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Tribal Trouble: The Changing Nature of American Jews’ Relationship to Israel and the Question of Jewish Unity

By Shaul Magid

…can Jews. This was not only true of people on the center-right. In the late 1960s and early 1970s “The Radical Zionist Alliance,” which included many young Jews on the left, made a similar equation. One of its founders, Chava Katz, wrote in 1970, “To talk about being pro- or anti-Israel is like saying, ‘Are you pro or against yourself?’” In the course of just a few decades a major transformation has taken place. As Waxman notes, “The era of ‘Israe…

Gas For Two Bucks a Gallon? Bachmann Taps a Pipeline to the American Sacred

By Rosamond C. Rodman

…purposes of battle “at the place that in Hebrew is called Harmagedon” (Rev 16:16, NRSV). But Americans love apocalypses, so in the hands of late nineteenth and early twentieth century pre-millenialists, the term “Armageddon” was used as a kind of blanket locative to refer to the entire region of Palestine/Israel, where a pitched war campaign would take place signaling both the waning of the period of tribulation and the imminent physical return o…

US Archbishop and Vatican-Appointed “Overseer” Attends Annual Meeting of Women Religious

By Emily Baxter

…luential groups in American political life. Both Catholic and non-Catholic Americans have been vocal supporters of American sisters in light of the Vatican’s assessment. Such support has given rise to the theme that it is American sisters—exemplified by the Nuns on the Bus and known for their work in communities around the country—who hold the grassroots power to bring politicians to task on justice issues from economic inequality to immigration r…

Why The Book of Mormon (the Musical) is Awesomely Lame

By Jared Farmer

…pecializes in milquetoast Americana, including Broadway favorites. From the 1950s through the 1990s, Utah wards (congregations) staged summer “roadshows”—touring musical skits in church-wide competition. Today, Mormons are among the last Americans to preserve the once-popular tradition of community pageants. The cheesiness parodied in The Book of Mormon is nothing compared the annual Miracle of Mormon Pageant in Manti, Utah, or the Hill Cumorah Pa…

Why Bill Maher Gets a “C” in My Introduction to Religion Class…

By S. Brent Rodriguez Plate

…finition of religion appears to have been culled solely from Noah Webster’s 1828 American Dictionary in which religion is essentially defined, in solid US-Protestant style, along the lines of a set of beliefs in God. (To give credit where credit is due, the problem also lies with the director Larry Charles and whatever half-baked research team they assembled; and while Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens are all susceptible to the same critique, in thes…

Before We Scold DeSean Jackson and Others For Anti-Semitism We Need To Talk About ‘Chosenness’

By A. E. Brooks-Key

…lbany or Washington—are controlled by Jews. I think they are controlled by Americans, and the American Negro situation is a direct result of this control. And anti-Semitism among Negroes, inevitable as it may be, and understandable, alas, as it is, does not operate to menace this control, but only to confirm it. It is not the Jew who controls the American drama. It is the Christian. At the time of Baldwin’s writing these were some of the most powe…

Raising Children the Right Way

By Jeffrey Feldman

…ing of one other. As Alexis de Tocqueville wrote famously of America in the 1830s, the great secret of American progress is the ability of its citizens to form associations that work together towards a common goal that are greater than the sum of their parts: Americans of all ages, all stations in life, and all types of disposition are forever forming associations. There are not only commercial and industrial associations in which all take part, b…

Creationism and Evolution are Competing ‘Myths’

By Kelly E. Hayes

…to all the beasts of the field and air “every green herb” for food (Genesis 1:30). Likewise, because God said creation was very good (Genesis 1:31) there were no venomous animals or poisonous plants before Adam and Eve’s expulsion from Eden. According to the museum, the fossil record supports all of this. Such assertions, along with charts, timelines, and graphs help foster the illusion that this is actually science—despite the fact that the scien…

What’s The Matter With Joe Biden? As Disgust Builds Over Calamity in Gaza the President Offers Only Toothless Criticism

By Haroon Moghul

…r support for Israel. In response to gathering evidence that more and more American Muslims (and many others of all faiths and backgrounds) were adamantly opposed to Biden, campaign surrogates summarily reminded us of Trump’s Muslim ban. I don’t know what’s more patronizing, that the administration assumes we forgot about the Muslim ban, or that they considered this a compelling rebuttal. In what moral universe are discriminatory visa restrictions…

Vainglory Days: A Foremost Expert on Religious Violence Offers Clues to How QAnon Might End

By Mark Juergensmeyer

…nding of the Khalistani uprising of militant Sikhs in India’s Punjab in the 1990s came from a barrage of military and police repression. Although many of the former militants in the movement told me that the movement had already self-destructed from within, they admitted that the presence of the police had a chilling effect on the movement’s control of the countryside. When the police or military respond too strongly they can send the signal that…