By Zackary Sholem Berger
There are many bilingual Jewish books in which the two languages are dependent on each other. The Gemara is a mostly Aramaic reworking of the Hebrew-language Mishnah. The stories of Reb Nachman of Breslov were told in Yiddish, but their first written versions were in Hebrew. The majority of Isaac Bashevis Singer’s work is now best known not in the original Yiddish, but in the English into which Singer reworked his stories.
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By Zackary Sholem Berger
Hilary Putnam is one of the 20th century’s most influential philosophers, known worldwide for his many contributions to diverse areas of philosophy, from ethics to philosophy of mind to the relationship between science and the real world. Equally well known among his peers is his willingness to revise and reflect on his own beliefs.
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By Zackary Sholem Berger
In 1941, the Jews of Vilna were herded into a ghetto. By 1943, most of the Jews in this ghetto were killed, despite the armed resistance of a few.
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By Zackary Sholem Berger
Jerome Groopman is a physician and clinical scientist at Harvard, a specialist in AIDS and cancer. He’s also a writer for The New Yorker, with a successful and thought-provoking series of books on such topics as the intersection of spirituality and medicine and the importance of a physician’s intuition. His new book “How Doctors Think” asks the question: Why do doctors make mistakes, and how can we keep them from happening? Zackary Sholem Berger asked him about Judaism, medicine and the doctor-patient partnership.Read More
By Zackary Sholem Berger
Mordkhe Schaechter, a linguist, lexicographer and rebbe of secular Yiddishists, died February 15. He was 79.Read More
