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Who are the nation’s 50 most influential Jews? The Forward has published this year’s list — they call it the Forward 50. But what does it mean? What is an “influential Jew”? Is it the same as someone who wields influence Jewishly, based on Jewish values? Is it someone who has influence over Jews? Does…

Thanksgiving is only a week away. And while we all appreciate the time off, it’s worth remembering how this holiday came to be and thinking together about whether of not it’s really a good idea. I think that Presidents Washington and Lincoln were correct about the importance of proclamations of a national day of thanksgiving,…

At first blush, the idea that a couple is divorcing over a husband’s flirtations with a virtual woman may sound funny. But if we take online communication seriously, and respect the power of imagination, there is nothing funny about it. In fact, it is simply a new manifestation of a problem that has been known…

Saudi King, Abdullah Abdul Aziz al Saud, spoke this week at the UN. His remarks about the dignity of religious difference sparked global controversy. Is this part of a new world in which the custodian of Islam’s holy places advocates for religious liberty and the individual’s right to choose their faith, including no faith at…

The long-simmering dispute between Jewish leaders, particularly the children of Holocaust survivors, and the Church of Latter Day Saints (the Mormons) is boiling over. And as is often the case, the issue at hand is not really the problem. It’s merely the battleground being used by each side to pursue a whole other agenda. That…

Proposition 8, the California initiative defining marriage as being only between a man and a woman was voted into law by a 52% majority and black voters favored that outcome by a margin of 70%. In fact, Evangelical Christians were the only numerically significant demographic to favor Prop 8 by a larger margin – 80%.…

Yesterday’s obscene comments about President-Elect Obama by Georgia Republican Paul Broun were only less disturbing than his attempted apology for them. The Congressman stated that he fears that President-elect Obama will establish a Gestapo-like security force to impose a Marxist or fascist dictatorship. “It may sound a bit crazy and off base, but the thing…

Karen Armstrong’s invitation to the world to begin writing today, a Charter for Compassion, strikes me as well-intentioned silliness at best. At worst it is a more benign form of the same religious arrogance which she decries and which lies at the root of the violence and hatred which religious faith can and does inspire…

Events in a Washington D.C. hospital prove that the divisive controversy over the question of when human life begins is matched by equally complex issues over the determination of when it ends. As a father, I can not fathom the pain of parents watching their child die. And the case of Motl Brody, a 12-year-old…

Suffering is not a zero-sum game, even when it comes to the Holocaust. But based on many comments from inside the Jewish community about the new film, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, one might think otherwise. Apparently, the very notion of a film which evokes sympathy for a German, in this case a seven…
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