General News

Why Those Who Cherish Martin Luther King Must Oppose Donald Trump

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With the full measure of our courage and our convictions, in this fraught and dangerous time we must echo the principled pronouncement of Martin Luther King and declare to every listening ear: “The prospect of Donald Trump being President of the United States so threatens the health, morality, and survival of our nation, that we cannot in good conscience fail to take a stand against who he is and what he represents.” And then we must act.

Environment

I Stand with Standing Rock, Black Lives Matter, and Palestine: A Brief Essay on White Privilege

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Within the mountains of conversations that comprise the Babylonian Talmud, I have been drawn to a single practice: strive not to benefit or profit from the fruits of violence. As a white, elderly Jewish woman of mixed Ashkenazi descent and the sixth generation of my family to live on this continent, I am part of the group of European settlers who arrived here and built their houses on land stolen by military force from indigenous people.

General News

Overcoming Bitterness and No Longer Assuming the Worst of Democrats

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For decades, I have been obsessed with exposing the Clintons and like-minded Democratic politicians’ dangerous foreign policies, challenging liberal naiveté that ignores or excuses such hawkish proclivities, and underscoring the need to withhold support until they embrace more responsible positions. What I am belatedly discovering, as this campaign season is drawing to a close, is that while such concerns are not without merit, such efforts have ended up contributing to what may be an even bigger problem: the anger, frustration, cynicism, self-righteousness, isolation and other self-defeating tendencies on the left.

General News

Remembering History

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When Donald Trump asks his supporters to go to certain neighborhoods to “watch” at the polls on Election Day, he clearly has never known, has forgotten, or does not care about the painful, tragic, and racist history of voting in the United States. He does not remember the days when African Americans faced torture and terrorism for exercising their constitutional right to vote. He does not remember that the franchise was restricted to white citizens in many states where slavery was against the law. Remembering history, we as a nation will not go back to those days. It is important to remember that the founders did not trust ordinary people.

General News

Peace Day 2016 and Blood on the Street in Charlotte, North Carolina

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September 21 is the United Nations International Day of Peace and Global Ceasefire – Peace Day. It is a day that reminds us of the hope of humankind to make a world where everyone lives a life of sustenance and joy. Peace Day coincides with the opening session of the United Nations General Assembly, but it is also a day when ordinary people do various acts and things to promote peace. Yet, every year, Peace Day dawns with some awful tragic reality to remind us of how far we have to go to arrive at the goal of peace. On Tuesday afternoon, September 20, Keith Lamont Scott, 43, was sitting in his S.U.V minding his own business.

General News

Another Truth Without Reconciliation

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South Africa ended apartheid with Truth and Reconciliation hearings. Georgetown University has acknowledged their financial gain from slavery, and is making reparation plans for the descendants of the slaves they sold. Do these and other efforts ever come close? Is it too late to right a wrong? My story of reconciliation from state sanctioned injustice, stems from the horrors committed by Nazi Germany. My parents were Jews who survived prewar Nazi Germany and the years of World War II in Holland. My mother survived partly in hiding and partly in the Dutch underground; my father in Westerbork Camp.

Culture

On Turning Sixty: Counsel From My Inner Wisdom on How to Live

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Trust that your sustained presence will take care of the fruits. Work in a relaxed yet alert way, knowing that insights are gifts bestowed when you let go and align. Meet challenges with possibilities. Realize that in most cases, less is more, and quality trumps quantity. Decide whether inner criteria or outer requirements will determine when the work is finished. Celebrate your accomplishments, acknowledging they ultimately derive from the Wellspring. Bless your life and the Giver of life.

Gender and Sexuality

Trump: Jung's Warning

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Many politicians display egotistical personality distortions, some more than others. Trump, however, is of an entirely different order. Do we want a president accessing nuclear codes, shaping the Supreme Court for generations, and leading the world in extreme climate denial, who, in the eyes of many psychologists is a narcissistic sociopath/ psychopath well accomplished in the art of gaslighting, which is when abusers undermine and distort the reality and truth of others’ perceptions and emotions in order to control or destroy them, i.e. Trump claiming victory for ending the birther myth he promoted for years by falsely shifting blame to Clinton.

Education

The Big, Orange Shofar

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If Donald Trump’s campaign was hoping for strong support from American Jews, they are surely disappointed. Trump’s support among Jewish voters is at an historically low 19%. There is an active website with contributions from rabbis and Jewish leaders called jewsagainsttrump.com. The Jewish social justice organization Bend the Arc has shared a satirical video of Jewish grandparents threatening to haunt their offspring if they vote for Trump. Rabbis, normally fearful of running afoul of congregants and IRS regulations, are openly considering speaking against the man on the High Holidays.

Culture

Jacob Neusner: In Memoriam

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The New York Times called him the most published individual in history. In his excellent book, Jacob Neusner: An American Jewish Iconoclast (NYU Press, 2016) Aaron Hughes suggests he is the greatest Jewish scholar of Judaism born in the United States. Whether either of these claims are true, and they are certainly reasonably so, he was surely one of the most towering figures in the study of Judaism in the past half century.