Plato’s theory of ideas and Aristotle’s more empirical approach are the foundations of the Western intellectual tradition. The result of this patrimony has been the search for truth, even absolute truth, which I believe has tended to constrict our way of thinking and reflect the desire to find a specific answer to every problem assuming there is one. In our…
General Topics
What keeps Judaism alive?
It is a thought often attributed to Ernest Bloch that it is anti-Semitism that, for all its perniciousness, has preserved the Jews. Of course, if that were true our position in the world would be very different today. After all (according to the Encyclopedia Judaica) Jews accounted for about 1% of the population of the Roman Empire at a time…
Uses and Abuses
Muslim activists have been exerting pressure within state schools in Birmingham UK to Islamize them by firing or sidelining uncooperative staff, segregating and discriminating against non-Muslim pupils, removing parts and whole subjects of the state curriculum that they deem offensive, and inviting al-Qaeda members and jihadi imams to speak. According to the UK Daily Telegraph, April 2014: “At least six…
R.Michael Lerner – Embracing Israel/Palestine
It have been reading Michael Lerner’s book Embracing Israel/Palestine: A Strategy to Heal and Transform the Middle East during the week of Israeli Independence Day. The establishment of a Jewish homeland has been the single most important positive historical fact of my lifetime as a Jew. If ever there was a latter day miracle this was it. I would do…
Thomas Piketty – Capital in the Twenty-First Century
Thomas Piketty is a French economist. His book Capital in the Twenty-First Century has taken the left-wing intellectual world by storm. Reviews are everywhere, and if you want to be up-to-date in the salon or the pub, you’ll need to read up on his major points. The truth is that it’s not the essence of his message that has made…
Are “peace” conferences a waste of time?
I recently had occasion to attend a conference of politicians and theologians in Vienna. It was sponsored by the InterAction Council, an organization of former presidents, prime ministers, and assorted theologians from all round the world. The council is dedicated to achieving world peace, which it believes it will achieve if it agrees to and promulgates a basic program of…