Adam Zemel - Jewish English Major

Options, Peacefulness

Are these things opposites? Consider the following:

Old pillars from the Capitol Building at the National Arboretum

Election Week

My understanding of the country I live in has collapsed in the past 12 hours. What now?

My Mother Gave Me Books (Statement of Purpose II)

The essay below is a continuation/companion of this essay about my father's sermons. It was delayed a week when Iran's rocket attack and the US vice presidential debate prompted a new post about extremism in the new Jewish year of 5785. My parents are book

The Wars They Want, or: Two Extremisms

I had not anticipated this would be my first Israel-ish post, but I felt compelled to write it in this liminal week between one year and the next, just as this newsletter is getting on its feet.

My Father's Sermons (Statement of Purpose, part I)

I sometimes wonder how congregants keep up–they have not had the advantage, as I have, of tracking the books piled on the little red bench in the front hallway of my parents’ home.

The top of a head, wearing a baseball cap, set against a backdrop of rows of books in a bookshop

What is 'Jewish English Major'?

We’ll discuss novels and essays and short stories and films. We’ll consider current events in their cultural and rhetorical contexts. We’ll ask abstract questions about the nature of art and try not to be too didactic about it. We’ll take a beat to appreciate a thing for its own sake.