I have never been a fan of chief rabbis. Anyone appointed by committees, politicians, or bureaucrats is suspect in my eyes. Perhaps my antipathy is rooted in the days when both Napoleon and the czar appointed state chief rabbis whom they approved of because they were likely to support their agendas. I can say with confidence that, in general, the…
Jews of Pinsk
I have just read almost a thousand pages of the two-volume history of The Jews of Pinsk published by Stanford University Press. It is translated from Azriel Shohet’s Hebrew, and I got hold of a copy through one of the editors of the English version, Mark Jay Mirsky. I should mention that his beautifully written prefaces to the two volumes…
Hypersensitivity
I was in the Metropolitan Museum of Art the other day, standing in front of a painting by an artist I much admire, Giovanni Battista Caracciolo (not as good as Caravaggio, but a close second). The painting, entitled “Tobias and the Angel”, is based on a weird story in the apocryphal Book of Tobit. Briefly, Tobit is a member of…
The Golem Disease
On my first visit to Prague some fifteen years ago, I was stunned to see a statue of the great sixteenth century Rabbi Loew, by the twentieth century Czech sculptor Ladislav Jan Šaloun. It stands at the side of the New Town Hall. He is depicted as an evil, looming, glowering wizard, like the evil Queen in “Snow White”, with…
92nd Street Y
In my youth, everyone had heard of the YMCA, the Young Men’s Christian Association. It was founded in 1844 “to put Christian principles into practice by developing a healthy body, mind and spirit”. And it spread around the world. If you have spent any time in Jerusalem you could not avoid the YMCA building and tower. Once it was the…
Must a Jewish State Be Zionist?
Modern western states are slowly adapting to the idea that no one religion should dominate and all religions within them should be treated with equality and respect. Too often modern states fail not in the theory as much as the practice. There is a powerful reactionary move in parts of Europe and the Middle East to drag everyone backwards towards…