Each month, our arts critics — music, book, theater, dance, and visual arts — fire off a few brief reviews.
Harvey Blume
Film Review: “The Rabbi Goes West” — Jews Coddled in Big Sky Country
This is a film for another moment in time, an imaginary if not necessarily utopian moment when being Jewish is less roiled and bedeviled from within and without.
Book Interview: The Late Harold Bloom Talks Religion
Literary critic Harold Bloom passed away at the age of 89 two days ago; here’s an illuminating interview with Bloom from 2005.
Film Commentary: A Critical Dichotomy — Time to Resolve It
It’s as if critics of silent films were barred from discussing talkies, or devotees of black and white were banned from discussing color.
Book Commentary: Portnoy’s Revenge
There’s something Shakespearian about the grasp of Philip Roth’s fiction.
Feature: Favorite Books of 2017
Some of our critics talk about the books that meant the most to them over the past year.
Best Books: Notable Volumes, For Better or Worse, in 2015
Our demanding critics supply lists of books that piqued their interest this of the year.
Book Review: An Evocative Biography of Zionist Agitator and Writer Vladmir Jabotinsky
There’s room to wonder if Vladmir Jabotinsky would have accepted Menachem Begin, Ariel Sharon and Benjamin Netanyahu as his legitimate Zionist heirs.
Book Review: Russia’s “Vodka Politics” — An Inseparable Duo
What about today? Has Russia finally hit bottom and recovered? Is the political economy of vodka a thing of the past?
TV Review: Simon Schama Tells His “Story of the Jews”
Simon Schama just can’t stop going on about religion and the extra-special Jewish feel for beauty that has, to his mind, kept Judaism vibrant and intact through the ages.