Search Results for: This Is What Politics Looks Like

(SCOTUS) Guns, Abortion, Religion (Subverting the Public Sphere)

Posted on July 17, 2022 by zjb

Our moment of madness in the United States of America lies in the sudden massive churn against liberal-social order after a long pre-meditated buildup going back decades. Of a whole piece are the more recent Trump attempted-coup on January 6 … Continue reading →

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(Moses & Israel & Monuments) The Political Theology of Deuteronomy (Hertz Commentary)

Posted on August 21, 2020 by zjb

  The introduction to the last book of the Pentateuch in the iconic Hertz Pentateuch commentary (1936) comes as something of a surprise, maybe. Of course, there are those banner lines from this biblical book, its anthem, the Shema Yisroel, … Continue reading →

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(Hasidism) A Political Community? A Religious Community?

Posted on March 26, 2019 by zjb

Thinking about the importance of politics and the figure of community in Spinoza and Mendelssohn, and thinking out loud about Hasidism. Asking you the reader if you think the various groups of hasidim forming around the baalei-shem in the 18th … Continue reading →

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You’re Brutal Killers (Trump)

Posted on December 8, 2019 by zjb

Wrapped up in right wing sweet talk, of note is the familiar, intimate kibbitzing between like-minded people at this political convergence of money and power. They go on for almost an hour. It’s hard to know which statement by the … Continue reading →

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Teaching the Holocaust Again

Posted on July 3, 2019 by zjb

I wrote the following notes after having taught at Syracuse my Holocaust class, the focus of which is Jewish religious response to the Holocaust. This post seems apt and I have since added to it. While keeping to the basic … Continue reading →

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Robert Alter Reads Paul Mendes-Flohr Reading Martin Buber & Drops the Ball on God (A Meta-Meta-Meta Commentary)

Posted on May 5, 2019 by zjb

Sorry to read Robert Alter’s review of the long awaited biography by Paul Mendes-Flohr, Martin Buber: A Life of Faith and Dissent and the lazy reading of its subject.  You can read it here and this is a key line: … Continue reading →

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(What Politics Looks Like) Cigar (Netanyahu)

Posted on January 10, 2017 by zjb

(This is what politics looks like)

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Judaism, Gender, Secularism, and Religion (Cornell University)

Posted on March 18, 2019 by zjb

Kudos to Cara Rock Singer for organizing Gendering and Embodying the Jew: Judaism, Secularism, and the Politics of Difference, a workshop held yesterday at Cornell. Alongside the intensive look at gender, most interesting for me is the way religion was … Continue reading →

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(Rabbinic Fantasy & The Land of Israel) Tractate Ketubot Is More Complex Than Zionism or Anti-Zionism

Posted on February 4, 2019 by zjb

The concluding mishna and gemara of tractate Ketubot is a locus classicus of Haredi anti-Zionism and an even more interesting textual unit in its own right. It is most famous for the almost mythic posing of three primary vows in … Continue reading →

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(Political Stress Test) American Liberal Jewish Double Down (After Pittsburgh & Trump)

Posted on November 4, 2018 by zjb

There’s been some comment about “deep splits” in the American Jewish community after Pittsburgh and in reaction to Trump. I don’t see it that way. Sure there are outliers, about which I will comment below, and the Jewish right has … Continue reading →

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