Category: History

Remembrance, not Recollection

A writer reflects on history as a collective pursuit in his Jewish tradition.

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A Prince at Princeton

In September 1940, Japan’s prime minister, Konoe Fumimaro, concluded the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy, committing the three countries to support each other against the United States in the event of American entry into World War II.

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Kissing Covens: The Gilda Stories as a Manifesto of Radical Black Love

“The horizontal, chosen family works outside of the law — in The Gilda Stories, love is never codified by a wedding, same sex and interracial relationships play out beyond the reach of history, and one can have limitless mothers.”

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The New Garden Theatre

Once a small-town movie house that navigated the local market with bumbling charm, the Garden Theatre has grown into an exhibit of Old Princeton nostalgia under its new management. This is all well and good for Princeton’s polished and intellectual reputation, but I’ll miss the old Garden’s cozy modesty.

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Ghosts of Berggasse 19

“You are buzzed in after a moment, as if you are entering a doctor’s office, as if you are a patient, as if the Freud, whose eyes stare out from the tiers of brochures in the museum’s front room, will tell you in due time what your dreams mean.”

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Loosening the Mother Tongue

“When I learned about the darker history of Zionism, I needed to reverse so much of what I thought to be true while undoing my deepest personal and communal language. Like leaving a cult, my whole world was turned upside down as I tried to gather the pieces of what was once a coherent story.”

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Dylan is the New Dante

“More than anything, Dylan and Dante share an unbroken sense of pity for the ‘ill-begotten souls’ of hell. Both in the position of outsiders looking-in, this subversion of time, space, and reality is what makes hell so mystical, and this carnival of characters is what makes hell so unsettling.”

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From the Nass Past

What were Princeton students writing about thirty years ago? We’re jumping back in time to February, 1993 for some woeful poetry, questionable health advice, and dining hall commentary from our forefathers at the Nass.   Some wisdom for your post-Valentine’s … Read More

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Neighbors with Nazis

Fernand Lépinay is a friend of my grandparents who lives outside of the small town of Laigle in the rainy Orne department of Lower Normandy.

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Living History

Amidst the empty pews and graying hair, she is proof that, while the story she tells may be hidden, it is still very much alive.

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THE PHILOSOPHICAL FIVE (my very objective opinion on the best and worst philosophers of all time)

“Also known as the father of all philosophy (daddy?) Socrates is the original playboy. Everyone, and I mean everyone, fangirls over him.”

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Leon/Levy

Forgiving and living after the Holocaust

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