Jewish in a Gentile World

I was looking for some information about James Cameron's "Jesus tomb" film (more on that in a later post) when the above headline caught my eye. For those who haven't heard about it: there was a high school basketball game in Virginia between a Catholic school and another school, which was marred by an "antisemitic chant" and "antisemitic graffiti." The "antisemitic" chant was, "We love Jesus," and the "antisemitic" graffiti was the word "Jew" painted on the gym wall below the name of the home team. I confess, I was a bit puzzled that anybody would perceive "We love Jesus" as an antisemitic chant. They weren't even playing against a Jewish school: the game was on the night of February 2, and no Jewish school would host a basketball game on a Friday night, Shabbat! But apparently, the hosting school is known to have a significant Jewish population, and anti-Jewish sentiment was the essence of the

The problem with getting most of your news from Comedy Central is that I was very late to pick up on this news story... Frank D. Hargrove Sr., a delegate to the Virginia legislature, made headlines last month when he expressed his opposition to a resolution expressing regret for slavery. He commented, "Are we going to force the Jews to apologize for killing Christ?" Let's stop and think about that statement for a moment before we jump to a knee-jerk condemnation. Let's be clear: Mr. Hargrove did not demand that Jews apologize for anything; rather, while opposing Virginia's apology, he said that Virginia's apology would be as wrong as demanding an apology from the Jews. If what he's saying is, today's Virginians are no more responsible for slavery than today's Jews are responsible for the death of Jesus, that today's Virginians do not owe an apology any more than today's Jews do ... is that such a bad thing to say? It is, after all, the e

At my office, our Human Resources director loves small children and jumps on any excuse to bring children into the office. I tease her that her policies are "speciesist." We celebrate "Bring Your Daughter or Son to Work Day," but we don't have "Bring Your Cat or Dog to Work Day." We have a Halloween costume parade for human children 5-15, but I wasn't allowed to bring in my 6-year-old tuxedo, Ritz. I could put her in "costume" as a black cat, perfect for Halloween! But no dice. At our admin meeting earlier this week, our HR director unveiled her latest excuse to bring children into the office: Holiday Breakfast with Santa! But she jokingly apologized to me, saying that this was another speciesist event and I wouldn't be able to bring my cats. Without missing a beat, I said, "That's OK. My cats are Jewish."