I dislike the expression “The Chosen People”. It is not that I have any problem with the idea that different peoples may have different missions and cultures that are unique to them. It is just that I do not believe that this endows them with any automatic superiority. The idea of “The Chosen People” long predates Judaism. Every early power and…
Uncritical Race Theory
Let me say at the outset that Critical Race Theory is a dangerous, completely unsubstantiated pseudo theory of race that has now become dogma in academia. It, along with the equally false theory of Intersectionality, are the most serious threats to the sanity and unity of the United States since the Civil War. They are responsible for the current woke idea that the…
Shabbat Shalom
Devarim/Deuteronomy Friday, July 16th Chapters 1-4. We start the last book of the Torah this week with an opening speech that Moshe delivers to the people just before he is going to die, and they are about to enter Canaan. It is a recapitulation in prose and poetry of the events and laws of the past forty years. In it,…
Get Follies
We often witness the insensitivity and negativity of rabbis who seem unaware of the damage they can do when they claim to be upholding Jewish Law. The most recent case concerns Jewish Divorce. In recent years civil courts in the UK ( and the USA) have legislated to help wives whose husbands refused to give them a religious divorce, a Get.…
The Khazars
Before I get to my weekly blog, I owe the Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom an apology on two counts. First of all because after my stinging blog last week about refusing to allow Dr. Taylor Guthartz to teach at the London School of Jewish studies, he reversed his decision. That takes guts, strength, and humility. But much more…
Women Rabbis, again!
What is it about Chief Rabbis? Perfectly nice, intelligent human beings, yet when they get to be Chief Rabbis their spines turn to jelly. Once again, a British Chief Rabbi has put his foot in it, or rather, got into an unnecessary fight in which there are no winners, and a little common sense might have averted making fools out…