As many of you know, I have dedicated many postings to the State of Israel on a range of topics including: it’s history, the present day government, the Jewish-Palestinian question, and the region in general. Growing up in a liberal conservative Jewish household (the oxymoron is quite common as American Jews were almost exclusively political liberals and the conservative branch of Judaism the most common) and attending Hebrew school as a kid you obviously build an affinity for the State of Israel. I do not remember the Six-Day War of 1967, but I have vivid memories of celebrating Israel’s 25 th anniversary in 1973 and the Yom Kippur War later that year. As a ten year old attending Yom Kippur services I saw the worried looks on my parents and the other adults at the shul as members of the congregation would periodically step outside to get news reports from car radios and transistor radios (We still drove and used electrical appliances during the high holidays, thou...
Baby faces vs. heals? Cowboys vs Indians? Good guy always where the white hat. “Dig is he a good guy or bad guy?” Bad guys always, looked, well, bad. You’re either with us or you’re against us. Iraq, Iran, and North Korea are the axis of evil. Americans, for the most part, have a pretty simple outlook on conflict: just tell us who the bad guys are and we’ll know who to root against. We tend to lump similar races and peoples into larger buckets, mostly due to the media’s inclination to treat us like potential Jeff Foxworthy competitors. But the world is anything but simple and as I have written previously, the Middle East is as confusing and confounding place as you can find. During the Iran and Iraq war of the 1980’s most Americans took the position that “…as long as they kill each other, I’m good.” When civil war ravaged Afghanistan, we joined the side of the Mujahedeen because they were fighting the Soviets and the Soviets...
This weekend we are at the nexus of Christianity’s Easter and Judaism’s Passover, which isn’t too surprising considering the Last Supper was actually a Seder; I did lean something on my tour of Jerusalem. This weekend Christians observe the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus while Jews celebrate the Moses led exodus from Egypt to the Promised Land, meaning this weekend we can expect Ben Hur, The Ten Commandments, The Robe, The Greatest Story Ever Told, and many other films to be broadcast. So on this weekend where the Judeo-Christian faiths observe very important holidays, I ask: What is a good Jew? What is the Christian thing to do? These are not flippant or frivolous questions. Do people practice what they preach? Does going to a place of worship make you a better person? Is Deepak Chopra correct when he says “All religions are cults with many followers.”? Full disclosure, I was raised Jewish, was Bat Mitzvah’d at 13, attended Frid...
Comments
Post a Comment