Jonathan Agin is a freelance writer based in Brooklyn.
Today the Chabad-Lubavitch movement champions far-right religious zealotry under a messianic banner. But a century ago, left-wing Jewish thinkers like Walter Benjamin and Franz Kafka understood messianic prophecy as foretelling universal liberation.
New York’s Catskill Mountains were once home to many famous Jewish vacation resorts. But lesser known were their bargain counterparts: the communal bungalow colonies that made summer leisure accessible to the urban Jewish working class.