Fathom – Judaism

Book Review | Judaism Straight Up, Why Real Religion Endures

By Daniel Goldman
Professor Moshe Koppel is the founder and executive chairman of Forum Kohelet, an influential think tank instrumental in... Read more > March 2021

Why Memmi Matters

By Susie Linfield
Albert Memmi, who died recently, was a Jew, an Arab, a Zionist, an anti-colonialist, a secularist, a socialist,... Read more > June 2020

Interfaith on Campus: lessons of the St Andrews Coexistence Initiative

By Joel Salmon
St Andrews is an institution consistently placed in the top three universities in the UK. Over 600 years... Read more > Summer 2015

Anti-Judaism, Anti-Zionism, Antisemitism

By Eve Garrard
An edited speech given by Eve Garrard, Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Philosophy at the University... Read more > Winter 2015

By Gadi Taub
Gadi Taub is a prominent Israeli historian, author, screenwriter, political commentator and Senior Lecturer in the School Public Policy and the Department of Communications... Read more > Autumn 2014

A new Tikva for all Israelis

By Benjamin Pogrund
Benjamin Pogrund argues that revising the national anthem could be an important symbolic step towards achieving the integration... Read more > Autumn 2014

Sami Michael: The Discreet Ironist of Israeli Literature

By Noga Emanuel
The Israeli novelist Sami Michael evolved from an Iraqi Jewish communist writing in his native Arabic language to... Read more > Autumn 2014

Saving the Promised Land: Alan Johnson interviews Ari Shavit

By Ari Shavit
Ari Shavit’s My Promised Land: The Triumph and the Tragedy of Israel is one of the most talked... Read more > Spring 2014

Jerusalem Solitudes in Early Hebrew Literature

By Noga Emanuel
As the spiritual bedrock of Judaism, Jerusalem had been a magnet for millennial longing. For centuries Jews intensely... Read more > Spring 2014

The Philosophy behind ‘BDS’: a review of ‘Deconstructing Zionism: A Critique of Political Metaphysics’

By Gabriel Noah Brahm
What is one to make of a volume of specialised essays in contemporary philosophy – a compilation including... Read more > Spring 2014

East meets West in film

By Yair Raveh
It is not only in politics and the street that Israel’s ethnic tensions surface. Our film reviewer Yair... Read more > Spring 2014

Book Review: My Promised Land: The Triumph and the Tragedy of Israel

By Hannah Weisfeld
As a British Jew reading Ari Shavit’s account of modern day Israel, his starting point feels particularly poignant.... Read more > Spring 2014

Finding the Words: a review essay

By Liam Hoare
Books under review: Falling Out of Time David Grossman, Jonathan Cape, 2014, pp.208; Neuland, Eshkol Nevo, Chatto &... Read more > Spring 2014

Book Review: Theodor Herzl and the Foundation of the Jewish State

By Colin Shindler
In his autobiography, Chaim Weizmann commented that Theodor Herzl was ‘not of the people’ despite being an inspiring... Read more > Winter 2014

Revisiting Isaac Deutscher

By Martyn Hudson
The Polish historian and socialist Isaac Deutscher coined the term ‘the non-Jewish Jew’ to celebrate the tradition of... Read more > Winter 2014

Holocaust Inversion and contemporary antisemitism

By Lesley Klaff
One of the cruellest aspects of the new antisemitism is its perverse use of the Holocaust as a... Read more > Winter 2014

Book Review: Emma Goldman: Revolution as a Way of Life

By Peter Ryley
The inclusion of the anarchist Emma Goldman in the Yale University Press Jewish Lives series is to be... Read more > Winter 2014

Do look back: Lou Reed’s Jewish soul music

By Steven Lee Beeber
When I was writing my book about the Jewish origins of punk, The Heebie-Jeebies at CBGB’s, I referred... Read more > Winter 2014

Book Review: The Invention of the Land of Israel

By Israel Bartal
Shlomo Sand’s political treatise, The Invention of the Land of Israel, is another link in his larger project... Read more > Autumn 2013

Christianophobia: an interview with Rupert Shortt

By Rupert Shortt
Rupert Shortt is the author of Christianophobia: A Faith Under Attack and religion editor of the Times Literary... Read more > Autumn 2013

Restoring our glorious tradition

By Dov Lipman
The growing size of the ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) population, and its self-imposed isolation from the worlds of military service... Read more > Autumn 2013

Women, the Wall and the Struggle for Jewish Pluralism in Israel

By Noa Sattath
Women of the Wall has been challenging Orthodox religious authorities for over 25 years by praying at the... Read more > Autumn 2013

Book Review: Moses Mendelssohn

By Robert Fine
Shmuel Feiner’s fine biography of Moses Mendelssohn shows us just how radical was the very ‘German’ moderation of... Read more > Summer 2013

The Jewish Political Tradition: an interview with Michael Walzer

By Michael Walzer
Political thinker Michael Walzer and Fathom editor Alan Johnson discuss The Jewish Political Tradition, the ambitious multi-volume series... Read more > Summer 2013

A new vision for Jerusalem

By Meir Kraus
The Arab League decision to create a $1bn fund to ‘maintain the Arab and Islamic character’ of Jerusalem... Read more > Summer 2013

Book Review: Israel and the European Left

By Ezra Mendelsohn
Shindler offers a valuable account of the rise and rise of anti-Zionism within the European Left. At the... Read more > Winter 2013