About Covenant

Jewish life today is global in its ideas, politics, culture, and religion. The distances which traditionally have been so important for a scattered people are shrinking rapidly thanks to global transportation and communications. For Jews, as for all people, the internet is now the foremost means of developing culture and exchanging ideas. Covenant, The Global Jewish Magazine, uses the speed and ubiquity of the web to tie together Jews with the most compelling writing of the day. Covenant has close to 7,000 subscribers worldwide.

The world of vast continents and immense oceans now functions as a single unit. Cause and effect can be instant; actions in one place produce reactions days or even hours later thousands of miles away. Ideas and images, not only styles but whole cultures, move effortlessly. And the fruits, both sweet and bitter, are apparent.

But for Jews the idea of a global culture is as old as the Biblical period. The Assyrians and Babylonians globalized the Jews, destroying the kingdoms of Israel and then Judah and carrying off the tribes to exile, Diaspora, and uncertain reunification. And already by the fifth century BCE Jews were carrying on conversations at long-distance, calling upon one another for information and support. And so it has been for the subsequent 2500 years, across dispersals and travails as profound as anything imagined by the Prophets.

The challenges and problems that face Jews are as huge in the twenty-first century as in the forty that went before. Difficulties that are new in content or form--ranging from violent attacks to the ever-present temptation of assimilation--beset us on all sides. Yet the impulse toward survival and originality are also ever-present and extraordinarily active. The goal of Covenant is to bring some of this ferment to Jews and others around the world.

Covenant is edited and published by Professor Barry Rubin, with Judith Roumani as deputy editor. Professor Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center of the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Israel, and is author of, among other works, Assimilation and its Discontents.

A quarterly journal, Covenant is delivered free via email to subscribers worldwide, who may read articles on screen or print them out. Contributions deal with the modern world, culture, history, politics, and religion, and include up to date reporting on situations around the world, as well as fiction from Jewish writers both known and unknown. Covenant is interested in both topical and thematic contributions, discussed in accessible and engaging ways. Potential authors should feel free to contact the editors with proposals, suggestions for authors, and general comments (click here to read the criteria for submission).

Covenant is aimed at a general but sophisticated audience, Jews seeking new ideas about the world, and answers to questions that press on us in old and new ways. Covenant's goals are to include Jews in discussions that are often fragmented, promote honest controversy and new ideas, responsible in tone and with conviction, and to bridge the gaps that divide Jews against each other--in religion, politics, culture and geography.