Over Shavuot we have been thinking about how the Torah was given on Sinai. It is one of the fundamentals of our religion that we often take for granted. But what actually happened on Sinai is not at all clear. Even the Torah itself gives different descriptions in Exodus 19 and 24. And the rabbis in the Talmud and Midrash…
Vote Conservative
I always voted for the Labour Party in the UK. I admired its idealists, like Aneurin Bevan, Hugh Gaitskell, and Michael Foot. I supported Harold Wilson’s desire to turn the UK into a scientific meritocracy. I felt bad for cuddly Michael Foot, propelled into a position unsuited to him, but still better him than angry, bitter Tony Benn. I applauded…
Agunah Project
For some ten years, Professor Bernard Jackson of Liverpool Hope and Manchester Universities has labored away, with insufficient reward or recognition, as director of the Agunah Project to document the problem and the possible solutions of Agunot. He has now retired and the project has ended, which is a shame. A few months ago I had the pleasure of hearing…
Muhammad on South Park
When South Park is censored, then things are a lot worse than we thought they were. Here’s an extract from an Op Ed piece that appeared in The New York Times on April 26th written by Ross Douthat. You can’t portray Muhammad on American television anymore, as South Park’s creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, discovered in 2006, when they…
Intolerance
I don’t know what it is about religious leaders, in fact anyone put into a position of leadership and authority, that they end up betraying the very values they are supposed to uphold. This piece is not in response to the Catholic Church’s reluctance to take swift unequivocal action to remove and defrock sexually predatory priests. Of course they would…
Shoes Can Kill
The Sunday Times of London reported on April 11th that the Metropolitan police in London allowed protestors to throw shoes and the English Courts have agreed that the shoe-throwing incident was simply a ritual form of protest and therefore not a criminal act of violence: Judge Denniss agreed that the act of shoe-throwing should not be considered in a charge…