The Jewish Gospels By Daniel Boyarin The New Press, 224 pages, $21.95 The Jewish Jesus: How Judaism and Christianity Shaped Each Other By Peter Schäfer Princeton University Press, 370 pages, $35 As someone who writes in the academic world and the worlds of journalism, activism and the popular press, I’ve been painfully aware of some…
Let me start with my bona fides. For several years, and at significant personal cost, I have spoken out about Israeli policies in the West Bank, in particular the settlements and the route of the separation barrier, which I deem to be generally illegal, immoral and harmful to both Israelis and Palestinians. I am also…
Recently, I had the pleasure of teaching at Limmud FSU (Former Soviet Union), the version of the wildly successful international learning conference geared toward Russian-speaking Jews. Held at a hotel outside Princeton University, the conference’s theme was science, with an emphasis on Albert Einstein, and the cultural and political sessions reflected the generally rational, secular…
How many wake-up calls do we need? The spate of communal misogyny in Israel and the United States, carried out under the pretext of a religious mandate, yet unjustified even by ultra-Orthodox interpretations of Halacha; Haredi America’s wall of silence about sexual abuse; and a variety of other scandals in the Haredi world, such as…
Most religious affirmations of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people have been “negative” ones: They argue that Leviticus (and Romans and Corinthians) doesn’t really prohibit homosexuality, or that ancient prohibitions should be set aside in the age of the iPad. But isn’t there a “positive” case, as well — that biblical religious values support the…
That there has been a realignment of American Jewish attitudes toward Israel is by now apparent and heavily commented on. In some quarters, this has been seen as an earth-shattering, Judaism-betraying paroxysm of collective self-hatred. Yet in fact it is entirely logical. For years, Jewish moderates like me have held a curious combination of views:…
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