Mosaic Magazine

07/22/2025

By the 1500s, centers of Jewish publishing began to emerge, but wouldn't come to Berlin until the 1690s. Marvin Heller tells the story of Daniel Ernst Jablonski, a Protestant minister and court preacher, who founded the city's first Hebrew printing press.

https://mosaicmagazine.com/picks/history-ideas/2025/07/the-pastor-who-founded-berlins-first-hebrew-printing-press/

07/21/2025

Richard Kreitner writes about the the career and death of Jacob Joseph, NYC's first, and last, chief rabbi whose funeral sparked a violent anti-Semitic riot. The Jewish community's assertive response is a lesson we could use, today.

https://mosaicmagazine.com/picks/history-ideas/2025/07/the-career-and-death-of-new-yorks-first-and-last-chief-rabbi/

07/21/2025

A pro-Israel American Jew, Jonathan Torop, looks across 40 years of shifting narratives, from Said to Arafat to today, centered on the day he found himself standing next to Yasser Arafat, architect of endless troubles.

https://mosaicmagazine.com/picks/history-ideas/2025/07/truth-narratives-and-the-middle-east/

07/21/2025

As some degree of calm reaches Suwayda, where fighting led to many dead and reports of atrocities against Druze citizens, Andrew Fox judges what the chaos says about the regime of Ahmed al-Sharaa, and John Spencer judges what is says about Israel.

https://mosaicmagazine.com/picks/israel-zionism/2025/07/israels-strategy-in-syria/

07/21/2025

Does Hamas have a split between "moderates" and "hardliners?" Ehud Yaari argues that Hamas has competing, loosely defined factions led by Khaled Meshal Khalil al-Hayya. In the end, both desire to see Israel destroyed, so moderate might be a relative term.

https://mosaicmagazine.com/picks/politics-current-affairs/2025/07/the-internal-hamas-squabbles-that-are-making-negotiations-harder/

07/18/2025

As we approach the Ninth of Av, or Tisha b'Av, the Jewish people mourn together.
But how can a person remember an event that he or she never experienced?
This week we share the first episode of R. J.J. Schacter's course on the Jewish Meaning of Memory.

What does it mean to remember the destruction of the Temples?

07/18/2025

With the Iranian nuclear program damaged, and its regional influence diminished, the US must now keep it from recovering, and, ideally, hasten its demise. Benjamin Baird argues that it can do both through economic means—if Congress does its part.

https://mosaicmagazine.com/picks/politics-current-affairs/2025/07/how-congress-can-finish-off-iran/

07/17/2025

Tucker Carlson regularly demonizes the Jews and lionizes America's enemies, representing a growing slice of the American right no longer confined to the fever swamps. Rebeccah Heinrichs examines Carlson's anti-Americanism, which she dubs the 1939 Project.

https://mosaicmagazine.com/picks/politics-current-affairs/2025/07/rightwing-anti-semites-seek-to-undermine-americas-moral-authority-on-the-world-stage-rebecca-heinrichs/

07/17/2025

Israel is working with the PA to impose some order on areas the IDF has seized from Hamas. Yet the PA continues to drive terrorism—and still gets tens of millions yearly from the US. Maurice Hirsch and Rikki Zagelbaum break down the depth of the problem.

And America’s continued support.

07/17/2025

What is going on in Syria? Amit Segal argues the geopolitical import of the Druze as a buffer for Israel and Syria, and Seth Mandel argues the morality of Israeli action to prevent the slaughter of one more Middle Eastern minority.

https://mosaicmagazine.com/picks/israel-zionism/2025/07/israel-rescues-syrias-druze/

07/14/2025

With numerous signs of rising anti-Semitism in the U.S., Jack Miller and Wilfred M. McClay write of the ways in which the American story and the Jewish story have been intertwined, from the Founders' adoption of the Exodus story and through to today.

https://mosaicmagazine.com/picks/history-ideas/2025/07/anti-semitism-is-un-american/

07/14/2025

"Against the backdrop of Hamas–and Western feminist organizations'–denials of mass r**e by Hamas fighters and Gazan civilians," Benny Morris confronts the use of sexual violence to "terrorize communities and assert dominance" by Arab combatants in war.

https://mosaicmagazine.com/picks/politics-current-affairs/2025/07/r**e-and-the-arab-way-of-war/