Amy Newman Smith & Julian Sinclair on the Blessings of Drought JEWISH REVIEW OF BOOKS Volume 6, Number 4 Winter 2016 $10.45 Joel Kaminsky Jeremy Dauber StuartKing Scho Davidfman's Larry David on Matti Friedman CapaCareers's Road to Broadway A Walk in the Jerusalem Old City Daniel Gordis Cognitive Dissonance & Jewish Creativity Elli Fischer Takes on the Israeli Chief Rabbinate Michah Gottlieb Spinoza Re-Intoxicated Alan Mintz A Hebrew Jane Austen Jay Lefkowitz Dennis Ross on Daylight Walter Laqueur Remembers Scholem NEW FROM Editor STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS Abraham Socher Senior Contributing Editor Allan Arkush Art Director Betsy Klarfeld THE ZOHAR THE FULL Associate Editor Pritzker SEVERITY OF Amy Newman Smith Edition, COMPASSION Volume Nine The Poetry of Editorial Assistant Kate Elinsky Translated by Yehuda Amichai DANIEL C. MATT CHANA KRONFELD $55.00 cloth Stanford Studies Editorial Board in Jewish History Robert Alter Shlomo Avineri Volume Ten and Culture available Spring 2016 Leora Batnitzky Ruth Gavison $55.00 cloth Moshe Halbertal Jon D. Levenson Anita Shapira Michael Walzer J. H.H. Weiler Leon Wieseltier Ruth R. Wisse Steven J. Zipperstein Publisher Eric Cohen HOMELESS CLEPSYDRA Associate Publisher & TONGUES Essay on Director of Marketing Poetry and the Plurality Lori Dorr Languages of of Time in the Sephardic Judaism Diaspora SYLVIE ANNE JRB Publication Committee MONIQUE R. GOLDBERG Anonymous BALBUENA Stanford Studies Martin J. Gross $55.00 cloth in Jewish History Susan and Roger Hertog and Culture Roy J. Katzovicz $65.00 cloth Judy and Leonard Lauder Steven Price Daniel Senor Judy and Michael Steinhardt Te Jewish Review of Books (Print ISSN 2153-1978, Online SUDDENLY, NOW IN PAPERBACK ISSN 2153-1994) is a quarterly publication of ideas and MIXING criticism published in Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter, THE SIGHT OF by Bee.Ideas, LLC., 745 Fifh Avenue, Suite 1400, New York, WAR MUSICS NY 10151. Violence and Turkish Jewry For all subscriptions, please visit www.jewishreviewofooks. Nationalism in and the Urban com or send $39.95 ($49.95 outside of the U.S.; digital sub- Landscape of a scriptions: $19.99) to Jewish Review of Books, PO Box 3000, Hebrew Poetry Denville, NJ 07834. Digital subscription orders must include an in the 1940s Sacred Song email address. Please send notifcations of address changes to the HANNAN HEVER MAUREEN JACKSON same address or to [email protected]. Stanford Studies Stanford Studies For customer service and subscription-related issues, please call (877) 753-0337 or write to [email protected]. in Jewish History in Jewish History and Culture and Culture Letters to the Editor should be emailed to [email protected] or to our editorial ofce, $27.95 paper $65.00 cloth 3091 Mayfeld Road, Suite 412, Cleveland Heights, OH 44118. Please send all unsolicited reviews and manuscripts to the attention of the editors at submissions@jewishreviewofooks. com or to our editorial ofce. Advertising inquiries should be sent to [email protected] or call Lori Dorr at (212) 796-1665. Review copies should be sent to the attention of the associate editor at our editorial ofce. Most Stanford titles are STANFORD available as e-books: UNIVERSITY PRESS www.sup.org/ebooks 800.621.2736 www.sup.org JEWISH REVIEW OF BOOKS JEWISH REVIEW Volume 6, Number 4 Winter 2016 OF BOOKS www.jewishreviewofbooks.com LETTERS 4 JTS, American Judaism, and Conditional Synagogues FEATURES 5 Elli Fischer Why I Defy the Israeli Chief Rabbinate Everyone knows that the Israeli Chief Rabbinate is ofen capricious, needlessly adversarial, and hopelessly bureaucratic. Actually, it’s worse than that. It can’t be abolished any time soon, but its power should be radically diminished. 9 Matti Friedman A Walk in Jerusalem Jews and Arabs live separately and are rarely friends, but they deal with each other constantly. Te city can’t function otherwise. A walk in the Old City under a cloud of unease. REVIEWS 11 Allan Arkush Oh, the Humanity! Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind CZ:VWBM/PBI)BSBSJt Human Nature & Jewish Tought: Judaism’s Case for Why Persons Matter by Alan L. Mittleman 14 Alan Mintz Reader, I Adopted Him Ha-almah mi-Kazan (Lady of Kazan) by Maya Arad 18 Michah Gottlieb Re-Intoxicated by God Spinoza’s Metaphysics: Substance and Tought by Yitzhak Y. Melamed 22 Amy Newman Smith Water Shall Flow from Jerusalem Let Tere Be Water: Israel’s Solution for a Water-Starved World by Seth M. Siegel 24 Jay Lefkowitz Shifting Daylight Doomed to Succeed: Te U.S.-Israel Relationship from Truman to Obama by Dennis Ross READINGS & REFLECTIONS 27 Julian Sinclair Not by the Rivers of Babylon It turns out that Israel sits on a “saddle point” between four weather systems. Te rabbis of the Talmud didn’t know that, but they did have some interesting things to say about rain. 29 Menahem Milson Sadat in Jerusalem: Behind the Scenes Te outcome of Anwar Sadat’s 1977 visit to Israel was historic, but the backstage wrangling over protocol and Palestinian participation was also signifcant. 