You’d think that despair and anger about social injustice, deadly diseases and natural calamities would be the primary drivers for donations to charity. But these feelings only represent half of the story. While it is true that we are more likely to give if we are aware of needs (increased media coverage about earthquakes, for…
I was on the plane home from our summer vacation when I saw something disturbing. After landing, the lady across the aisle from me began throwing up into a plastic bag. Fine, so she gets sick from turbulence. The disturbing part was how her husband responded: he didn’t. While she sat hunched over her bag,…
Freud’s Sister By Goce Smilevski Penguin Books, 272 pages, $16 There is an old maxim that great men are seldom good men. Perhaps no figure of note invites speculation on this question so much as Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis. Perhaps because of the enormous changes Freud wrought in human self-perception (even the title…
The Pursuit of the Nazi Mind: Hitler, Hess, and the Analysts By Daniel Pick Oxford University Press, 368 pages, $35 More than 20 years ago, Neal Gabler declared that Hollywood was the creation of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. In his remarkable book “An Empire of Their Own,” Gabler in fact suggested that the Meyers…
Are Jews more anxious because we believe in a vengeful God? A new study suggests that might be the case. “Researchers at Harvard-affiliated McLean Hospital have found that those who believe in a benevolent God tend to worry less and be more tolerant of life’s uncertainties than those who believe in an indifferent or punishing…
100% of profits support our journalism
