Banning the brit

I’ve been reading a lot in the past couple of days about a popularly proposed ban in San Francisco on circumcision entitled the Male Genital Mutilation Bill.  A couple of decades ago, circumcision was generally recommended by hospital physicians for what were stated as cleanliness and health reasons.  Jews and Muslims, of course, did it [...]

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Lies my teacher told me

Last year, I committed the very great heresy of telling my father that I would discourage any of my children from attending American colleges or universities.  (This from the woman with a bachelor’s and three master’s degrees from American institutions.)  My reason at the time was the overtly hostile attitude toward Israel on many American [...]

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City of David, (re)visited

One of the highlights of having relations visiting us in Israel is having the excuse to go out and be tourists.  We live here, we know how blessed we are to live so close to so many amazing historical and archeological sites, yet as it does for most people, life usually gets in the way. [...]

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The UN makes history

It seems that history was made recently at the United Nations.  No, China was not kicked off the Human Rights Council (though, inexplicably, Libya was).  And no, Iranian dictator Mahmoud Ahmedinejad has not been disinvited from his annual anti-Semitic tirade and raspberry-blowing fest.  And no new canapés have been introduced at UN receptions. The history [...]

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Consolation in the face of yet another UNSC vote against Israel

The other day, Carl posted a short rant on his blog, IsraelMatzav, on the lack of widespread support among US Jewry of America’s veto of the “settlements are illegal” resolution vote at the UN. One of Carl’s readers, a self-avowed Renewal Jew, commented that the Renewal movement’s spiritual leader, Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, is not expected [...]

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A glimmer of reason in a storm of stupidity

I followed with half a brain the brewing storm over a group of anti-Israel activists who call themselves Seattle Mideast Awareness Campaign (awareness? of what?) who wanted to place “advertisements” on the sides of Seattle buses accusing Israel of war crimes.  The ads were to show Arab children looking at a demolished building and the [...]

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Holy sites and revisionist history

I’ve laid off politics for a while because frankly, it’s exhausting enough to live in a place where politics is served with your cornflakes at breakfast without writing about it all the time. But I really can’t be silent about the recent dust raised over Israel’s naming of national heritage sites in the country for [...]

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A bit of gallows humor

The following is from an email that has made the rounds on the Internet.  I don’t necessarily agree with its socially conservative message (or its fast-and-loose play with the Biblical time line), but I love the gallows humor, especially in the punchline. Why I’m so depressed Over five thousand years ago, Moses said to the [...]

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The wisdom of Thomas Jefferson?

My father recently forwarded an email of quotations purportedly by Thomas Jefferson, warning of the threats to democracy by banks and financial institutions, big government, taxation, and an unarmed citizenry. It is clear from this email that some Americans are fed up with what they view as out-of-control government spending, Wall Street shenanigans followed by  [...]

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Book Review: Alan Dershowitz’s “The Best Defense”

I’m not sure there’s a soul in the Jewish world who doesn’t know who Alan Dershowitz is.  Made a full professor at Harvard Law School at age 28, one of America’s premier defense attorneys, a stalwart defender of Israel (though not of the settlements), and prolific author of books about the American legal system, Judaism, [...]

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Why America isn’t #1

I’ve long been a fan of Bill Maher, political commentator and ranter extraordinaire.  I don’t agree with everything he says, and as a frum Jew I would qualify in his book as a superstitious lunatic.  But I still think he identifies many of the cracks in America’s façade that point to its failure to live [...]

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A bad business

As a former schoolmarm, I have a retirement account managed by TIAA-CREF.  The Cap’n recently called out from the laptop in his office in our basement to tell me that there is a divest-from-Israel campaign afoot, and perhaps I would like to write a letter? He sent me a link to a report about a [...]

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A mosque at Ground Zero, revisited

When I posted about the proposed $100 million mosque and Islamic “cultural” center to be built near Ground Zero in New York, I expressed my concerns about the tastefulness (or lack thereof) of the project, as well as about the political outlook of the Muslims lobbying for it. Since then, I have done some more [...]

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A plague on both their houses

I’ve been following the news about Obama and his plans for the Middle East for months.  With every passing week, I get more and more discouraged. I was a good Massachusetts voter for years (read: loyal Democrat), and before that, a true Oregonian (also usually a Democrat).  I preferred the tax-and-spend mentality to the spend-and-let-the-next-guy-worry-about-how-to-pay-for-it [...]

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Items in the news

Although I haven’t had much chance to blog in the last few weeks, I have seen some very interesting stuff in the news that has provoked thought.  Below are some of the items I’ve come across. I wasn’t sure if or how to respond to Israel Apartheid Week elsewhere in the world.  I would foam [...]

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Fixing the US economy in three easy steps

My parents often forward me things that get passed on to them via email.  Some of the sillier things are things that have 18-point font and lots of all-caps, bold, and exclamation marks (a little like a Leon Uris novel).  Most of these things get a cursory read before I either check Snopes and find [...]

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The coin finally drops

A little rhyme popped into my head when I read the headline in last Friday’s Jerusalem Post which quoted Obama as saying, “I misjudged the will for peace.”  (Read with a broad Boston accent.) Look at Obama sitting in his cawnuh Eating his humble pie. “Had they not been intractible Or I so impractical Peace [...]

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National identity

Ilana-Davita recently had a discussion on her blog of the recent controversy in France (sparked by Switzerland’s ban on minarets) over what constitutes national identity.  This got me thinking about the dozens of discussions I’ve had on this subject, and inspired this post.  (Thanks, Ilana-Davita!) I know the US has struggled with this for decades, [...]

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The Goldstone Report

I don’t know what it’s been like in the rest of the world for the past few weeks, but it seems like every day here in Israel there is talk about the Goldstone Report, a 575-page report submitted to the UN Council for Human Rights by a committee headed by Richard Goldstone, a South African [...]

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Obama, Prince of Peace

On Friday, the Cap’n came into the kitchen where I was preparing my last festive meals for the 5770 holiday season and said, “They’ve announced the winner of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize.”  Then he fell silent. “Nu?” I asked, taking my French apple pie out of the oven.  “Who’d they give it to?” “The [...]

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