For some, Chanukah is just a Jewish answer to Xmas. But why do we make such a fuss of it? Isn’t it just glorifying militarism? Two thousand, three hundred years ago, the Jewish people, whether in Babylon or Jerusalem, had been allowed to continue their religious traditions, unhampered. So long as they were loyal to the overriding political authority of…
Discipline
We live at a time when discipline is regarded as a bad word and a destructive educational policy. Such an idea is allied to the ideology that competition is unhealthy, and meritocracy is bad. Is there a Jewish response to this? Judaism’s primary sources all stress that every human being, no matter what race or color, however intelligent or gifted, however…
A man of substance
I love to get feedback. Even when it is critical. Given the range of human opinions that’s hardly surprising. But there is one criticism I feel the need to respond to. Why do I sometimes quote or pass on opinions from people I often disagree with on many other issues? A recent example was Melanie Philips whom I admire for…
Can one love God?
The Torah talks a lot about love, love of God, love our neighbors, and love the stranger. But what does love, Ahavah mean? And why is it so often paired with the word Yirah, which is usually translated as fear, but in reality, it means respect? Love in English tends to focus on what one expects and receives. In Hebrew the word has…
The Lost World of American Jews
Irving Howe, in 1976, wrote the “World of Our Fathers.” It pays tribute to the American Jewish world of the nineteenth and twentieth century which was re-shaped by the massive immigration from Eastern Europe. The core themes are how Eastern European Jews came to find a new, free life in America and spread out across the country in search of…
The Last Jew in Afghanistan
For several years now Zebulon Simantov, “The last Jew in Afghanistan,” has garnered sympathetic press attention. Afghanistan like all Middle Eastern Muslim countries hosted significant Jewish communities for thousands of years. Probably the first Jews arrived after the destruction of the Northern Kingdom of Israel in 720 BCE then its population was exiled and scattered around the Assyrian empire. Afghanistan was…