You might think there is little left original to write about Shavuot. We know its Biblical, agricultural origins, the importance of nature without the subservience to it, and the celebration of the seasons with without worshipping them. We know of its umbilical 49-day connection to Pesach, from barley to wheat. We also know how the rabbis emphasized the Torah and…
Obama at AIPAC
I listened to Barak Obama’s address to AIPAC this morning. I have never ever, ever heard a more pro-Israel speech from any politician from either side. Amongst all his promises about supporting Israel and guaranteeing its survival, and the importance of the Holocaust, and his grandfathers commitment after he saw the horrors in Germany never to forget etc., etc., he…
Huntington Hartford
Huntington Hartford died on May 19, aged 97. He was a multimillionaire trust fund baby who inherited from a wealthy grandfather food magnate. He lived the life of a playboy. He married lots of times and spent much of his life in a haze of alcohol and drugs. At one time he dabbled in the art market and built up…
Not Kosher Kosher
A few years ago PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) released a video of awful schechita practices at the biggest kosher abattoir in the USA. The practices shown on the video were roundly condemned by some religious authorities. Sadly, as you might expect, others prevaricated, arguing about only breaking the spirit of the law, as opposed to the…
What Orthodoxy?
Modern, Centrist, Enlightened Orthodoxy (no one knows quite what to call it) is dead. The alarm bells are ringing all around the Jewish world as a result of the recent decision of the rabbinical courts in Israel to question thousands of conversions, both in Israel and the Diaspora, performed by rabbis considered too modern/unreliable/suspect/not kosher enough/not subservient enough, even if…
Israel at 60
Everyone else is giving an opinion on Israel’s sixtieth. Even notional Jews who have had absolutely no positive involvement in Jewish life whatsoever have suddenly come out to relieve themselves of their own antipathies by excoriating Israel. Hope it makes them feel better. Here’s my contribution. If having a state was, as some Zionists ideologues dreamed, going to normalize Jews,…