Why a Government Victory in Southwestern Syria Is Bad News for Israel
Squashing the rebellion where it began.
September 17, 2021
A British Writer’s Exploration of Her Jewish Past, Catholic Present—and the Eichmann Trial
Muriel Spark in Jerusalem.
Born to an Anglican mother and a Jewish father, the acclaimed British novelist Muriel Spark converted to Catholicism at the age of thirty-six. Seven years later, in 1961, Spark found herself in Jerusalem covering the trial of Adolf Eichmann for the London Observer. That experience would in turn become the basis for her novel The Mandelbaum Gate, which has as its protagonist a Catholic Briton of mixed Jewish and Christian ancestry, named Barbara, visiting the capital of the Jewish state. Calling the book both Spark’s “most ambitious” and her “most disappointing,” Christopher Scalia nonetheless finds in it moments of profundity:
September 17, 2021
How the Field of Middle Eastern Studies Made Itself Irrelevant
Ivory towers, still stuck in the sand.
Maimonides’ Son’s Long-Forgotten Commentary, and the Quixotic Scholar Who Made It Available
Moshe Maimon combines ḥaredi sensibilities, vast knowledge, and academic rigor.
One Year Later, the Abraham Accords Have Brought an Economic Bonanza to Israel and Its New Gulf Partners
And promise more to come.
A British Writer’s Exploration of Her Jewish Past, Catholic Present—and the Eichmann Trial
Muriel Spark in Jerusalem.