31 Walter La q u e u r Remembering the Scholems New books about Gershom Scholem and his brother Werner evoke memories of 28 Abarbanel Street in Jerusalem. LOST & FOUND 35 Vladimir Jabotinsky Your Time Is Up: Jabotinsky at the Sixth Zionist Congress Te young Jabotinsky didn’t exactly take the Sixth Zionist Congress by storm. When he approached Chaim Weizmann, saying, “I hope I am not intruding,” Weizmann replied, “You are.” A newly discovered text, edited by Brian Horowitz and Leonid Katsis. THE ARTS 37 Stuart Schoffman Robert Capa's Road to Jerusalem Robert Capa: Photographer of Life curated by Raz Samirat$BQBJO$PMPS edited by Cynthia Young 43 Shoshana Olidort A Harem of Translators Te Muses of Bashevis Singer directed by Shaul Betser and Asaf Galay 45 Michael Weingrad A Cipher and His Songs Chayav melei shir: sipuro shel Avraham Half (Life of Poetry: Te Story of Avraham Half) directed by Uri Misgav 45 Avraham Halfi Two Poems translated by Leon Wieseltier LAST WORD 47 Abraham Socher A Party in Boisk On the cover: Smile by Mark Anderson. LETTERS JTS and American Judaism theology is infnitely more vast and diverse than the vative Judaism, of course, but the issues are distinct. Shame on Rabbi Gordis, and shame on the editors competing visions of a Jewish state in the 20th century. Sunshine confates them. for accepting another lament about Conservative Rabbi Solomon Spiro Solomon Spiro ofers memories of Professor Judaism (“Tradition, Creativity, and Cognitive Dis- via jewishreviewofooks.com Lieberman’s kindness as a teacher as proof that I sonance,” Fall 2015) devoid of any positive sugges- judged Lieberman too harshly. I readily stipulate tions or recognition that there are some glowing I was a rabbinical student at Te Jewish Teologi- that Professor Lieberman had good days. However, embers of hope that might be fanned into fame. cal Seminary in the 1950s, the golden age of Jewish in the very same 1948 Rabbinical Assembly address Rabbi Gordis tells us that Conservative Juda- scholarship that Daniel Gordis describes so accu- that Rabbi Spiro quotes, Lieberman responded to ism “did not achieve [its] fundamental goal . the rately in his article “Tradition, Creativity, and Cog- his students’ Siyyum Ha-Shas by saying, “It was creation of a modern yet halakhically committed nitive Dissonance.” I too was puzzled by the readi- indeed gratifying to . hear the Hadran of Rabbi laity.” He tells us that Conservative Judaism lacks ness of so many American Jews to claim the label Abrams. I’m convinced that he has studied at least the “cognitive dissonance” and is “devoid of the rau- of Conservative Judaism despite their reluctance to one tractate of the Talmud.” cousness” that is needed to be a creative movement. accept the halakhic lifestyle that the Seminary fac- Tat gratuitous humiliation of a student in pub- Perhaps there was some validity to this viewpoint ulty attached to that name. lic was classic Lieberman. Most stunning is that he in past decades, but Gordis seems oblivious to the did not get the comment stricken from the pub- ideological ferment that has gripped the movement lished record. He simply felt no remorse. Tat at- over the past two decades. We’ve hotly debated and titude contributed in no small way to the venomous eventually embraced a more equal role for women. atmosphere at JTS, which so many of its students Now, similar debates and a similar evolution of were understandably desperate to fee. Interested views are occurring regarding gays. Jewish educa- readers can fnd the entire address in Judah Goldin’s tional practices and curricula have evolved drasti- classic anthology, Te Jewish Expression. Lieber- cally in our religious and day schools. man’s relationship with Abraham Joshua Heschel is Tere is also great progress in Israel. Rediscov- also, unfortunately, a matter of historical record. ery of the value of teaching Jewish “tradition” in the Quantifying the intellectual breadth of any feld public schools, the tremendous growth of the TALI is obviously difcult, but Spiro sells Zionism’s intel- school movement, the growth of enrollment in non- lectual richness short. Zionism was home to statists orthodox adult education courses such as those and non-statists; communists, socialists, and capi- sponsored by the Schechter Institute, and the de- talists; those who saw in Zionism an opportunity to velopment of an indigenous Masorti leadership and write a new chapter of Jewish history and those who membership are all positive signs for the movement. sought to leave Jewish history and Judaism utterly If Rabbi Gordis really wishes to help the Jewish behind; those who believed coexistence with the enterprise, he must move beyond criticism, recog- Arabs possible and those who predicted that Jewish nize and encourage positive eforts already in place, Today, afer several decades of serving a typi- sovereignty would provoke a confict with no end; and devote more space in his essays to suggesting cal suburban Conservative congregation, I think those who saw Zionism as a fundamentally intellec- paths for improvement.