Spring 2024

“Why would you want to live in Israel?” Irving Howe asked me, his voice rising in bemusement. It was 1981, and we were at Leo’s Coffee Shop on Madison Avenue near 86th Street. I was two years out of Sarah …

The mantra of the current Israeli government that Jerusalem is “the eternal, undivided capital of the Jewish people” does nothing to resolve the stalemate over the city’s status. Nor does saying these words make Jerusalem truly undivided. The truth is …

Israeli politics is an excellent example of why term limits can be a good thing. In a country where losing consecutive elections for decades doesn’t cost politicians their party leadership, let alone their ability to serve as government ministers or …

If timing is everything, one can imagine how pleased Günter Grass’s publishers were to have the Nobel Prize for Literature announced during the Frankfurt Book Fair this past October, where Grass was an honored participant. But there was a greater …

In the summer of 1989, when Slobodan Milosevic withdrew Kosovo’s political autonomy, I was across Yugoslavia on an achingly beautiful Dalmatian island, in search of a Herald Tribune. Let me explain. Ten years ago, a trip to the island of …

There’s scaffolding around the Anne Frank House on the Prinsengracht Canal in Amsterdam, the main thoroughfare in the now-trendy Jordaan section. A brochure you receive upon entering explains that the back annex needs a thorough restoration because of foot traffic …