Bannon and the Trumpian right have discovered what Jews have known for a century: That Zionism is built, in part, on the rejection of Diaspora Jewish identity. That’s especially true today, as a rising Orthodox[…]
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Month: November 2016
“In order for a music for young people to come into being, young people have to have a way to play it”
In order for a music for young people to come into being, young people have to have a way to play it. The jukebox was one delivery mode: kids could listen to the music in[…]
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“…the point of the saloon was never the lager. It was the shared institution. Today it often feels as if the only shared spaces are big-box checkout lines and fast-food parking lots”
Neither work nor unions nor “decent homes” seem stable anymore. And older social institutions like saloons, constructed to cope with such instability, are long gone. In the gap between the two, poorer communities tend to[…]
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“There are millions of Americans who don’t understand why anyone might worry about the effects of this election”
Most of Mr. Trump’s supporters did not intend to attack our most vulnerable citizens. But with him in office we have a duty to protect those who are threatened by this administration and to win[…]
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“Perhaps the single philosophical consensus of our time is that the key to contentment lies in living fully mentally in the present”
Perhaps the single philosophical consensus of our time is that the key to contentment lies in living fully mentally in the present. The idea that we should be constantly policing our thoughts away from the[…]
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“The economic tragedy of the Millennial generation was written before many of us had even learned to read…”
The economic tragedy of the Millennial generation was written before many of us had even learned to read – by Baby Boomer parents and grandparents who, at once, genuinely love and care for us, but[…]
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“There are women who are learned and it is only fitting that they too have a title”
…I still don’t see the objection to female clergy. I am not talking about women pulpit rabbis, but what is the problem with a woman chaplain at a hospital or a woman teacher of advanced[…]
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“The predicament of modern C.E.O.s may seem surprising, given their prominence and lavish compensation”
Business professors once talked about “the imperial C.E.O.,” but, increasingly, we’re in the era of what Marcel Kahan, a law professor at N.Y.U., calls “the embattled C.E.O.” He told me, “Big shareholders and boards of[…]
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“Hillary Clinton is a strange fit for this moment. She’s a lifelong institutionalist at a time of bitter distrust in institutions…”
Hillary Clinton is a strange fit for this moment. She’s a lifelong institutionalist at a time of bitter distrust in institutions, a believer in gradual progress faced with violent impatience. She has dozens of good[…]
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Differences of a famous midrash about Name, Language, and Clothing
Leviticus Rabbah 32:5 (M. Margoliot ed., Jerusalem 1958, vol. 4, p. 747) lists four things on account of which the Israelites were redeemed: Name, language, wicked speech (leshon ha-ra), and sexual licentiousness; the Venice 1566[…]
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