Will Church Attendance Reduce Bigotry? A Response to Peter Beinart
We’re studying theories of baptism in the college course I teach on prayer, worship, and…
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Will Growing Alliance With Christian Zionists Split the American Jewish Establishment?
Peter Beinart, writing about Sheldon Adelson’s remarks at the inaugural conference of the Israeli American…
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Reading Beinart and Lerner as Gaza Burns
I know it sounds strange but it’s a great time to be an Jewish American activist working for Middle East peace. After all these years in the closet there’s hope that the Beinartians and the Lernerites have begun a critical dialogue for Jewish Americans.
Read MoreMurdoch’s Anti-Semitic Tweet
And reaction to it.
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Electionpocalypse, Part II: The Mythical Jewish Vote
There is no “Jewish vote.” Jews vote. A small number of them vote for Republicans. Most of them vote for Democrats. Every cycle the Republicans try to improve on their last performance, but Jews are overwhelmingly liberal. So Republicans try to draw them in by talking about Israel, an issue very few of them vote on, but an issue that has the added benefit of helping Republicans shore up their evangelical base.
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How to Separate Jewishness from Zionism
Parting Ways is Butler’s attempt to construct a Jewish narrative that coheres with her philosophical and political sensibilities as well as her allegiance to her Jewish heritage and lineage. As a Jew for whom religious practice and the Jewish textual tradition do not constitute her Jewish core, hers is a secular narrative of Jewishness outside the orbit of Zionism. Butler’s concern for Israel is that she believes its present construction is “Jewishly” indefensible (in the terms she develops in her book) and the muscularity with which Zionism is proffered squashes any alternative narrative of diasporic Jewish identity.
Read MoreWhy Peter Beinart is Wrong on Democrats and Anti-Mormonism
More anti-Mormon than Republicans?
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Peter Beinart’s Controversial The Crisis of Zionism: Right Diagnosis, Wrong Treatment
Not since The Israel Lobby has a Jewish book evoked so much ire and criticism from the American Jewish community.
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The Sad Saga of a Compromised Rabbi
Are the Jews in trouble? From the outside, things look quite good. Anti-Semitism is at an all-time low in the United States. The U.S. administration seems to allow Israel to do what it wants, even as many of us disagree with what it is choosing to do.
Read MoreBeinart’s Naivete about the Religious Right
He just notices that the religious right is anti-Islam.
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