The Donkey and Jesus

James Talarico was just one of a dozen Christian-coded candidates who helped sweep the Democrats to victory
By Kimberly Winston

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Arc: The Podcast

Every other week, Arc Magazine's editor-in-chief, Mark Oppenheimer, is joined by guests to talk religion, politics, et cetera.

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Eminent Americans

Eminent Americans is a weekly podcast about the writers and public intellectuals who either are key players in the American intellectual scene or who typify an important aspect of it.

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Letters to the Editor

The Irresponsible Magid

 Shaul Magid’s essay “Kahane Nation?” (Sept. 10, 2026) moves quickly from Meir Kahane’s advocacy for violence in the late twentieth century to American Jews buying firearms in response to antisemitism in the past few years. Magid then reminds readers that Kahane’s movement provided security at synagogues and protested anti-Israel events. “Sound familiar?” he asks.  That rhetorical question is the problem with his “argument.” Yes, synagogue security sounds familiar. So do Jewish fears of antisemitism, doubts about institutional protection, protests against…

Wading Into Ritual

By Sadie Laurel
To understand how a sacred bath became one of the most contentious spaces in modern Jewish life, start with Baila Brackman. Gaze unbreaking, she speaks with piercing sincerity. “What a mikveh can do for a marriage is priceless.” The thick red of her sleeves punctuates her sharp gestures. The Chabad rebbetzin, or rabbi’s wife, invites me into her beloved sanctuary, its prized pool porticoed by earth-toned walls and haloed in dim light. The University of Chicago’s mikveh is stunning, a subterranean jewel funded to the tune of $300,000. State-of-the-art tiling frames the space, anchored by a spiffy camel hot tub.…

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Blake Smith: How does Christianity help us mediate, as you suggest, between the worst sort of collectivism and the worst sort of individualism? Or perhaps mediate is the wrong word, since these two “worsts” do so often go together! Let’s say, transcend?
Julius Krein: I don’t think it’s anything more complicated than Christianity’s consciousness of the division between the City of God and the City of Man, “render unto Caesar,” and so on. But this distinguishes Christianity from the other monotheistic religions as well as ancient paganism and, I would argue, “rational” philosophy. This distance allows for another dimension or perspective from which to approach the relationship between the individual and the collective.