Roland Nikles is an attorney and writer based in San Francisco, California. You can follow him on Twitter @RolandNikles. He blogs at News, Reviews & Views.
Roland Nikles
By Roland Nikles
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Community Whose Land Is Jerusalem, Anyway?
Some people have all the luck when it comes to living a purposeful life. R. J. Zwi Werblowsky was born in Frankfurt, Germany in 1924. Frankfurt at that time was a vibrant place, Jewishly speaking. The philosopher Franz Rosenzweig (1886-1929) founded a school for adult learning Lehrhaus Judaica. Martin Buber taught there; so did Gershom…
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Community Rappers And Rabbis Are All Singing The Same Song
…I wanna rock your gypsy soul Just like way back in the days of old Then magnificently we will float Into the mystic. —Van Morrison Pop singers waxing eloquent about love and sex freely borrow from the religious vernacular. Religion returns the compliment. In many synagogues these days, Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah has been adopted as…
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Community Taking ‘Jewish and Democratic’ Seriously
The Hebrew Republic: How Secular Democracy and Global Enterprise Will Bring Israel Peace At Last By Avishai Bernard Harcourt, Inc., 268 pages, $26.00 When Netanyahu appeared at the UN on September 22, 2017 he fretted about Iran, about the instability of Syria, about Hezbollah at the northern border, and Hamas in Gaza and the West…
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Community We’re All Faking Hebrew — And That’s Just Fine.
Harei at m’kudeshet li b’tabaat zo k’dat Moshe v’Yisrael. Harei atah m’kudash li b’tabaat zo k’dat Moshe v’Yisrael. Behold, you are consecrated for me, with this ring, according to the religion/tradition of Moses and Israel. We memorized these Hebrew vows for weeks, drilling until we could recite them without a hitch when the pressure was…
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Community Sorry, Jews — Voting With Your Feet Is Not An Option in the Age of Trump.
Some on the left have long fantasized about moving to Canada if Trump won. However, as John Oliver quipped, the only reason to move to Canada is a) you were born there, ** b)** you’re a goose, and c) it’s springtime. Foot voting is not a solution for democracy. Foot voting is an inherently selfish…
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