Archive
One of the foremost experts on the Second Temple Period, Shaye J. D. Cohen, the Nathan Littauer Professor of Hebrew Literature and Philosophy at Harvard University, writes, “In the eyes of the ancients, the essence of religion was neither faith nor dogma, but action” (51). Though counterintuitive, this statement seems absolutely correct. If one searches the […]
Are there resource guides for modern Jews, or on the subject of modern Judaism for others? My bookshelf is loaded with theology. Make that bookshelves—three of them, crammed with as much Waskow, Armstrong, Schachter-Shalomi, Kaplan and Michaelson as I can fit into one three-room apartment. When non-Jewish friends ask me for a book about Judaism, I […]
November was Out in Israel Month. As the Out in Israel Month campaign’s website puts it, the initiative was designed to “celebrate the LGBT community and culture in Israel.” It should be no surprise that a well-funded public relations campaign such as this — targeted at several heavily Jewish college campuses, and centering on both gay rights and on Israel’s image — attracted a bit of controversy. Out in Israel Month was sponsored by, among others, two national right-wing pro-Israel campus advocacy groups, The David Project and StandWithUs.
Controversy around Out in Israel Month centered around a little portmanteau: “pinkwashing,” the practice of employing Israel’s good track record on LGBT rights to whitewash its less liberal-friendly policies in the West Bank and Gaza.
This debate is becoming yet another piece of the larger debate about on campus. Great. Because what we really needed was the opening of another front in the campus war over Israel/Palestine.
If Poland to Jews around the world represents one big Jewish cemetery, it goes without saying that for them, Jewish life in Poland is dead. Then, how can there still be Jews in Poland? After the Holocaust, after the 1946 Kielce Pogrom, and after the 1968 Jewish purges? It follows, that there must not be any Jews […]
Students don’t have too many nice things to say about Arthur R. Butz. He is a professor of electrical engineering at Northwestern University, and according to his students, he is boring, his handwriting is too small to make out on the board and he leaves all the real teaching to the teaching assistants. While their words about Butz are harsh, students tend to keep their silence when it comes to a darker part of his work, one that extends far outside the realm of electrical engineering. Butz is a prominent Holocaust denier, but many students walk into his classes without knowing it.
Perhaps you’ve heard of the recent trend among a small sect of ultra-Orthodox women to follow the example of modesty set by Muslim women by wearing burqas that completely disguise the shapes of their bodies. Most Orthodox communities are confounded by this latest stringency, thankfully. Us Modern Orthodox women needn’t fear that this will spread […]
On Saturday night, Nov. 5, 16 years and one day (on the secular calendar) since Yitzchak Rabin, prime minister of Israel, was assassinated, I visited Rabin Square. All was quiet. There were just a few other tourists straggling by. And me. That was about it. A few Israelis walking and biking by slowed down for […]
When I first saw Carole King’s new Christmas album I realized (with some guilt in my heart) that I had to buy it. It was nice, sweet, and simple. This was a real Christmas album, not completely abrasive like Bob Dylan’s Christmas album. But it wasn’t horribly fake like Barbra Streisand’s (titled “Christmas Memories” – […]
Who advocates for the minority within a minority? According to a press release posted to their Web site on November 21, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) – the largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender lobbyist organization in the United States – is launching the Jewish Organization Equality Index (JOEI) survey. The purpose of this study […]