Crossposted From Under the Fig Tree What a difference a year makes. Last autumn, New York City was all agog at the prospect of “Sukkah City” taking root in Union Square Park. Eleven different designs of an outdoor hut, the fruits of an international design competition, were scattered around the perimeter of the park, drawing…
Crossposted From Under the Fig Tree There seems to be no end to the writing of history books. Kindles, Nooks and the corner bookshops are thick with them. So numerous are brand new histories of this, that and the other thing that they threaten to crowd out and supplant the work of previous generations. But…
Crossposted From Under the Fig Tree When Alexis de Tocqueville traveled around America in the 1830s, what most impressed him was the nation’s penchant for sociability. “Americans of all ages, all conditions, and all dispositions constantly form associations… religious, moral, serious, futile, general or restricted, enormous or diminutive,” he wrote bemusedly. “The Americans make associations…
Crossposted From Under the Fig Tree Like so many Americans, I was not quite sure how to mark the 10th anniversary of 9/11. Listening to Barber’s Adagio for Strings was one option; attending to the Times’ commemorative edition was another and watching television coverage of the day’s events was a third. But none of these…
Crossposted From Under the Fig Tree In the American Jewish imagination, the curiously named neighborhood known as East New York, Brooklyn, along with that of adjacent Brownsville, are most often associated with the nefarious activities of Murder, Inc. From its headquarters in a candy store at the intersection of Livonia and Saratoga Streets, this Brooklyn…
Crossposted From Under the Fig Tree I’ve been called many things in my day: Jocelyn, Jennifer, Jen, Joselit Weissman and on occasion (and hopefully in jest) even Gender Weissman Joselit, a name designed to highlight my stalwart embrace of feminism in matters large and small. Little wonder, then, that I sympathize with the fate that…
A few days ago, I was in the process of retrieving my book bag from the trunk of a colleague’s car when the hood of the trunk came down suddenly and swiftly on my head, leaving me momentarily stunned. Like the characters in countless cartoons, I saw stars. The stars, in turn, gave way to…
Crossposted From Under the Fig Tree M.A.s are the new B.A.s, The New York Times declared just the other day in its latest survey of goings-on within the world of higher education. The road to marketability is paved with lots of new master’s programs, it noted, singling out Rutgers’ recent decision to establish an M.A….
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