Jeremy Rosen
ARTICLES BY: Jeremy Rosen
A Message to Michael Lerner: Tolerance Goes Both Ways
Tolerance only works if it goes both ways. At Muhammad Ali’s funeral, Rabbi Michael Lerner, founder of Tikkun Magazine and the Network of Spiritual Progressives, gave...
Reflections on Shavuot, 2016
It was the genius of Babylonian Jewry to meet the challenges of exile 2,500 years ago. Originally, Judaism was a fragile community of rival tribes...
Remembering the Farhud and Fighting Back for Israel
This week we recall the tragedy of al-Farhud -- the pogrom against the Jewish population of Baghdad, Iraq, on June 1 and 2, 1941. The riots...
As It Goes With Corruption in Sport, So It Goes With Corruption in Religion
The end of another soccer season is upon us. I used to be a fanatical supporter of Manchester United. During my youth, soccer was my...
The Problem With the Story of the Good Samaritan
In 1964, Kitty Genovese was stabbed to death late one night in Queens, New York, by Winton Mosely -- who said that he simply wanted...
What Does It Mean to Love Your Neighbor?
Last week we returned, in our cycle of reading the Torah each week, to the iconic, indeed universal, “VeAhavta LeReyacha Kamocha” (Leviticus 19:18), which is usually...
Censorship Never Works
I have always hated the idea of censorship. It never really works. As Proverbs says, “Food eaten in secret always tastes better.” Nothing encourages evil...
What Is Good?
The core question of any discussion about ethics is: What is “good”? If we humans think we ought to have some standards of behavior and...
Passover Defies Logic, But It Works
Pesach, like all of religion, defies logic. That does not make it any less significant, valid or effective. The whole of mysticism, you might say, all...
The Israeli Military and the Jewish Law of Self Defense
The case of an Israeli soldier shooting an injured, disarmed terrorist has divided Israel along the usual and predictable lines. Those who are sensitive to ethical...
Psychiatry and the Spirit
Why do we think so negatively about psychiatrists that we still insult them by calling them shrinks? Some medics might be quacks, but we don’t...
What We Can Learn From Existentialism
Caught between alternative moral positions, how does a thinking person determine what to do? Of course, your average person cares more about drink, sex and sport...
Why I Don’t Criticize Israel More
Once again, I feel the need to defend my position on Israel. I do not identify with the political climate in Israel today nor with its...
Reflecting on Purim — Then and Now
There is a trend in certain quarters to look at the story of Purim as one of Jewish aggression -- the murder of innocent Persian non-Jews, and...
