It was the genius of Babylonian Jewry to meet the challenges of exile 2,500 years ago. Originally Judaism was a fragile community of rival tribes settled in a specific land. Its public religious rituals were based on its agricultural seasons and tithes. It had a central sanctuary, with its priests and sacrifices, and a system of ritual purity. It had…
Al-Farhud
This week we recall the tragedy of al-Farhud. The pogrom against the Jewish population of Baghdad, Iraq, on June 1 and 2, 1941. The riots followed the collapse of the pro-Nazi government of Rashid Ali. Over 180 Jews were killed and 1,000 raped and injured. Nine hundred Jewish homes were destroyed. Al-Farhud was just one more example of the way…
Corruption in Sport
The end of another soccer season. I used to be a fanatical supporter of Manchester United. During my youth, soccer was my first love. Manchester United was the altar at which I worshipped. Perhaps that’s an exaggeration, but not much. When the phenomenal, youthful, talented team, the Busby Boys, were all but wiped out in the Munich air crash in…
Good Samaritan
In 1964 Kitty Genovese was stabbed to death late one night in Queens, New York by Winton Mosely who said that he simply wanted to kill a woman. He was sentenced to life, and a few weeks ago he died in prison. The case generated immense publicity because it seemed that a lot of people heard her scream and no…
Love Your Neighbor
Once again we return, in our cycle of reading the Torah each week, to the iconic, indeed universal, “VeAhavta LeReyacha Kamocha” (Leviticus 19:18), which is usually translated in English as, “And you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” For most people this is understood to mean that we should love our neighbors as much as we love ourselves. Which seems…
Censorship
I have always hated the idea of censorship. It never really works. As Proverbs says, “Food eaten in secret always tastes better.” Nothing encourages evil more than publicity, and nothing gets a film or a book more attention than being banned. If that was true a thousand years ago, it is exponentially more so now in our era of social…