Author Archives: Jacob Abolafia

There is, as some of you might know, a rather ancient quarrel between poets and philosophers. I, a student of philosophy, might seem partisan. Of course, I have also studied a bit of poetry while at Yale, and am known to carry about a dog-earred copy of Richard Wilbur from time to time, a sort »

I desperately long to sympathize with Katie Carmody’s claim that the humanities are in fact “better” than the sciences because of their ability to address matters of value, aesthetic and moral (“Call me a convert,” Sept. 21). In fact, there are considerable parallels between Carmody’s story and my own, but I simply cannot convince myself »

For the last month, the topic on everyone’s lips across the state of Israel has been one strangely familiar to the ears of the modern American. No, not Islamic extremism or the prospect of a nuclear Iran, but gay rights. In response to a multifaith, broad-based effort spearheaded by the Ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in Jerusalem, »