Death of My Teacher Bonia Shur
One of my dearest teachers died last Thursday. His name was Bonia Shur, and he was Director of Liturgical Arts at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR). Bonia and Ellis Rivkin...
View ArticlePeace & Harmony vs Reality
I'm in India as part of a Peace & Harmony conference in honor of the 150th anniversary of Swami Vivekananda's birth. His Holiness the Dalai Lama and I both spoke to the gathering of over 1500 (as...
View ArticleWhat I Want for My Grandchildren
I received an interesting questionnaire while I was away in India. I’m sharing my responses with you here as an invitation for you to share your own with us as well. The questionnaire was meant for...
View ArticleMrs. Jesus
What is it with these Coptic Christians? Last week one them started a murderous global protest with his asinine and offensive “movie” about the Prophet Mohammad (PUH), and now Harvard Divinity School...
View ArticleDumb and Deader
According to a recent study, the life expectancy of white men without high school diplomas has dropped by four years since 1990. I planned to take this fact to a number of sooner to be dead uneducated...
View ArticleWhy Vote?
I just read that House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) vowed today not to raise taxes on the rich even if President Obama wins in November. So why vote? If the system is rigged against the 99%; if the...
View ArticleBibi is not my leader. Israel is not my country.
Last week on Meet the Press, host David Gregory called Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu “the leader of the Jewish people.” At that very moment I was flying back from New Delhi where I told my audience at a...
View ArticlePulpit Free Day
This coming Sunday, October 7th, is Pulpit Freedom Day, and hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of clergy (mostly Christian) will violate the IRS ban on political endorsements by clergy of tax-exempt...
View ArticleBanned Books Week
We are in the midst of Banned Books Week, and I must confess that my feelings on banning books and other materials have changed drastically over the past few years. There was a time when I would defend...
View ArticleMenorahment
I’m flying to Atlanta on Friday morning, and skimming the SkyMall catalog. I never find anything to buy in the catalog, but I always find something I wish I had invented. A colostomy bag that filters...
View ArticlePumkrist®
My post on the Crossakkiah ® resulted in more than a few choice emails being sent to me privately. I appreciate the feedback, and only encourage some of my readers to look up the word “satire” in the...
View ArticleDante Anyone?
Newsweek’s October 15th cover story states, “Heaven is Real.” The article proving this to be so is by Dr. Eben Alexander who shares with us his near-death experience via an excerpt from his new book,...
View ArticleRape and the Will of God
GOP senate candidate Richard Mourdock (Indiana) believes in God’s will, and because he believes in God’s will what he said about pregnancy through rape isn’t the outrage that his opponents say it...
View ArticleBra is Great
Sooraya Graham, a devout Muslim and an art student in British Columbia, took a photo of a woman draped in niqab and abaya (face veil and full-body covering) folding a bra while doing her laundry....
View ArticleWeather or Not to Vote
I just spoke with my dad in western Massachusetts. He and my mom are praying that hurricane Sandy doesn't cause too much damage or take any lives. My dad isn't what I could call a religious man—I'm not...
View ArticleThe Leiter Side of Sandy
Thank God for Rabbi Noson Leiter of Torah Jews for Decency. I am frustrated by Protestant ministers, like Pastor Luke Robinson of Quinn Chapel AME Church in Frederick, MD, who see storms such as...
View ArticleDonkeys Laden with Books
In the Qur’an Jews are compared to a “donkey laden with books” (Surah 62). The idea, clearly derogatory, is that while Jews carry the sacred Torah from place to place, when it comes to understanding...
View ArticleFour More Years...Beware!
President Obama has just been reelected. Here is what we can expect from four more years of Democratic rule, why, and what we can do about. Ignore this at your own peril.What We Can Expect: Four more...
View ArticleDoor l'Door*
Beware the latest threat to Jewish life: self-locking doors. You know the ones: they lock by themselves when you close them. Well, thank God for Israeli Rabbis Shmuel Wosner and Nissim Karelitz who...
View ArticleArticle 5
I'm watching the news in Israel and what appears to be an inevitable ground war in Gaza. I am both horrified and surprised. Horrified, because war is horrible, and I dread the loss of lives on both...
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