There are many types of legal systems. Ancient systems included Babylonian, Egyptian, Hindu, Jewish, and Roman. Legal thought inspired by Grotius (early 17th century) developed new legal concepts based on “natural law”. Countries began to free themselves from the vice of the Church and developed their own systems. For example Scotland diverged from English law in various ways, most notably…
General Topics
The San Francisco Cut
Do you really believe those San Franciscans who want to make circumcision illegal are genuinely concerned with the welfare of children? If they were they’d immediately introduce a law restricting parenthood to those who have passed a psychological examination. But then I doubt many of them would survive sane. I ask you, what is likely to do more harm to…
West Dunbartonshire Whisky
The fools of West Dunbartonshire Council asked for it when they decided to ban any books from their libraries that give a pro-Israel point of view or were printed in Israel. I thought George Galloway was a Dunbartonshire mutation. Now it seems there must be some more general infection in the air that turns some of its homo sapiens back…
Skirt Lifting
My anger at the Strauss-Kahn affair stems both from a Jewish and a purely secular point of view. I am not prejudging the issue. A person is “legally” innocent until the verdict is delivered. But even if it transpires that he is innocent, still there is a pathology he represents that repels me. (Anthony Wiener’s Twitter farce, of course, is…
Jerusalem
I lived in Jerusalem, through the transition from divided city from which Jews were excluded, to the reunited city of 1967 when once again we could walk on those historical stones and touch the ancient walls. I have never experienced euphoria like that which vivified my soul, my mind, and my senses. On November 29, 1947, the United Nations passed…
Shavuot 2011
The Festival of Pentecost was originally recorded simply the 50th day after the Children of Israel left Egypt; the ceremonies related to it were exclusively concerned with the summer harvest and agriculture. “Do not boil a kid in its mother’s milk” is mentioned three times in the Torah, all within a harvest context. There’s a cute old joke. God tells…