Religion Dispatches
…illed in the Second Lebanon War has embittered him against the state. In a New York Times op-ed, Israeli novelist Amos Oz was also critical of the attack, writing that: For 2,000 years, the Jews knew the force of force only in the form of lashes to our own backs. For several decades now, we have been able to wield force ourselves—and this power has, again and again, intoxicated us. … Israel’s siege of the Gaza Strip and Monday’s violent intercepti…
Read More…people of diverse backgrounds, people with differing opinion,” he told the New York Times before his appointment. He told priests to refrain from appearing at protests at abortion clinics and wrote an essay in America magazine that sought to find common ground between the Obama administration and the bishops on the contentious issue of the contraception mandate, while warning that the church’s opposition could backfire: I believe that an even grea…
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…nings of Jewish return to Harlem during this present-day gentrification of New York City. What’s the most important take-home message for readers? There has never been one Jewish voice or vision nor one African American voice or opinion about the textured and complicated relationship between these two American minority groups. The Jews of Harlem: The Rise, Decline and Revival of a Jewish Community Jeffrey Gurock NYU Press November 2016 Is there an…
Read More…nd it was used in a gubernatorial campaign flyer. More recently, following New York’s passage of a law restricting the sale of assault weapons in the wake of the Newtown, Connecticut massacre, the gun manufacturer Remington cited Alabama’s motto in its decision to relocate a plant there from New York. On marriage equality, Moore is unabashed about Alabama making its last stand alone. “I can’t explain why more than 20 other states have bowed down t…
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…ous authorities don’t like.” In the 2011 study of the Jewish population of New York, sociologist Steven M. Cohen found that 12% of the adult New York Jewish community now identifies as “partially Jewish.” Cohen refers to adult interfaith children as part of the “borderland Jews,” a term with a kind of Wild West flair that appeals to my rebellious side; but again, a term that only references half of my heritage can only be half-right. Meanwhile, Ca…
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…Both Greg Epstein and Chris Stedman have spoken at the Sunday Assembly in New York City. Greg has been so helpful to us as a sounding board, and advice giver. He is great. We are going to Boston on November 5th. There is a local team who are organizing it who are hungry and keen. How do you address concerns that by calling this church, you may be giving people the impression that Sunday Assembly is equipped to provide actual pastoral care? Jones:…
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…gis aren’t the only ones fighting this battle. In Virginia, Wisconsin, and New York, state governments have required vocational licensing for programs training yoga teachers. Some opposition to such attempts has been successful. After the New York State Education Department tried to assess fines on and to require permits from yoga teacher training programs, a group of yogis responded with legislation that successfully exempted yoga teacher trainin…
Read More…ruary 12, was the final day religious groups were able to hold services in New York City public schools, marking the culmination of a battle that began back in 1994. Despite protest efforts and hopes of intervention from the state legislature, the June 2011 U.S. appeals court ruling stood, causing at least 60 congregations to find new homes. Many of the news reports published in the months leading up to the ban focused on Bronx Household of Faith,…
Read More…re fluid reading of the verdict, the first person that the Town of Greece, New York, actually invited to give an invocation was an atheist. At the time, that move seemed to me to be calculated to reveal something that many atheists stringently deny: that atheism has become, as I put it on Twitter, “just another sect.” However, a recent development has me eating my words. In response to an apparently overwhelming number amount of requests by atheis…
Read More…how the guru feels about NCAA recruitment violations. Bernice King left Eddie Long’s church in the wake of Long settling his scandal out of court. Texas is ridding public school graduations of prayers and religious terminology. In New York, a federal court ruled that the City of New York could block congregations from using public school buildings for Sunday worship services. Finally, religious leaders want baseball players to know that Jesus wou…
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