Say what?
November 18, 2009
I’m 10, and growing up in the suburbs. I go to temple, not synagogue, and definitely not shul. I wear a yarmulke (rarely), not a kipa. We don’t “daven” — we pray, or worship. My dad calls me a vahntz (lit., Yiddish for cockroach, but meaning “rascal” [I hope]). He teaches me a Yiddish phrase meaning “It helps like giving medicine to a corpse.” Read More
Rush to judgment
November 11, 2009
I don’t think they even had an accurate count of the victims before everyone seemed to have an opinion on what motivated the Fort Hood murders. And by “everyone,” I mean the cable pundits, the usual bloggers, and the guy who sits behind you at shul. Read More
Tattoo or taboo?
November 4, 2009
Jews, we know from circumcision, are pioneers when it comes to carving our very identities on (male) flesh. So why, especially in a community whose members have ignored so many other traditional taboos, does the tattoo remain such a flashpoint for Jewish argument? Read More
J Street: It’s a generational thing
October 28, 2009
As J Street followers gathered in Washington this week for their first-ever conference, critics didn’t just disagree with their politics. A few began a campaign to tar the group as anti-Israel at worst, naive and dangerous at best. J Street head Jeremy Ben-Ami had to defend not just his positions, but deny assertions that his goal was to undermine the Jewish state. What accounts for this sort of anger, especially when it extends beyond the reliably intolerant activists who have never brooked dissent? I think it’s a generational thing. Read More
Telling the dopes from the anti-Semites
October 21, 2009
What kind of a dope makes a Jewish joke to a New York real estate agent? Notice I said “dope,” not anti-Semite. Last week’s little brouhaha involving Irish tenor Ronan Tynan reminded me that we sometimes have a hard time telling the difference. But let me backtrack. Read More
The Holocaust: Israel’s raison d’être?
October 14, 2009
What’s the relationship between Israel’s founding and the destruction of European Jewry? President Obama was criticized when he broached the subject, but the president and Israel’s ambassador to Washington share a common-sense way of thinking about a sensitive topic. Read More
No questions asked
October 7, 2009
For years now I’ve dreamed of reading a Jewish advice column, or even writing one, that speaks to a 21st-century Jewish audience the way Randy Cohen, who writes “The Ethicist” column for The New York Times Magazine, speaks to his (admittedly, there’s a lot of overlap). The fact that I haven’t had any luck says something to me about the nature of contemporary Jewishness. Read More
What Safire meant
September 30, 2009
When William Safire stopped writing his biweekly politics column in 2005, he ended the nice Jewish equilibrium of The New York Times’ op-ed pages. For a golden moment there, four Times columnists seemed to embody the full spectrum of American-Jewish political and social thought. Read More
Jane erred
September 23, 2009
Looking for a good role model as you head into the Day of Atonement? Try Jane Fonda. Seriously. Two weeks ago, the actress angered many friends of Israel by signing a letter protesting a showcase of Tel Aviv cinema during the Toronto International Film Festival. But as criticism of her participation grew, Jane did something unusual for a public figure: She did teshuva. Read More
Authentically political, politically authentic
September 16, 2009
I have seen Jewish friendships end after an argument over the best hallah. In Iraq, the last two remaining Jews were famous for not talking to each other. So when Norman Podhoretz laments that a solid majority of Jews remain liberal, I sympathize, I really do. Read More
