Some time ago, in an impatient review of Fiddler on the Roof, Irving wrote that the people who, one by one, made up Yiddish civilization in Eastern Europe were to be mourned—not with sentimental homage—but rather with “dignified silence.” We …
Not long ago, my seniors’ writing class at MIT considered the essay of one student—a kind, strapping fellow: no fool—on a political subject of his choice, of all things, the virtues of prostitution. Well, not the virtues of it, exactly, …
If we judge by technical virtuousity then these are the best of times. But if the times make us willing to judge by technical virtuousity then they are the worst of times. Touring the country now, playing with full orchestra …
In 1963, the young editor of Commentary, Norman Podhoretz, astonished his readers by appealing for “the wholesale merging of the races in the United States”—ending racism through “miscegenation.” His article, “My Negro Problem—and Ours,” seemed the more remarkable since, to …
Israeli Jews assume diplomacy to be less the art of the possible than the ritual forestalling of disaster. This is, I suppose, a subtle distinction. Still, it helps to account for Israelis’ earnest celebration of the Camp David agreement despite …
Mr. President, the roots of the Palestinian question reach back into the closing years of the 19th century, to that period we call the era of colonialism. . . . This is precisely the period during which Zionism was born; …
