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Current Issue 2008-09 || 2007 Issue || 2005-06 Issue || 2001, 2003 Issues
Current Issue 2008-09
Contemplate, an annual collection of secular Jewish writing from around the world, is published by the Center for Cultural Judaism. Past issues have featured essays, reviews, and interviews with a host of scholars and authors, from Amos Oz and Robert Pinsky to Grace Paley, Rebecca Goldstein, Jonathan Sarna, and A.B. Yehoshua.
To purchase the most recent issue of Contemplate, click here.
NOT IN THE HEAVENS: THE PREMODERN ROOTS OF JEWISH SECULARISM
David Biale
Historian David Biale traces the intellectual origins of Jewish secularism back to premodern times.
THE PERFECTIONIST: AN INTERVIEW WITH PLAYWRIGHT TONY KUSHNER
Interviewed by Jesse Tisch
In this wide-ranging interview, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright discusses Jewishness, why he's a Jewish writer, and whether age has tempered his radicalism.
S. ANSKY: PROPHET OF MODERNISM
Brian Horowitz
Scholar Brian Horowitz reviews a recent volume about the writer, ethnographer, and freethinker S. Ansky.
ON JEWISH CULTURE AND JEWISH SECULARISM
Yehuda Bauer
Jewish civilization has always included religion — but is not limited to religion, argues esteemed Israeli scholar Yehuda Bauer.
YIDDISHKAYT IN AMERICA
Irena Klepfisz
Poet, translator, and college professor Irena Klepfisz explains why her secular Jewish identity — and her "entire intellectual growth" — were bound up in Yiddish.
CRISIS AND PERSPECTIVES IN SECULAR JUDAISM
Bernardo Sorj
Brazilian scholar Bernardo Sorj assesses the current state of secular Judaism — and offers a prescription for its future.
BEYOND BELIEF: AN INTERVIEW WITH JOURNALIST NATALIE ANGIER
Interviewed by Jesse Tisch
Angier, a Pulitzer Prize-winning science reporter for the New York Times, discusses secularism, science writing, and why her "hair-trigger" sense of humor has gotten her into trouble.
THE SECULAR CONSCIENCE
Austin Dacey
Austin Dacey, a philosopher and public intellectual, lauds secularism's rich legacy, and offers a recipe for its renewal, in this excerpt from The Secular Conscience.
PASSOVER, MOSES, & GOD IN SECULAR JUDAISM
Yaakov Malkin
"Ours is a traditional Jewish family," writes Israeli scholar Yaakov Malkin. "My father and his father were atheists."
PURELY SECULAR, THOROUGHLY JEWISH
Tony Michels
Scholar Tony Michels disinters the early history of the Arbeter Ring/Workmen's Circle, an organization that was — per Michels' astute title — purely secular and thoroughly Jewish.
AMBIVALENCE AND IDENTITY IN RUSSIAN JEWISH CINEMA
Olga Gershenson
Russian scholar Olga Gershenson explores how Russian Jewish identity — largely a matter of ethnicity (natsionalnost) — has been represented through a specific medium: Russian cinema.
YIDDISH CULTURE, JEWISH VALUES AND SOCIAL JUSTICE
POETRY by Ruth Knafo Setton
THE LOSS OF CERTAINTY
QUEEN OF THE AIR
WHEN GOD YELLED AT ME
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
CONTEMPLATE ISSUE FIVE ART CREDITS
The 2008-09 Contemplate's designer is Dorit Tabak.
Photography
Florence B. Schweitzer
pp: 13-19, 51-55,
From the private collection of Peter H. Schweitzer
William E. Sauro/The New York Times/Redux, p. 23
Illustration
Engravings from early Hebrew-German Bible, pp: 28-32
From the private collection of Peter H. Schweitzer
Marc Chagall/Jupiter Images, pp: 25-27
The Workmen’s Circle/Arbeter Ring, pp: 63-71
Design for “Purely Secular, Thoroughly Jewish” by Myrna Baron
With special thanks to Peter H. Schweitzer and the Workmen’s Circle/Arbeter Ring for their assistance.
We gratefully acknowledge The Posen Foundation for its continued generous support of this journal.
www.PosenFoundation.com
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