Kate Elinsky

Nov 30, 2023 | jewishreviewofbooks.com | Elli Fischer |Kate Elinsky

In the first two installments of this series, we saw how Rabbi Ovadia Yosef permitted the exchange of imprisoned terrorists for hostages, despite the possibility, even likelihood, that the released terrorists would harm or kill further innocent victims. In the next part of the responsum, Rabbi Yosef discusses such an exchange under the rubric of pidyon shevuyim (the redemption or ransom of captives).

Apr 17, 2023 | jewishreviewofbooks.com | Daniel Schwartz |Kate Elinsky |Moshe Rosman |Shai Secunda

“Only a short ride away, yet seemingly centuries back in time, is a Hassidic ‘shtetl,’ where the orthodox Jewish population still tries to live as it did before the Holocaust.” So claimed USA Bike Tours in a description last year of its guided tour “The Delights of Brooklyn,” describing the Satmar community of Williamsburg.

Apr 17, 2023 | jewishreviewofbooks.com | Shay Rabineau |Kate Elinsky |Shai Secunda

“Why are you here?” the Jordanian army officer asked. It was a good question. Why had two American backpackers gone to one of the poorest and least-visited parts of Jordan, and then walked through an absolutely uninteresting agricultural area south of the Dead Sea, and proceeded to make their way straight to the front entrance of a military base whose location was not shown on any maps, and which guarded the approach to the Israeli border? “I’m writing a book,” I said.

Apr 17, 2023 | jewishreviewofbooks.com | Sarah Stein |Kate Elinsky |Aron Rodrigue |Natan Sharansky

Kantika: A Novel Metropolitan Books 304 pp., $27.99 For well over a century, the coming-of-age novel has been central to modern Ashkenazi literature in several languages. Anzia Yezierska’s Bread Givers told the story of the perilous climb of immigrant sisters through poverty and patriarchy on Hester Street.

Apr 17, 2023 | jewishreviewofbooks.com | Kate Elinsky |Simcha Gross |Shai Secunda |Meir Buzaglo

Kedei she-haMelach Yitpazer 'al ha-Ahava (Rub Salt into Love) Hakibbutz Hameuchad 91 pp., 74 NIS In his new collection, Rub Salt into Love, the Israeli poet Almog Behar writes of the tumultuous movement between Hebrew and Arabic in his family history, inner world, and his life as a writer: This stanza from the poem “The Babies in the Refugee Caravans” was originally composed in Hebrew and Arabic, with the Arabic written in Hebrew letters, presumably for the sake of readers unschooled in...