How nice to write about a subject I know so well — and from experience, not just from books. When it comes to Jewish traditional text, we first hear about the evil urge in Genesis 6:5: “God saw how much human evil there was on earth, that their thoughts were inclined only toward evil, all…
A young man in his early twenties raised his hand. “The thing is,” he said, “I want to have sex pretty much all the time.” The comment came at the end of a workshop organized by Seven Wells — a space for participants, particularly emerging adults, to use Jewish texts and values as the framework…
The 2016 Trump campaign plunged our civil discourse to an all-time low with a candidate who made lying a form of entertainment — a tactic that gave him widespread coverage in the media and tragically awarded him the honor of becoming president. In the immediate aftermath of the election, the cries for mediation of untruthful…
Consider and Converse: A Guide to Yetzer Ha’ra / The Evil Inclination Acknowledging, accepting, and channeling our inclinations Introduction Sh’ma Now curates conversations on a single theme rooted in Jewish tradition and the contemporary moment. At the heart of this issue of Sh’ma Now is the theme of Yetzer Ha’ra — the Evil Inclination. The…
— Comedian T.J. Miller was arrested for allegedly slapping his Uber driver following a heated discussion with him over Donald Trump. The driver, who was bringing Miller back to his Hollywood home from the GQ magazine’s Men of the Year bash, made a citizen’s arrest Thursday after he said the comic hit him on the…
A controversial bill that would have defined some criticism of Israel as anti-Semitism will not make it through Congress this year. The Anti-Semitism Awareness Act of 2016 would have instructed the U.S. Department of Education to consider a definition of anti-Semitism that includes “judg[ing] Israel by a double standard” when investigating federal discrimination claims. The…
As top positions in president-elect Donald Trump’s future administration fill up, some early loyalists are getting antsy, feeling they’ve been frozen out after spending the last year in the trenches fighting for Trump. The list of top campaign advisers still vying for a job in the Trump administration is long, and includes some of his…
A worker at park between Brooklyn and Queens discovered swastikas and neo-Nazi graffiti scrawled on benches Thursday, the latest in a wave of hate crimes in New York City. The vandalism at the Newton Creek Nature Walk included swastikas, the slogans “Go Home Refugees,” “Heil Hitler,” “Now begins 1000 years of TRUMP!, and insults directed…
President-elect Donald Trump has stocked his stable of advisers with one more Goldman Sachs alum, appointing company president Gary Cohn to lead the National Economic Council in a stark departure from his campaign promise to “drain the swamp.” Cohn will become the third Goldman pick to closely advise Trump, following the choice of Steve Bannon…
Many of the companies on New York State governor Andrew Cuomo’s new BDS blacklist say that they don’t actually boycott Israel, Politico New York reported this morning. The list, quietly posted by a state agency last week, is the result of an executive order signed by Cuomo months ago to ban New York State from…
Keith Ellison has faced a hail of criticism from Democrats and Jewish groups for his past ties to Minister Louis Farrakhan, the firebrand leader of the Nation of Islam. Now the black nationalist group says Ellison is a hypocrite. “There is nothing wrong with Rep. Ellison’s desire to move his party forward or his desire…
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