One hundred and fifteen kilometers northeast of Lisbon an assembly convened at the Convent of Christ in the city of Tomar in the Spring of 1629. This assembly of ecclesiastical dignitaries and professors of theology and canon law met at the Assembly of Tomar with the mission to formulate a solution to Portugal's "Jewish problem," which according to many, had escalated completely out of control. It was a problem for the authorities indeed, since Jews were not permitted to reside in Portugal since 1497, when they were forced to convert. These "New Christians" and their descendants allegedly held on to their Jewish beliefs and practices. The Inquisitors then sought to expunge the Judaizers. The New Christians opposed the introduction of the Inquisition and when they failed, they consistently sought to delimit its authority. The papacy repeatedly decided to support the New Christians, which was typically viewed as an example of Rome's lust for money. The New Christians denied allegations of connection with Jewish practices and belief. Instead, they pointed to their Catholic loyalty-donations to Catholic causes, endowment of Catholic shrines, entry of their daughters into convents, and even their cries to Jesus and Mary on the way to the stake. An adequate reconstruction of the "Marrano phenomenon" (the life of the New Christians) requires knowledge of a variety of documents. The many inquisitional trial records comprise the most important, but are only a fraction of all the primary documents necessary for the complex picture of New Christians. Cohen contributes to this picture by examining a critical document hitherto largely unfamiliar to the scholarly world, the Report from the Assembly of Tomar.

The election of Donald Trump as President of the United States in November 2016 was a political earthquake, one supporters and detractors alike agree has changed the course of history. The policy implications have been stark and will continue well beyond his presidency. The political implications have been perhaps even more drastic—for both political parties. Trump has shaken the 40-year-old coalition of traditional conservatives, orthodox religious voters, and free-market libertarians that has long-composed the Republican Party. The Republican Resistance: #NeverTrump Conservatives and the Future of the GOP explores the members of that coalition, especially traditional, establishment-oriented Republicans and conservative intellectuals who opposed his candidacy, who generally still oppose his presidency, and who represent the elite-in-waiting that believes it will have to rebuild the GOP when the Trump coalition implodes. In the end, The Republican Resistance argues that the Trump presidency and the #NeverTrump countermovement reflect key features of modern American politics which both major political parties must contend: the rise of a populist insurgency intent on overtaking the parties from within and challenges of embracing demographic and structural realities on the one hand while catering to a political base often built to oppose those trends on the other.

In Spiritual Integrity, Martin S. Cohen argues that it is possible for a serious commitment to religion-including to ritual, dogma, and prayer-to co-exist with a parallel commitment to the absolute integrity of the intellect. Writing as a working rabbi with almost four decades of experience in the pulpit, but also bringing to bear a lifetime of scholarly research into the history of Judaism, Cohen uses his own faith as the framework for his proposals and shows convincingly that although the concept of faith is regularly invoked precisely to justify avoiding honesty in religion, there also exists the possibility of using the traditional language of religious commitment to live wholly honestly in the world as a person of faith. Cohen uses all sorts of examples drawn from Judaism to make his point, but his book is not about Judaism, per se, however, but rather is a call to arms for people of all faiths-or no specific faith-to recognize that religion that, if embraced openly and honestly, can also lead to the embrace of a serious kind of spirituality anchored in frankness, honesty, and the renunciation of gullibility. Teaching would-be persons of faith how to move forward from a starting-gate fashioned of those specific values as pilgrims seeking redemption honestly and honorably-and fully imbued with what the author calls spiritual integrity-that should be the task of the world's spiritual leaders. Could it actually be possible to be a person of deep, abiding faith without feeling a concomitant need to profess belief in principles that there simply is no specific way to prove-and which could therefore just as easily be false as true? Cohen argues that it is more than possible to aspire to that level of honesty in religion and Spiritual Integrity is his attempt to prove that specific point!