“Reassigning the pyramids from pagan Egyptian tombs to holy granaries of a Biblical patriarch Christianized them…”
Julius Honorius, a Roman writer of Late Antiquity (c. 500 +/- 50 years), was...
Monthly Archives: January 2016
“Settlements far from the Mounties’ reach had more widows than widowers, suggesting unusually high adult male death rates”
To demonstrate the role of the Mounties, I compared settlements that in the late...
“It’s clearly not in Israel’s interest that an additional million radicalized Sunnis show up in Jordan”
Israel and, more importantly, Israelis, demonstrated consistent unease over the destabilizing consequences of the...
“If British children gathered in the glow of the kitchen hearth to hear stories about magic swords and talking bears, American children sat at their mother’s knee listening to tales larded with moral messages…”
If Harry Potter and Huckleberry Finn were each to represent British versus American children’s...
“In Customer Service 101, it seems that the customer is always right. In kosher dining, it too often seems that the customer is always wrong”
In Customer Service 101, it seems that the customer is always right. In kosher...
“n short, kiruv work has moved from what could have been a legitimate path to engage and educate Jews, and to bring them closer to the Jewish community, to become part of a sales force designed to sell a particular approach to Judaism and to distance followers from the vast majority of the Jewish community”
Unfortunately, what began as a well-intentioned set of attempts to bring individuals to a...
“…but the real stimulus to Federation funding was the occasional threat of anti-Semitism”
I argued for funding to do more serious Jewish education on campus, but the...
“…there is no specific Modern Orthodox credo, no statement of Jewish values, no formalized rubric through which adherents are encouraged to think about issues other than those related to ritual practice”
…although Modern Orthodoxy has produced many brilliant and dedicated leaders and laymen, it has...
“When one turns to the situation on campus, one similarly wants to be alert to anti-Semitism without confusing it with legitimate differences of perspective”
…it’s easy to confuse genuine criticism of Israeli policy for anti-Semitism. We are blessed...
“The denominational war for the heart and soul of American Judaism is over”
The denominational war for the heart and soul of American Judaism is over. The...