Monthly Archives: February 2020

(People Are Jerks) Street Corner Conversation (Honking Horns)

Posted on February 13, 2020 by zjb

[2 pedestrians waiting at foot of the off-0ramp from the Queensboro Bridge.] [Guy honks car horn.] Pedestrian 1: That’s not going to get him anywhere. Pedestrian 2: I know. P1: People are jerks. P2: Yeah, right! [P1 and P2 start … Continue reading →

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Trump-Sanders-Bloomberg (Non-Normals & Political Dialectic)

Posted on February 12, 2020 by zjb

I’m putting this out there even if I’m not entirely sure about it. But this is the inexorable logic. Trump trolling the nation propels Sanders forward while collapsing Biden. Sanders push to the front of the pack propels Bloomberg’s campaign … Continue reading →

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Edward Said & Orientalism (Some Bibliographical References)

Posted on February 11, 2020 by zjb

Of course most if not all of my academic friends will recognize this picture and will have read at some point in their lives the text for which it is the cover-image. But from which perspectival perch do we engage … Continue reading →

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An Icon of American Jewishness (Kirk Douglas at the Wall)

Posted on February 6, 2020 by zjb

With those man-hands and that craggy face, Kirk Douglas in 1977 is an icon of American Jewishness, ancient and modern at the Western Wall in Jerusalem; secular and religious; performative and phallogocentric. (h/t Matthew Menachem Feuer)

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(Diminutive) Ancient Judahite Art (Tel Motza Temple)

Posted on February 4, 2020 by zjb

Not gods or god-like are these diminutive little figures from the Tel Motza temple site in the Judean Hills, in close proximity to Jerusalem. One can only speculate if similar figures were on hand at the Jerusalem temple site during … Continue reading →

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(Iconic Jewishness) David Sassoon (Mumbai)

Posted on February 2, 2020 by zjb

Heschel speculates somewhere (I think in God in Search of Man) about what Judaism would have turned into or, let’s say, looked like if major Jewish communities had found themselves settled in India as opposed to Europe. Perhaps more iconic … Continue reading →

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