“I always thought that I would write a book about the history of God,” Reza Aslan said. Aslan, an author, professor and former CNN host — his show “Believer” was canceled after he tweeted a profane reaction to President Trump’s comments on a July 2017 terrorist attack in London — was discussing his latest book,…
In his recent article, “How CNN’s ‘Believer’ Smears Israel’s Ultra-Orthodox As Intolerant ‘Black Peril’” published in the Forward, Rabbi Avi Shafran takes issue with CNN religion reporter Reza Aslan’s portrayal of Haredi Jews in Israel as “bent on creating an oppressive theocracy.” Shafran, who believes Aslan’s piece maligned the Haredi, used his op-ed to depict…
Reza Aslan, host of the modestly named “Believer With Reza Aslan” on CNN, has rendered his verdict: “ultra-Orthodox” Jews in Israel are to the Jewish state what the mullahs were to Iran in 1979. Sensationalism isn’t entirely unexpected from a presenter who, on the segment of his show dedicated to Hinduism, focused on a sect…
Reza Aslan, the popular religion scholar and Iranian-American Muslim, has a Hebrew tattoo. If you watch Aslan’s CNN series “Believer,” chances are you’ll catch a glimpse of his inked upper arm, which says “hillel,” during various rituals with the religions he explores, such as when he dunks under a waterfall with Voodoo practitioners in Haiti….
In the last episode of his new CNN series, “Believer,” Reza Aslan goes dancing with the Na Nachs, an ultra-Orthodox Jewish group known for its impromptu techno street parties. Aslan, a scholar of religion and an Iranian-born American Muslim, finds a lot to admire in this marginal Jewish sect that seem to accept him as…
Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth By Reza Aslan Random House, 336 pages, $27 Is it possible to change the tenor of public debate on a subject with a piece of writing? Is it conceivable that the “general reader” still exists, that judgment-suspended individual who picks up a book because she or…
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