Monthly Archives: May 2019

Animals (Franz Marc & Martin Buber)

Posted on May 31, 2019 by zjb

Yellow Cow This terrestrial surface is a physical place of noise and violence. Redemption is its metamorphosis. Franz Marc, who was killed at Verdun on the Western Front, was a tragic figure to those who memorialized him. Writing his obituary … Continue reading →

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(Israel) Bellum Omnium Contra Omnes (Political Spectacle)

Posted on May 30, 2019 by zjb

Here’s one arm, there’s the other arm of a dominant political beast. It’s like a bomb suddenly went off, shredding the political body of the Jewish right in Israel, an explosion that gives the lie to the notion that there are … Continue reading →

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The State of Israel and Religion & State

Posted on May 28, 2019 by zjb

An unmanageable quid pro quo, religion serving state and the state serving religion does not a pretty picture make.

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(Moshav Me’or Modi’im) Charismatic Spiritual Counter-Culture (Shaul Magid)

Posted on May 26, 2019 by zjb

(photo credit: Shmuel Silver) I wish he had written a lot more about women, but this piece which you can read here by Shaul Magid is an important bit of spiritual memoir recounting the charismatic spiritual counter-culture of Moshav Mevo … Continue reading →

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Light Space (Proclus)

Posted on May 22, 2019 by zjb

“Thus Proclus’s idea of a preternatural ‘light above the Empyrean’ enables us to draw on the panoply of properties of a natural phenomenon such as light whole not enclosing ourselves in a straitjacket of a reductive physics. The immateriality of … Continue reading →

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Jewish Ethics & the Hertz Pentateuch

Posted on May 20, 2019 by zjb

You know he was going to make a big deal of the so-called Holiness Code (Leviticus 17-22) and there he was. The Hertz Pentateuch tags chapter 19 as “A Manual of Moral Instruction.” These chapters are for Hertz more than … Continue reading →

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Telling the Nakba in the Israeli Media

Posted on May 15, 2019 by zjb

Of interest is how an Israeli media outlet in English can present in human terms a simple story of the Palestinian Nakba without hyperventilating. Whatever one’s political persuasion, human recognition should be basic and key. You can read the story … Continue reading →

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(Sexual Ethics & The Holiness of Home) More Domestic Judaism (The Hertz Pentateuch)

Posted on May 15, 2019 by zjb

Leviticus has been a pretty dry run in the Hertz Pentateuch. You can tell Hertz is just not into sacrifice and ritual by the more or less cursory exposition of what he takes to be the plain meaning (peshat) and … Continue reading →

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Auschwitz + Camp (The Holocaust in American Life in the New York Times Friday Weekend Arts II Section)

Posted on May 13, 2019 by zjb

Nobody reads print anymore, but these things matter. About the new and important exhibition of artifacts from Auschwitz now on display at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, the editors at the New York Times Friday Weekend Arts section made bad … Continue reading →

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There Is No Friend/Enemy Distinction in Israel & Palestine (May 2019)

Posted on May 6, 2019 by zjb

Until proven otherwise, after the latest round of bloodletting after the latest round of bloodletting right before the elections in Israel, it is more than clear that there is no friend/enemy distinction in Israel and Palestine. The friend/enemy distinction is … Continue reading →

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