The city serves as the stage for much of Jewish history. For a host of historical, demographic, and economic reasons, Jews have often been city-dwellers, and even when not, the association of the Jewish with the urban has kept a hold on the imagination of Jews and gentiles alike. The city looms large as part of the horizon of Jewishness, beginning even from the urbanization of the early rabbinic movement in Roman Palestine.

In the current issue of JQR (113.2), Adam Ferziger makes exciting use of archival audio footage of David Ben-Gurion speaking live on university campuses in the United States in 1960. He uses the footage alongside contemporaneous first-hand accounts to offer new insight into the way the legendary prime minister approached the relationship between American Jews and Israel at a late stage in his career.

JQR 113.2 is now available, online and in print. 

In this issue:

Jonathan Kaplan’s research note suggests that tannaitic legends about Serah, the long-lived daughter of the patriarch Asher, derive from much earlier tradition, likely Second Temple–era in origin.