Jewish Review of Books, Vol. 2 No.4
This is not a book review, but a review of reviews. I’ve been looking at the Jewish Review of Books from the sidelines for a while, but on a recent visit to Yeshiva University, I bumped into a former student of mine, Phil Getz, now associate editor, who arranged for me to receive his publication. I haven’t yet seen the Pesach edition (!), but I loved the previous number, marked ‘Winter 2012’. It is large-format, attractively presented and filled with really interesting articles and reviews. The reviews are serious, well-written and the entire publication has a strong sense of Jewish purpose – one of its reviewers attacks a book on Jewish identity as ‘bloodless and noncommittal’. Yet it retains an excellent balance, and includes an array of reviews covering a whole range of works – academic, religious, historical and political. A real landscape-changer for serious lovers of books with a Jewish theme.