Spiritual Envy: Michael Krasny’s Agnostic Quest
One of our premier interviewers, host of KQED’s Forum, talks to RD Senior Editor Lisa Webster about atheists, God, his parents’ Judaism, and writing a book without answers.
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Museum of (In)tolerance for Divided City
New Yorkers may be grappling with conflicting ideas about how best to honor the sacred real estate around Ground Zero, but they got nothing on Jerusalem, where a California-inspired Museum of Tolerance is being constructed on what is said to be the site of an ancient Muslim cemetery.
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Upside Down Judaism: Why Are Progressives Studying Talmud?
The first decade of the twenty-first century seems to have upended the Jewish world. What does it mean that conservatives, and some Orthodox, have begun to agitate for social justice, while progressives, traditionally secular, are “taking back the texts”?
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Gandhi, his Grandson, Israel, and the Jews
Gandhi’s grandson says that Israel promotes a “culture of violence”: Shalom Goldman tells the little-known backstory.
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Is Joe Lieberman a Bad Jew?
Depends whom you ask, these days. Either way, the senator’s obstructionist posture regarding health care reform has exposed him to a round of criticism in the press, including the theory, rapidly gaining traction, that he’s not all that smart.
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Paul the Pluralist: Jesus’ Number Two Was Not a Christian
Saint Paul, Apostle to the Gentiles, set the theological foundation for centuries of Christian thinking about faith and redemption—and for as many hundreds of years of implicit (and explicit) anti-Semitism. But what if Paul has been misread?
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The Gospel of Contradiction: An Interview with Mary Gordon
Why is the character of Jesus so powerful? Why is he such a hit? Bestselling writer Mary Gordon re-reads the Gospels, asking these questions, among others, and trying to figure out why fundamentalist readings of scripture, grounded in fear and rage, have come to dominate the understanding of religion in this country.
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Racing Toward Armageddon: The Three Great Religions and the Plot to End the World: An Excerpt
Finally, something Christians, Jews, and Muslims can agree on: Apocalypse. But as the theological end-time visions of the three Abrahamic faiths converge, it is not the wrath of heaven that threatens life on Earth, but all-too-human fundamentalism and fearmongering.
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The Revolution Will Be Whispered: An Excerpt From Everywhere a Guest, Nowhere at Home: A New Vision of Israel and Palestine
In this lyrical excerpt, author Kim Chernin envisions a new solution that rises up from the Sinai desert nurtured by two little girls.
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Israeli Jesus: More Popular Than Ever
The staging in Jaffa of a controversial play with Jesus as central character is shut down by protests—but not for the reasons one might imagine.
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