Elizabeth Tsurkov is among the few Israelis to have visited Syria since the war began. She might be the only one to have interviewed a range of people, from Kurdish fighters to ISIS supporters to Alawites, about the future of the tortured country.

Alejandro Paz, associate professor of anthropology at the University of Toronto, discusses his book “Latinos in Israel: Language and Unexpected Citizenship,” an ethnographic study into the formation of an unusual migrant community.

In “Zionism and Melancholy, The Short Life of Israel Zarchi,” Nitzan Lebovic inhabits the mind and soul of a lesser-known early Zionist poet. The result is a literary, academic, psychoanalytic – and slightly melancholy – journey through a political movement, via the short life of a poet.

In “A Rich Brew: How Cafés Created Modern Jewish Culture,” Shachar Pinsker shows how coffee houses then and now, there and here, helped give rise to modernity itself.

Joseph Zeira, Professor of Economics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, discusses his new book “The Israeli Economy,” an introduction to all matters Israeli and economic.

What does it mean to live in the divided and unified city of Jerusalem? What are the different memories and narratives that inhabit its streets?

Dr Eitan Regev, economist and Research Fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute, analyzes the downsides of Israel’s excessive reliance on academic higher education which has hurt its economic prospects and social integration, and offers policy recommendations to rectify that situation.

The Tel Aviv Review of Books is a new online English-language publication that seeks, by way of book reviews, essays, literary criticism, original fiction and poetry, to give the international reader a glimpse into the Israeli world of letters. Gilad Halpern is joined by his co-editors to discuss the whys and wherefores of a new magazine.

One of the most controversial questions about the Holocaust is whether it should be seen as a universal human problem, or a unique horror perpetrated by Germans. At the heart of this question lies the work of Christopher Browning, author of numerous books on the history of the Holocaust.

The rage against communism led some countries to diminish the historic fight against fascism under leaders they now loathe. Could this help justify neo-fascist revivals in the post-communist world?