Tablet Magazine

1 week ago | tabletmag.com | Lee Smith

Joe Rogan’s podcast yesterday featuring Douglas Murray and Dave Smith talking about the Middle East conflict (among other topics) failed to move the needle in either direction—at least not on any of the subjects the “debate” was purportedly about. The pro-Israel camp was unmoved by Smith’s emotional petitions on behalf of Palestinian civilians.

1 week ago | tabletmag.com | Liel Leibovitz

Earlier this year, Israel’s Ministry for Diaspora Affairs announced it will kick off 2025 by investing $4 million in Project Aleph Bet, a new initiative designed to boost enrollment inJewish day schools in the United States. The original sum, officials said, was supposed to be larger, but more than a year of war and hundreds of thousands of displaced citizens led to budgetary constraints. And yet, the government decided to proceed with the initiative.

1 week ago | tabletmag.com | Sheluyang Peng

“Where’s the Semen?” Such was the provocative question headline posed by Jesse Tisch in this magazine’s review of the then-forthcoming Philip Roth: The Biography. The biographer in question was Blake Bailey, who had honed his writer-writing-about-writers skills by penning biographies of the writers Richard Yates, John Cheever, and Charles Jackson. Bailey had extensively interviewed Roth and had exclusive access to the Roth archives.

2 weeks ago | tabletmag.com | Michael Doran

When Donald Trump returned to office in January 2025, he moved fast. Within days, he had reinstated sweeping sanctions on Iran’s oil exports, financial institutions, and entities linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). On February 9, Benjamin Netanyahu became the first foreign leader to meet with Trump at the White House. The Israeli leader urged decisive action against Iran’s nuclear program. Tehran, he argued, was weaker than it had been in years. Now was the time to break its back.

2 weeks ago | tabletmag.com | Park MacDougald

Early Monday, markets appeared to be continuing their rout in response to Donald Trump’s sweeping Liberation Day tariffs. By midmorning, the S&P 500 had posted its worst three-day performance since the “Black Monday” crash of 1987, and both it and the tech-heavy NASDAQ fell into bear-market territory following double-digit declines last week. The carnage was even worse in Asia, where several markets suspended trading Monday morning as massive sell-offs triggered circuit breakers.