Posts Tagged: Jeremy Rosen
Purim in 2020
Purim. Poor Him. But “poor” who? Ahasuerus the drunken incompetent sop of a passive king? Vashti the deposed queen? Esther, the #MeToo nice Jewish girl?...
The Significance and Shame(?) of Jewish Names
We Jews are hyper-sensitive. Recently, several people have told me how embarrassed they are that Jewish names are so prominent in the current spate of...
My Problem with Religion
Marx was right. Religion is the opiate of the masses. And Freud was right too that religion is wish-fulfillment and satisfies the need for a...
How Jewish Genius and Anxiety Changed the World
Genius and Anxiety: How Jews Changed the World, 1847-1947 by Norman Lebrecht, is the best popular Jewish interest book in years. It is an amazing...
Angels Exist — But Not in the Way You Think
Abraham Lincoln once said, “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our...
Sukkot Is a Call to Change the World
Every Jewish festival has several different levels of significance. There are always personal, national, agricultural, and universal themes. Rituals, laws, and customs exist to reinforce the...
Judaism and Evolution
In a recent article, a Yale University computer science professor, David Gelernter, said that Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution has too many holes and is...
President Truman, George Marshall, and Israel
Some in American Jewry are split over whether Donald Trump is the most pro-Israel or pro-Jewish president in the history of the US. Before Trump,...
Rabbis Who Ban
People have every right to decide what they will read or listen to and what they will not. They also have the right to try...
The Absurdity of Paper Prayers at the Western Wall
In 1974, when Henry Kissinger was pressuring Golda Meir to make concessions in the interest of peace in the Middle East, Golda took him to...
Shavuot and Cheesecake
Shavuot is the poor relative of the three pilgrim and harvest festivals mentioned in the Torah. It has none of the range of special rituals...
Herman Wouk: A Proud Champion of Judaism
Herman Wouk, who died recently at the age of 103, was one of the most successful American novelists. Surprisingly, he was also a practicing Orthodox...
The Holocaust and Remembering Ben Hecht
Yom HaShoah is an appropriate time to remember Ben Hecht. Colin Shindler has an excellent piece on him in The Jewish Chronicle, and two weeks...
Why Asking Questions Is Good
The Haggadah that we read on Pesach was a response to the tragic loss of the Temple and Jewish political autonomy some 2,000 years ago....
