Jack Lunzer, who died this past December, was famous for his Valmadonna collection of Jewish books, texts, and incunabula. It was the largest collection of Judaica in private hands, and Sotheby’s described it as “quite simply the finest private collection of Hebrew books and manuscripts in the world.” But to those us who knew him, Jack, the man, was one…
General Topics
Pray for the Welfare of the State
It is amusing and disturbing to see the demonstrations against an elected president, not so much for what he has done but for who he is. We rarely empathize with politicians. The bitterness this time in a change of power, seems to be coming from a deep sense of outrage felt by Democratic voters at having their sacred cows challenged,…
Magda Goebbels
I am a fan of Professor Colin Shindler, celebrated historian of Zionism, the origins of the Right and the political rivalries of Israeli politics. He is an outspoken moral, intellectual voice against oppression and hypocrisy. He will shortly be publishing a collection of his reviews and essays under the title The Hebrew Republic: Israel’s Return to History, which I have…
Children’s Cultural Identities
We all know about how much damage parents can do to children. But sometimes society, even when it means well, can do much worse. Yair Ronen trained as a lawyer specializing in the rights of children. Unhappy with the way the law seemed too impersonal, he studied counseling. Now he is a tenured senior lecturer at Ben Gurion University. Ronen…
Empathy
Paul Bloom, professor of psychology at Yale University has just published a book on empathy. Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion raises some excellent questions. To put it simply, he argues that empathy is not a very good basis for making ethical decisions. The book has been widely reviewed and attacked. But as any thinking person recognizes, it all…
Poor in Jerusalem
After I graduated from Cambridge University, I went to study at Mir Yeshiva in Jerusalem. The yeshiva occupied a six-story building clad in Jerusalem stone, in Beyt Yisrael. It was a small industrial quarter sandwiched between Meah Shearim and the Mandelbaum Gate. In those pre-1967 days the Mandlebaum Gate was the crossing point between , between West Jerusalem, the New…