Interact with Henrietta Szold, Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, Emma Goldman and other notable Jews.

The High Holiday season is a time of deep reflection, and whether you’re turning to new books or old standbys to aid in your introspection, we know stories will be guiding you.

Join us for this Religion and the Public Conversation event. Jenna Weissman Joselit has recently authored Mordecai M. Kaplan: Restless Soul, an engaging and compelling biography that goes beyond myth ...

Interact with Henrietta Szold, Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, Emma Goldman and other notable Jews.

A brilliant mind.

Philip Roth was terrified of biographers. He repeatedly excavated and transformed his life into “autofiction”, long before that term was in casual use. He

Here are 100 reasons to love the comedy writer, director and star who’s celebrating a milestone on Sunday and who’s changed our culture in surprising ways.

The Jewish Lives series bases a chat bot on its library of biographies.

Edmond de Rothschild watched helplessly as pogroms swept the Russian Empire. His thoughts turned to the ancestral home of his people.

From the blog of Rebecca Keys at The Times of Israel

YouTube video by JBS

Author Daniel Okrent doesn't miss a beat analyzing the music, lyrics -- and complicated personality -- of the extremely secular Jewish maverick who revolutionized American musical theater

Packed with gossip and incident, this book is also a fascinating study in the gestation of genius

At his best and most relaxed when prepared, Kaplan preferred to rely on notes, outlines, and a fully elaborated text when giving an address. No matter the venue—classroom, sanctuary, huppah, banquet, ...

Jewish Lives · Walter Benjamin: Fragments of Redemption in a Modern World - May 26, New Lehrhaus - California's Hub for Adult Jewish Education

Almost a century after the French baron’s enormous collection of drawings was donated to the Louvre, historians are still considering his impact.

Seek More Meaning From Judaism

Edmond de Rothschild (1845–1934) was “a renegade from the elite into which he was born,” James McAuley writes.

Born in 1930, the only child of two rag-trade machers, Stephen Sondheim was raised by “governesses, nannies, and cooks” at the sumptuous San Remo apartment building on Central Park West,

Thu, 04/23/2026 – Author Peter E. Gordon in conversation with Dean Whiteside

Join JTS for an in-person conversation with Jenna Weissman Joselit, author of "Mordecai M. Kaplan: Restless Soul."

In a revealing new biography, Daniel Okrent follows Stephen Sondheim's story from his apprenticeship with Oscar Hammerstein II to the highest echelons of Broadway.

A new biography explores the lasting influence and unfinished business of the founder of Reconstructionism.

A timely and valuable look at the critical insights of a great ‘European mind’ and a life ended while fleeing the Nazis

Mordecai Kaplan's vision of a unified, reconstructed religion for American Jews was plagued by backlash but launched a new denomination. Now he's the subject of a new biography

A recently published book casts doubt on the composer’s insistence that his enduring musicals were never autobiographical.

Mordecai Kaplan defined God as a spiritual and ethical power within us that urges us to do good. Some thought that was sacrilege.

YouTube video by Unpacked Podcasts

To many, Stephen Sondheim is a titan of Broadway; his death in 2021 was considered a massive loss for the arts world.

Mordecai Kaplan's vision of 'maximum Jewishness' may be just what we need in these fraught times

Biographer Daniel Okrent discusses Sondheim's approach to writing music and lyrics, his often toxic relationship with his mother and his work with mentors and collaborators.

Mordecai M. Kaplan: Restless Soul by Jenna Weissman Joselit is an illuminating account of one of the twentieth century's most important and tenacious Jewish leaders.