Notebooks

Notebooks are snapshots from our writers, reflecting on current affairs and underappreciated aspects of culture and history.

People take part in a commemoration of the 85th anniversary of Kristallnacht in the Beth Zion synagogue.
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The growing threat to Jewish life in Germany

Hamas' attack on Israel has triggered a huge increase in attacks on Jews in Germany. The question is: how long will society keep its eyes shut to the growing threat to Jewish life ..

Katja Hoyer November 14, 2023
Jewish settlers protest at Tapuach, a major junction in the northern West Bank, 30 April 2013.
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The Messianic roots of the modern settler movement

Sometimes the Israeli government and the settlers’ aims are in conflict and sometimes they intersect. Today they are as closely intertwined as they have ever been.

Michael Goldfarb November 10, 2023
William Shakespeare collage.
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Fake Shakespeare

This year marks the 400th anniversary of the publication of one of the most important books in English literature: William Shakespeare's First Folio. Yet the history of the Folio i..

Josh Mcloughlin November 10, 2023
Mural to commemorate the Portuguese Carnation Revolution of 1974.
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Commemorating Portugal’s ambiguous revolution

Almost half a century of autocratic rule came to an end in Portugal on 25 April 1974. As the country looks forward to marking this momentous event, will its troubled socialist gove..

Tom Gallagher November 8, 2023
Illustration from Jules Verne's From the Earth to the Moon.
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Jules Verne’s paradoxes of progress

Jules Verne's exhilarating blend of science, adventure and fantasy proved a winning formula, but the prolific author was also a complex thinker, who skewed towards a deistic view o..

Patricia Fara October 31, 2023
Sura 25 of the Qur’an.
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The many meanings of Jihad

Just because Jihad doesn’t always mean ‘holy war’, it doesn’t follow that it never means holy war.

Fitzroy Morrissey October 30, 2023
Satellite image of the Gaza Strip.
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A little history of Shin Bet

Israel’s domestic security service has a chequered history, but it will continue to play a key role in the current war against Hamas.

Ahron Bregman October 26, 2023
An Anpanman express train at Okayama Station in Japan.
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Celebrating Anpanman at fifty

2023 marks fifty years since the creation of Anpanman, the Japanese superhero with a head made of bread, who has represented hope, love and kindness for generations of Japanese chi..

Christopher Harding October 25, 2023
A US Navy sailor stands by a machine gun aboard the USS Paul Hamilton in the Strait of Hormuz, 19 May 2023.
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‘We are in the most sustained period of high crisis since 1962’ — in conversation with Philip Zelikow

EI’s Angus Reilly talks to Philip Zelikow about the crisis in the Middle East, the dangers of escalation, and the urgent need for the United States to move to a pre-war position.

Angus Reilly October 25, 2023

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