There has been a lot of debate in the USA and elsewhere about jobs, or rather the loss of them and what to do about it, particularly since recent plebiscites have largely been won on this issue. Although on paper unemployment is relatively low in advanced economies, a growing number of workers are being made redundant either by jobs moving…
Elie Jesner
I want to tell you a story of Chelm (the mythical community of Jewish fools) that is, in fact, true. True of Anglo-Jewish establishment Orthodoxy. I have known the Jesner family, the pillar of Orthodoxy in Glasgow, since 1968. They, as a successful business family, took responsibility for Jewish life in Glasgow, supporting its rabbis and yeshiva and contributing handsomely…
Election 2016
All complex societies are fragmented. Democracies particularly so. Dictatorships and autocracies act as if they were not. They try to suppress dissenters, which they can often do in the short term but not forever. Consider the autocrats from China to Russia to Turkey. Would you bet on their lasting? Ask most human beings where they would prefer to live. The…
She Is My Sister
The fundamentalist position on the Bible—Jewish and Christian—is that every word comes directly from God on Sinai 3300 years ago. The “critical” or the skeptics’ position is that it is all a man-written compilation of various authors and traditions, the process took an extended period of time, and the text we have today was only finally compiled by the Masoretes…
Freedom of Religion and Chickens
Several recent legal decisions in the USA prevent the custom of taking chickens and swinging them above one’s head before the Day of Atonement. This symbolic ceremony of atonement is called Kaparot (atonements). The apparently mystical idea is that the chicken represents one’s own body, which might deserve death for the sins it has committed. But instead, as in the…
Wine
When Noah comes out of the ark, the first thing he does (after thanking God) is to plant a vineyard and then make wine. But then gets drunk and rolls around naked in his tent! You might think that being shut up with your family and zoo of animals for a whole year in a small boat would be enough…