Philip Roth (1933-2018) was one of the most successful American novelists. He was born into a modest, secular Jewish family in Newark. Despite having been awarded almost every single literary award in the USA and around the world, he was denied a Nobel Prize for literature. Although this might only reflect the culturally constipated, humorless Swedish judges. His biography, by Blake…
General Topics
Conversion
The Bible nowhere explicitly talks about conversion, only about taking care of, and not oppressing the stranger, the Ger. Much later, the term was divided into the Ger Toshav, the strangers who entered the community and choose to give up paganism. They were given equal civil rights so long as they adhered to the Seven Noachide commandments. And, on the other hand,…
Whose Side Are You On?
The latest round of fighting between Palestinians and Israel continues what has been a Hundred Years’ War and will in my opinion continue possibly for another hundred. The reason I say this is a conference I attended in Chatham House in London, twenty years ago. It included the UK Foreign Office, Anglo Jews, Anglo Palestinians, and representatives of both Fatah…
Shavuot, Torah, and Humanity
As rockets continue to rain down on our families in Israel, and a civil war rages with mobs of hooligans attacking peaceful citizens and neighbors, I pray for three things. That Israel will be strong, and regardless of world opinion, able to protect its citizens, its freedoms, way of life, and its State. That God will protect our soldiers entering…
Armenian Genocide
April 24th is the date of the annual memorial that Armenians observe to recall the horrific massacres carried out by the Turkish Government in 1915. It was part of their policy of ethnic cleansing to remove both Greeks and Armenians because they were regarded as a threat to Ottoman dominance. The Armenian genocide might not have had Gas Chambers and Extermination Camps,…
Meron
Today we celebrate Lag BaOmer, which is the thirty-third day of the Omer that I described two weeks ago. In Israel, thousands make the pilgrimage to the town of Meron in the Galil on Lag Ba’Omer every year to celebrate the anniversary of the death of Shimon Bar Yochai. They couldn’t last year because of Covid. But they will make up for it…