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Category Archives: Ideas/Opinion
pool of gibeon: sacred swords
It was the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls which was the most dramatic of many discoveries which threw light on the beginnings of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It is worth emphasizing that in all this work to date of … Continue reading
go jump in a ritual lake
Scapegoating the religious Jews, the Haredim, as oppressors is quite ingenious even though their proper brand of neuroticism born of fear, paranoia and just old fashioned nastiness would make the most ardent fan of black comedy wince. For leadership of … Continue reading
henry VIII: spare the rod
Ever since Henry VIII’s death, at the age of fifty-seven, people have asked how a once splendid monarch could come to such a pass. Some historians have suggested that during the last years of the reign he was slowly sinking … Continue reading
hunting for heroes
Our present period,at least in the Western world, is in difficulties about its heroes. Heroism, understood as courage in action, we can still recognize and applaud; but the individual hero, defined as the personification of what the age tends to … Continue reading
romance with terror
To acknowledge the power of the irrational. A kind of spiritual revolt of unhappy souls who in a negative sense become overwhelmed with the powers of ideology and terror, producing the perfect recipe for what Hannah Arendt defined as the … Continue reading
Posted in Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion
Tagged David Satter, eichmann trial, Hannah Arendt, Walter Benjamin, Winslow Homer
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arendt: spooked horse syndrome
Hannah Arendt was certainly not the first person to mediate on the problem and ramifications of thoughtless evil. As opposed to the cunning, conscious and coherent variety. Her reflections of course, were not entirely understood, or else appropriated to serve diverse … Continue reading
Posted in Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion
Tagged David Satter, Gershom Scholem, Hannah Arendt, Max Beckmann, Philip Guston, walter trier, Yves Klein
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philistines: bastards in ashdod
The Bible’s final statement about the Philistines is found in Zechariah, the next-to-lat book of the Old testament, and it is a bitter curse: “And a bastard shall dwell in Ashdod, and I will cut off the pride of the … Continue reading
a dying monarch
Death of Henry VIII… Age had dug deep trenches upon a face once as pink and delicate as a young bride’s; the soft beard of red and gold had given way to coarse white; the sturdy muscular belly was now … Continue reading
bohemians on masquerade
A war of the worlds.Two solitudes. Two visions, mutually exclusive and generally hostile to one another. Make that intensely antagonistic. One is religious, self-described as benighted by the almighty, and with it basically undemocratic and often sexist; the other Western … Continue reading
Posted in Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion
Tagged Hebron Israel, Hebron Purim Parade, Israel ultra orthodox, Yair Lapid, Zionism
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