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The Sacred and the Dead: How an Iranian-Jewish Angeleno Discovered Her Tribe

…but is not tangible to me in any way any more. Recently I was listening to American Beauty again, as I revisited all of my old albums in preparation for the Santa Clara shows, and for the first time, a new song spoke to me: “Attics of My Life.” With some of the most iconic Dead songs coming from that American Beauty, “Attics of My Life” somehow got lost in the shuffle for me. But as I listened to it again for the first time in a long time, I reali…

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Occupy Judaism: A “Turning Point” in American Judaism

…oo busy sending 18 year-olds to Israel to be indoctrinated with hedge fund managers’ money.” Sieradski is referring to Birthright, which, according to Kiera Feldman’s investigation for the Nation, has spent “$600 million to send more than 260,000 young diaspora Jews on free vacations to the Holy Land,” a journey that was conceived as “the selling of Jewishness to Jews” and which whitewashes the Israeli occupation. It was co-founded by hedge fund m…

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Scientology: All-American or Aging Hoax?

…something to teach us—if not with its doctrine, then with its particularly American nexus of religion, culture, and business.  These themes are explored in a pair of new books, both of which examine the history of the church without sensationalism or facile mockery: Janet Reitman’s Inside Scientology, which grew out of her 2005 Rolling Stone article, and The Church of Scientology by Hugh Urban, a professor at Ohio State University who studies reli…

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An End to the “Gentleman’s Agreement” on Israel?

…pped even more spectacularly than their many previous ones, Israel and its American friends have tended to focus on practicalities: money, boundaries, resources… and settlements. American maps may show the Golan as part of Syria, but every year, more Israeli-owned vineyards are planted. To suddenly focus on symbolism is good for fundraising letters, but bad for actual policy. In this case, at least, symbolism has prevailed. Because it is only a bu…

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Battlestar Galactica and the Future of American Religion

…n cults that birthed the Western theatrical tradition holds any lesson for American Catholicism, mainline Protestantism and the other traditional religious institutions that are shedding members—and isn’t it delightful to think that it might?—it’s that the interplay between inspiration and the forms of religious practice and observance must always be fluid. Imposing a sober orthodoxy on rituals intended to pierce the veil that separates the mundan…

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How a Ruling for Masterpiece Cakeshop Could Embolden White Nationalists

…lations. “The cultural and political prominence of religious freedom as an American ideal draws people to it,” Wenger said. “The reason people appeal to it for all sorts of purposes is because it’s so culturally, politically, and legally powerful.” Indeed, as Wenger’s book documents in deep historical detail, the bedrock American principle has already been used to justify imperialism, racism, slavery, xenophobia, misogyny, and (most recently) anti…

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The Islamophobia Election: How “Muslim” Became a Racial Identity

…to participate in interviews, and I had a much harder time getting Muslim American men. I found that there’s a lot of self-surveillance. American Muslims are surveilled by the state. They’re surveilled by private citizens. Then they participate in self-surveillance as well. When you’re hyper-surveilled you monitor what you say and do to avoid bringing suspicion onto your body. When you’re on a state list that’s very disempowering. When I got men…

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Crossing the Rubicon? Mar-a-Lago Raid Enflames Right Wing Fantasies of Christian Caesarism

…ere somehow, and if these guys don’t have a better plan… The Caesarism the American Right dreams of is neo-fascism. What they’re after, of course, is not a real Caesar—this is nostalgia for a Rome that never existed, a mythical Constantine at best. What they’re after is a new Mussolini; an American one. A Christofascist dictator with stars and stripes behind him, Bible in hand—a Caesar in the White House. The idea that all that’s needed for the US…

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A person holding a sign that says "If you're not angry then you're not listening."

Can Rage Fuel the Struggle for Justice? A Roundtable

…co-editor for a collection of scholarly essays aimed at reinterpreting the American political tradition, American Political Thought: An Alternative View (New York: Routledge, 2017). His scholarly essays have appeared in various edited book collections and journals like New Political Science, Contemporary Political Theory and Political Theory. Zamalin has been a guest on NPR and MSNBC and his work has been featured in The Guardian, Literary Hub, Re…

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Caught in a Fever Dream of Originalism, Can SCOTUS Majority Learn the Lessons of Early America Before it’s Too Late?

…also to the political and social instability within and between Britain’s American settlements. These tensions between American religious groups were temporarily cast aside as political tension between Britain and her American colonies erupted into civil war with the American Revolution. In fact, a major unifying theme between Revolutionaries was their combined opposition and hostility to British attempts to reassert Anglicanism’s privileges in A…

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