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American Jewish Leaders Get Gaza Wrong

By Sarah Posner

…past with Gaza, dividing over whether to back Operation Cast Lead in 2008. Reservations about Israel’s use of force in Gaza have continued. In 2009, Yoffie called American Jewish critics of Cast Lead “morally deficient, profoundly out of touch with Jewish sentiment and also appallingly naïve.” Yoffie’s words supporting what the Israeli military has named Operation Pillar of Cloud horrify me. The current president of the URJ, Rabbi Rick Jacobs, tr…

Colonialism and the Crisis Inside the Crisis of Catholic Sexual Abuse

By Kathleen Holscher

…, which together extend their ecclesial jurisdiction over 6 federal Indian reservations in South Dakota. By 2010, more than 65 Catholic priests and religious formerly employed at Indian boarding schools within those dioceses had been named in lawsuits targeting sexual abuse—a number that suggests a far higher per-capita rate of offending clergy than even in New Mexico. In New Mexico, the victims of abuse were mainly Nuevomexicano and Indigenous ki…

American Missionary Could Face Genocide Charges, But Brazil’s Indigenous Communities Have a Bigger Problem

By Amy Fallas

…rts assimilation of indigenous communities and opening their resource-rich reservations in the Amazon to commercial interests, including large-scale farming, logging, and mining. Although the Brazilian constitution protects these populations and their lands, the new president has considered these regulations an impediment to economic development and publicly said he won’t get “into this nonsense of defending land for Indians.” The policy of openin…

Russian Attack on LGBTs at UN Rejected; Gay Cake Controversy Rages in N. Ireland; Bishop Calls for Marriage Referendum in Puerto Rico; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…e one hand, and making illegal torture due to sexual orientation with some reservations on the other, raise serious concerns regarding Iran’s will to implement the recommendations,” she added. “Unfortunately, no mechanisms are in place to monitor the implementation of this decision.” Justice for Iran Executive Director Shadi Sadr said, “We call on the members of civil society to follow up on recommendations as made by Ireland, Denmark and the Neth…

Presbyterians, Change Hearts & Minds, Begin Ordaining Gays

By MaryAnn McKibben Dana

…ness in and for a denomination that has lost its way.” Regardless of those reservations, 10A is now the law of Presbyterian land. What lessons can be drawn from this success? Learning from Failure Amendment 10A is the culmination of years of tweaking and learning from past failures. After a 1997 attempt to replace “fidelity” and “chastity” with language about living with “integrity,” advocates spent a few years pursuing a strategy of deleting t…

Obama Shifts US Narrative Away from “Christian Nation”

By Michael J. Altman

…y utilized this narrative to push American Indians off their land and into Reservations, because God’s providence had destined this land to (White) Americans. Even the Bush administrations goal of “spreading democracy” smacks of the same sacred narrative that America has a Providential place in the world and its history. Obama shifts the sacred narrative. The President moves the foundational narrative from one of religion (not Christian or Jewish…

Profits Over Principles for Romney?

By Joanna Brooks

…belongs to a Church that strictly prohibits tobacco use, apparently had no reservations about promoting tobacco in countries which had no or few regulations on the promotion or use of tobacco products. In fact, the documents show that this was the clear objective of American tobacco companies who were facing declining sales at home due to increased government regulations and scrutiny. Romney has spoken of his personal disdain for tobacco, revealin…

How the Catholic Church Changed the Movies

By Patricia Miller

…ad four sub-ratings, from acceptable for all to acceptable for adults with reservations), to “B” (morally objectionable in part), to “C” (condemned). This rating system, which was even more stringent than the Hays Code, “dominated film production during Hollywood’s golden era,” says Black. Movie producers lived in fear of obtaining a “condemned” rating from the Legion and adjusted their output accordingly. This month, Turner Classic Movies will ex…

Spiritual Unplugging, Or What to Do When There is Wifi at the Ashram

By Matt Hamilton

…yes, by which I mean dishonest, delusional, disingenuous. But I kept those reservations at bay. I meditated at dawn for 90 minutes. I heeded the silence imposed during breakfast. I dutifully attended lectures on meditation and ayurvedic healing. And during yoga, I stretched and breathed in step with the yogi. The schedule gave me structure, and the structure let me silence all my religious qualms. “I’m here to get away,” I’d remind myself as I sat…

What’s the Matter With Jewish Studies? Sexism, Harassment, and Neoliberalism For Starters

By Gilah Kletenik and Rafael Rachel Neis

…ate past. While we have no quarrels with these courses of inquiry, we have reservations about an academic culture that seems disproportionately invested in the study of the contemporary moment. This is not only because too often this unquestioningly reproduces the prejudices, biases, and constraints of the moment, but also because it has repercussions for adjacent subfields. In the context of the ongoing corporatization of higher education, resour…