Judaism articles from June 1995

Judaism archives from June 1995

The murder of Walter Rathenau.
June 22, 1995... On June 24, 1922, Germany's first (and only) Jewish foreign minister, Walther Rathenau, was shot and murdered by two young right-wing former German officers. The assassination, less than six months after Rathenau's appointment, was shocking...

The Jews of Europe and the moment of death in medieval and modern times.
June 22, 1995... When, in early 1556, Abraham Colonia, a wealthy Italian Jew, died suddenly in the town of Viadana, one of the local rabbinic authorities ruled that his body should not be accompanied to burial since he did not confess publicly, and was...

Women and Kaddish.
June 22, 1995... AT FIRST GLANCE, ANY DISCUSSION OF THE APPROPRIATENESS of women saying Kaddish, the traditional mourner's prayer, seems to be superfluous. On the one hand, those for whom egalitarianism is the major ethical principle see no possibility of...

Covered mirrors. (poem)
June 22, 1995... After my father's death I sat shiva. Mirrors covered, we received friends and relatives in the evening and I sat on a wooden box. They brought food and conversation to sustain us, no laughter. Rooted in...

Conservative rabbis, their movement, and American Judaism.
June 22, 1995... On the eve of its north American Centennial, the Conservative movement has demonstrated a series of accomplishments that point to its increased vitality within American religious Judaism. The National Jewish Population Study of 1990 found that...

Response. (response to article by Gerald L. Zelizer in this issue, p. 292)
June 22, 1995... Rabbi Gerald Z. Zelizer, in his article, provide us with an unusually candid review and appraisal of the Conservative rabbinate during his own term as Rabbinical Assembly president. His analysis is in many ways a primary source for students of...

Response. (response to article by Gerald L. Zelizer in this issue, p. 292)
June 22, 1995... "The American Rabbi of the present generation is called upon to cope with many phases of congregational and communal activity which do not seem to belong to the traditional sphere of the Rabbinate" noted a contemporary eyewitness in 1927,...

Response. (response to article by Gerald L. Zelizer in this issue, p. 292)
June 22, 1995... Rabbi Zelizer, who many years ago was a student of mine at the Jewish Theological Seminary, asked me to comment on his essay and I, perhaps foolishly, agreed to do so. I say foolishly because in some sense his essay concerns a family quarrel...

The Golem, Zevi Ashkenazi, and reproductive biology.
June 22, 1995... Stunning Developments in Biotechnology continue to precipitate challenging problems for bioethics. For instance, the application of biotechnology to human reproduction has raised a plethora of problems for bioethics. Of these, two are...

Insomnia again. (poem)
June 22, 1995... My friend, who is nearing eighty, calls to praise me, a recent honor, and says, "Posh" and "Fah" to my worries. "Conflict," she says, "is the source of life. Without it we wither." Is that what keeps us keen? Is that what...

Isaac Stern's performance. (poem)
June 22, 1995... Here plants -- gold and dry -- rustle up green at soil's edge. Music roils in the room where I wait, my chest holding even at the scars edge. Whatever chances I took paid off and now I have only the rest...

Jacob's limp.
June 22, 1995... What was the nature of the nocturnal disorder (Genesis 32:25, v. 26 in the Hebrew) that caused Jacob to limp? (v. 31, v. 32) One could study the opinions of the religious scholars or of physicians. Something happened in the hollow of Jacob's...

Religion and politics in Israel and Jerusalem.
June 22, 1995... Israel presents an intriguing site for examining the role of religion in politics. In many respects, it is a polar opposite of the typical Western, secular democracy.(1) Founded as a Jewish state, Israel I did not follow the trend that had...

Taking the Argo to Nineveh: Jonah and Jason in a Mediterranean context.
June 22, 1995... Naturally, the book of Jonah must be read, first and last, within its Hebrew context. Indeed, the text reverberates, especially to Hebrew ears, with clear echoes of biblical passages that come from the Noah story, from Jeremiah Joel, and other...

The day Stalin died. (poem)
June 22, 1995... I leaned my back behind the mower: wooden wheels, thin metal blades in n of sharpening. Earlier in the day I was in a spelling bee -- stumped on appetite -- forgetting the second P. After school Kenny Teuton asked me...

19332. (poem)
June 22, 1995... First it was breakfast in Barbados, now next to me on the beach in Mayereau. Maybe if I concentrate on the emerald water; nineteen sailboats in the bay, thirty three wind surfers. I stop, realizing the symmetry. The...

Jonah's journey.
June 22, 1995... JONAH IS A DIFFICULT CHARACTER, FIRST HE RUNS AWAY from God. Then, asleep, he is indifferent to the plight of his fellow shipmates. The prophet endures a strange, even bizarre voyage in the depths of the sea. When Jonah finally gets to...

On Yom Kippur.
June 22, 1995... Shortly after sunrise on a lucid morning late in June 1973 my family and I stood on the deck of a Zim passenger ship straining our eyes to catch our very first glimpse of Israel. The ship was making its way toward land in a calm and glistening...

The Sacred Chain.
June 22, 1995... How do we write religious history? are we caught without recourse between the alternatives of fundamentalism and complete disbelief in the historical foundations of our religions? These questions are raised by Norman Cantor's The Sacred Chain,...

What Went Wrong? The Creation and Collapse of the Black-Jewish Alliance.
June 22, 1995... These two books are the latest additions to a long list of volumes on the history of Black-Jewish relations in the United States. Indeed, more has been written by historians, sociologists, and novelists about the relationship between Blacks...

Blacks and Jews: Alliances and Arguments.
June 22, 1995... These two books are the latest additions to a long list of volumes on the history of Black-Jewish relations in the United States. Indeed, more has been written by historians, sociologists, and novelists about the relationship between Blacks...