Book Reviews

One cannot fathom the effect of this siddur until one actually prays with it. At first glance, the main innovation is immediately recognizable– stunningly beautiful photographs accompanying each prayer on almost every page. The deep relevance of these photos will grip even the skeptic who has years-long familiarity with the Shabbat prayers. Each photograph serves […]

When my second daughter was born, a group of Jewish husbands in the hospital wanted to name their daughters immediately. So they left their wives and newborn daughters and trekked to a small local synagogue. It was a synagogue they had never set foot in before and would never set foot in again, a synagogue

Elizabeth Shanks Alexander, an associate professor of religious studies at the University of Virginia, has written a breakthrough study on the issue of women and timebound commandments. An academic study, the book focuses in depth on the Tannaitic and Amoraic sources related to this topic. As such, it is a multilayered, complex work that demands

Just as the title suggests, this book is far more than a cookbook—it is a personal memory book, trying to capture through recipes the flavor of traditional Jewish life in prewar Hungary. The book began as an attempt to complete two unfinished projects of the author’s parents— her mother’s recipe collection and her father’s autobiography.