Jewish in a Gentile World

I told myself that I wasn't going to talk about the situation in Israel and Lebanon, but I can't ignore the interesting comments by Syria's ambassador to the United States, Imad Moustapha. He has said more or less the same thing on several news shows, but none of the interviewers have followed up with the questions that come to my mind. You can see an example in a transcript of his recent appearance on PBS. Mr. Moustapha says: We are talking about half a century of occupation, of humiliation, of despair. A half a century... hmn... that would be 1956. Israel didn't occupy anything anywhere near that time. So one has to wonder: when Mr. Moustapha speaks about a half century of occupation, is he talking about the taking of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Golan Heights (1967)? Or is he talking about the creation of the state of Israel itself (1948) as the "mother of our evils that should come to an end"? Perhaps some light can be shed in his next sentence: I...

Purim, which occurred two weeks ago, is one of my favorite Jewish holidays. It's a lot of fun. I look forward to the process of making hamentaschen (Purim cookies) all year, and my co-workers look forward to the process of eating them! But the most interesting part of Purim for me is the hidden way that the Divine is presented in the story of Purim. In the Passover story, we see a very manifest Deity, imposing plagues and the parting of the Sea. That's very dramatic, but it's not the way we're used to relating to the Deity in our own lives. In the Purim story, the Divine is hidden; His Name not even mentioned; His desired results come about through the actions of people. But the story makes no mistake that this was His desired result, that if Queen Esther does not bring it about then someone else will. I was thinking about this yesterday, while I was stuck in a traffic backup on my way to work. I was thinking about the way that hidden Hand seems to have been wor...

Recently, Pat Robertson took some heat for saying that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's stroke was Divine punishment for dividing the land of Israel. (He has since backpedaled from this statement, because hey, business is business). Muslims have also suggested that the stroke was a sign of Divine wrath: Allah's punishment for all the things Sharon has done for the past 50 years or so. Apparently, Allah has a substantial backlog. I believe that this stroke is a sure sign of the Creator's punishment ... against elderly, obese men who take on one of the most stressful jobs on the world. Let's be realistic about this: Sharon is 77 years old. He himself said that he couldn't wear a bullet-proof vest because "they don't make them in my size." And the fact that he has to consider wearing a bullet-proof vest, at risk from both his own people's hardliners as well as from his country's many enemies, should give you some idea of how stressful his job...

The Middle District of Pennsylvania has rendered its opinion in the Intelligent Design case, Kitzmiller v. Dover School District . For those who have been living under a rock this year: the case challenged the constitutionality of a local school board's decision requiring science teachers to read a brief statement about the theory of "Intelligent Design" (or "ID" for short) before teaching evolution. I confess, before reading the opinion, I was a bit surprised by the outcome. What I had heard about ID seemed to indicate that it was a reasonable middle ground, supported by a small minority of scientists, and based on my own knowledge of constitutional law (I am a law librarian with a law degree) I thought it could have passed constitutional muster. However, after reading the opinion, it appears that that a borderline scientific theory has been hijacked by people with an agenda that cannot pass constitutional muster. Let me preface this discussion by saying tha...

Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, starts at sunset tonight! Wishing all of my readers a happy and "sweet" new year in 5766!

Please note: I am not a rabbi and am not certified in any way to make decisions about Jewish law. This article is intended solely as food for thought. It is based on what I was taught, supported by my review of the relevant passages in the Talmud. Thou shalt not murder... Thou shalt not steal... Thou shalt not covet... In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, as the social order in New Orleans crumbled, many intellectuals contemplated their navels in their cozy living rooms and debated the morality of the behavior we see on our TV screens. Most agreed that ethical constraints need to be adapted to the situation, though some took a hard-line approach and maintained that rules are rules. It is worth noting that Jewish law addressed these issues long ago, not from the safety and security of ivory towers, but from a desperate real-world situation where oppressors routinely ordered Jews to violate Jewish law or suffer death. The Talmud takes a practical approach to the situation that is quite clos...

Israeli archaeologist Eilat Mazar has uncovered the foundation walls of an ancient and significant public building just outside the walls of the Old City in Jerusalem. She believes that she has found King David's palace, the palace that the Bible describes as being built by King Hiram of Tyre about 1,000 years Before the Christian Era (BCE). This remarkable find was announced earlier this month. If you haven't heard about this story, don't feel guilty: Lots of people haven't heard about it. It has hardly made a blip on the mainstream press in the United States. A search of a LexisNexis news database covering hundreds of newspapers gets only 6 results for the search "King David w/10 palace" since the beginning of August. Searches for the archaeologist by various spellings of her name return the same results. I would not have known about it myself if I had not read an editorial about the discovery in the Jewish Exponent last week. And no wonder the media doesn...