Reviews and News:

"The New York Times published an article last week titled 'Is God Transgender,' and to answer that question we must at least get facts right. Rabbi Mark Sameth, the author, should know his historical Hebrew orthography better, certainly before making claims on biblical texts in The New York Times."

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New York, a city of Loyalists and Copperheads.

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A history of the Hudson.

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Burke in an age of Trump.

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In Case You Missed It:

There may be some artists who create good work that is also political, but Arthur Miller is not one of them.

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A history of the ellipsis: "A scholar of medieval manuscripts, David Wakelin, conducted a study on how popular various methods of omission and correction were based on a sample of 9,000 manuscripts at the Huntington Library. He found that 'crossing out, subpuncting, or erasure' accounted for 25% of the corrections he found. He does not provide a percentage of subpuncting alone, but it does occur in a variety of manuscripts, particularly those in the 14th and 15th centuries. Wakelin notes that subpuncting begins to die out in the early 16th century, and [Anne] Toner picks up on the rise of the ellipsis in the late 16th century. Could the two be related?"

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Mark Roseman reviews David Cesarani's last book: "Final Solution should have been just another milestone in David Cesarani's remarkable oeuvre – a body of work in Jewish history broadly defined that has included a biography of Disraeli, a provocative reinterpretation of Arthur Koestler, a lucid synthesis of scholarship on Adolf Eichmann's role and significance, important and influential interventions in the historiography of bystanders, rescue and early post-war Holocaust memory, and more. Shortly before this book was completed, however, the author died unexpectedly at fifty-eight. Cesarani's poignant final words in the conclusion – he was summing up the continuing consequences of the Holocaust – are: 'There would be much unfinished business'. This splendid book will serve as a fitting end to his career, but it is an enormous loss that it should have to do so."

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In The New Atlantis, Jacob Hoerger argues that increasing artificial illumination not only has a negative effect on animal life, it also limits our moral imagination

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Classic Essay: José Ortega y Gasset, "The Revolt of the Masses"

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Interview: Bill Kristol talks with Paul Cantor about literature and liberty.

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