Category Archives: uncategorized

Modern Almohads deface an icon with a symbol in Cordoba, Spain. You can read about this assault on Jewish cultural memory and image of human dignity here. According to Ynet, “The monument was created in 1964 by Spanish sculptor Amadeo … Continue reading →

How to Talk to a Cat: Buber, Philosophy, and Dialogue with Unspeaking Things (Prepared by and with permission of the author and Indiana University Press) PROMO code below CONTENTS Introduction: Dialogue and the Maintenance of Domestic Bubbles  1. Homes: Domesticity … Continue reading →

Walter Benjamin made the New Angel into an intellectual icon. The Angel Applicant by Paul Klee from 1939 is a different creature with nothing messianic about him. His eyes are downcast and blackened, looking at nothing past his own misery … Continue reading →

TOC + TRANSLATION Netzaḥ Yisrael (1588/1589) by the Maharal of Prague Themed for the fast day of Tisha b’Av is themed on place and time, the world of non-existence, the exile of Israel, and the coming of the Messiah, The … Continue reading →

From 1905, the Hero with the Wing is satire for our time. Now at the Jewish Museum in New York, he is resolute, set to fly, but unable to do so. Bad things are about to happen.

“I cannot be grasped in the here and now. For my dwelling place is as much among the dead as the yet unborn. Slightly closer to the hear of creation than usual. But not nearly close enough” –Paul Klee, catalogue … Continue reading →

[I found these words at Panarchy by David Ben-Gurion about Palestine, and wanted to share them at this particular moment in the history of Israel and Palestine. In their own way, they are today utterly strange. From a long time … Continue reading →

TORAH PHARMAKON: DRUG OF LIFE/DRUG OF DEATH YOMA 72b אִלְמָלֵא בִּגְדֵי כְהוּנָּה, לֹא נִשְׁתַּיֵּיר מִשּׂוֹנְאֵיהֶן שֶׁל יִשְׂרָאֵל שָׂרִיד וּפָלִיט. He offers a homiletic interpretation: Were it not for the priestly vestments, which provide atonement for the Jewish people, there would … Continue reading →