In an op-ed piece in the NY Times, Maureen Dowd asserts, like a dog returning to its sick, that the Europeans hate the US because of George Bush. Ever since I was a kid, Europeans have always hated, envied, and at the same time longed for the products of, the USA. They envy the fact that the USA sorted out…
General Topics
Elgar
If anything will emphasize my heterodoxy, it is my taste in music. Jewish music, or what passes for it, really does not grapple with spirituality to anything like the extent, the profundity, and the passion (oops, wrong word) of classical music. However much I may enjoy Hasidic music, folksy Carlebach, pop Mordechai Ben David or Avram Fried, or the new…
Jewish Ethics
I am a great fan of the Business Ethics Centre of Jerusalem (www.besr.org). Firstly because it was founded by a man I greatly admire and respect, Dr. Meir Tamari. Secondly because a former pupil of mine, one of the best, Rabbi Pinchas Rosenstein, is involved, and thirdly because of articles like this one by Rabbi Joel Domb on the treatment…
Free Speech (Shavuot 2008)
You might think there is little left original to write about Shavuot. We know its Biblical, agricultural origins, the importance of nature without the subservience to it, and the celebration of the seasons with without worshipping them. We know of its umbilical 49-day connection to Pesach, from barley to wheat. We also know how the rabbis emphasized the Torah and…
Obama at AIPAC
I listened to Barak Obama’s address to AIPAC this morning. I have never ever, ever heard a more pro-Israel speech from any politician from either side. Amongst all his promises about supporting Israel and guaranteeing its survival, and the importance of the Holocaust, and his grandfathers commitment after he saw the horrors in Germany never to forget etc., etc., he…
Huntington Hartford
Huntington Hartford died on May 19, aged 97. He was a multimillionaire trust fund baby who inherited from a wealthy grandfather food magnate. He lived the life of a playboy. He married lots of times and spent much of his life in a haze of alcohol and drugs. At one time he dabbled in the art market and built up…