Digital subscription orders must include an email address. Please send notifications of address changes to the same address or to [email protected]. For customer service and subscription-related issues, please call (877) 753-0337 or write to [email protected]. “Rabinowitz detects a breathtaking history . that “This rich, fascinating volume shows Jewish legal Letters to the Editor should be emailed to [email protected] or to our editorial office, expresses the rupture of the Holocaust and the thought in dialogue with modernity, from the nation- 3091 Mayfield Road, Suite 412, Cleveland Heights, OH 44118. contested visions of Jewish life after catastrophe.” state to reproductive technology, feminism, and Please send all unsolicited manuscripts to the attention of the Elisabeth Gallas, Leibniz Institute beyond.” editors at [email protected] or to our edi- Noah Feldman, Harvard Law School torial office. Review copies should be sent to our editorial office. Advertising inquiries should be sent to [email protected]. www.brandeis.edu/library/bup.html | 800-621-2736 JEWISH REVIEW Volume 9, Number 4 Winter 2019 OF BOOKS www.jewishreviewofbooks.com LETTERS 4 Was Newton a Magician?, Don't Forget Pumbedita!, and Was Herzog Crazy? FEATURES 5 Ronald Hendel, Robert Alter's Bible: A Symposium In the 14 years since he published The Five Books of Moses, Alter has Aviya Kushner, Shai steadily progressed through the Tanakh, producing translations that aim at something like a 21st-century American Held, David Bentley equivalent of what he has called the “simple yet grand” English of the King James Version, while attending closely to the literary techniques of the Hebrew text. We asked a learned, eclectic group of six critics to discuss the results. Hart, Adele Berlin, Adam Kirsch 13 Barbara S. Burstin Pittsburgh Jews, Squirrel Hill, and the Tree of Life In the wake of the recent massacre, a local historian tells the story of the Pittsburgh Jewish community and the 154-year-old Tree of Life synagogue. 16 Gavriel D. Rosenfeld Digital Anti-Semitism: From Irony to Ideology From tweeting trolls to digital incitement, a contemporary history. REVIEWS 18 Ezra Blaustein Historical Agency Maimonides and the Merchants: Jewish Law and Society in the Medieval Islamic World by Mark R. Cohen 20 Jonathan Karp Workday Jews Modernity and the Jews in Western Social Thought by Chad Alan Goldberg • Jewish Materialism: The Intellectual Revolution of the 1870s by Eliyahu Stern 23 Allan Arkush Counting Jews A Deadly Legacy: German Jews and the Great War by Tim Grady 25 Tuvia Friling Confusions and Illusions: 1939 The Road to September 1939: Polish Jews, Zionists, and the Yishuv on the Eve of World War II by Jehuda Reinharz and Yaacov Shavit 27 Robert Nason The Homecoming Our Israel Diary: Of That Time, Of That Place by Antonia Fraser 31 Gary Saul Morson Lenin and Maimonides A Specter Haunting Europe: The Myth of Judeo-Bolshevism by Paul Hanebrink 34 Annika Freethinker Guardian Angel: My Journey from Leftism to Sanity by Melanie Phillips Hernroth-Rothstein 36 Liam Hoare Doron Rabinovici and the Crisis of European Jewish Identity The Search for M by Doron Rabinovici, translated by Francis M. Sharp • Elsewhere by Doron Rabinovici, translated by Tess Lewis READINGS 38 Steven Nadler Who Tried to Kill Spinoza? According to early biographers, somebody tried to kill Spinoza on the streets of Amsterdam. Is the story true, and, if so, who were his attackers? 41 Rick Richman Chaim of Arabia: The First Arab-Zionist Alliance Chaim Weizmann regarded his 1919 agreement with Emir Faisal as an epoch-making treaty. That didn’t turn out to be the case, but a century later an Arab-Zionist alliance may be reemerging. THE ARTS 44 Dara Horn Yiddish Heroism, Hebrew Tears Black Honey, The Life and Poetry of Avraham Sutzkever directed by Uri Barbash, produced by Yair Qedar LAST WORD 47 Abraham Socher Books vs. Children On the cover: Tree of Life by Mark Anderson. LETTERS Was Newton a Magician? Matt Goldish Responds: ernments, the pull of democracy was strong. It is Professor Goldish’s insightful essay on Isaac New- I am not entirely clear what I said in my review of also true that the dominant ideology of the Yishuv ton (“Maimonides, Stonehenge, and Newton’s Ob- Rob Illiffe’s excellent book which inspired this re- was the new ideology of the 19th century: democ- sessions,” Summer 2018), based on Rob Iliffe’s book sponse from Professor Smith. I take Newton’s mind racy in politics, socialism in economics. Priest of Nature, unfortunately overlooks what to and his context extremely seriously. I am an histo- In post-1948 Israel, the economics of social- me is the most important takeaway for us as mod- rian and I never for a second thought of Newton as ism has proven to be unable to adapt to the 21st- ern citizens of the world, namely, how we should an “eccentric nut” during the years I spent reading century reality, and Israel now has a strong and think about science and religion. He seems to adopt his manuscripts. I would, in fact, question Profes- vibrant capitalist economy. The political com- the same attitude toward Newton first expressed by sor Smith’s assumption that there is a “takeaway” ponent, democracy, is alive and well in modern Keynes—that he was “the last of the magicians,” who for the modern reader in the study of Newton’s reli- Israel. But the freewheeling democracy practiced believed that there were “certain mystic clues which gious thought. Newton was a man of his times and a in Israel reminds me too much of the Weimar God had laid about the world” in both nature and dedicated Arian Christian, as well as a millenarian. Republic in pre-WWII Germany and the Fourth scripture. Today this label carries rather demeaning He believed that God was revealing natural and bib- Republic in France. Both of them came to ends connotations and implies that, despite a lifetime of lical knowledge to him in preparation for the End of that were not good. I hope that does not happen brilliant physical and mathematical insights, his re- Days. Is that part of the “takeaway”? Newton’s con- in Israel. ligious beliefs and studies of the Hebrew Bible and clusions about the relationship between science and Jay Stonehill mystical texts (including the Zohar) mark him as an religion were completely informed by his Christian- Chicago, IL eccentric nut preoccupied with superstitious medi- ity, his milieu, his eclectic reading, and his idiosyn- eval notions (ha-ha, but today we know better). cratic theology. Perhaps Professor Smith would do I suggest this view of Newton is condescending me the favor of reading what I have written about Was Herzog Crazy? and unfair. Speaking as a practicing scientist, New- Newton elsewhere before making baseless assump- I think Rich Cohen has gotten much of Herzog ton’s genius was in part to recognize that there are tions about my views. wrong (“Tweets and Bellows,” Fall 2018), though I’m puzzling features of the physical world unaccounted always glad to read about this important and mas- for even by his novel physical insights, and to seek terful novel.
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