Tag Archives: liberalism

Churches (Amsterdam Avenue)

Posted on March 8, 2014 by zjb

There’s a lot of religion in New York. Some churches along the way up Amsterdam Avenue between 96th and 112th Streets on a winter rainy day. Solid structure, wet atmospherics, and traffic flow. I don’t know what to make of … Continue reading →

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(One Type of) (Liberal) Sovereignty (FDR) (Isaiah Berlin)

Posted on February 3, 2014 by zjb

Reading and resisting a lot of continental theory that draws its political theology from European and even medieval source material, I enjoyed very much finding this 1955 piece from the Atlantic (and reposted online at its website). Instead of the … Continue reading →

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Happy Mordecai Kaplan (Loose Modern Judaism Relaxed)

Posted on January 23, 2014 by zjb

Delighted to be corrected by a photograph of a happy Mordecai Kaplan smiling with colleagues in the early 1950s at the Teachers’ Institute. Easy laughs and relaxed posture. Thanks Maria Carson and Mel Scult for sharing. Modern Judaism should look … Continue reading →

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Unhappy Place — Mordecai Kaplan– The Jewish Theological Seminary (1913-1934)

Posted on January 22, 2014 by zjb

What an unhappy place the Jewish Theological Seminary was for Mordecai Kaplan, and what an unhappy place he must have made it in turn. From this there is a lot to learn about Conservative Judaism and institutionalized liberal religion in … Continue reading →

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Fast Food Minimum Wage (New York)

Posted on December 3, 2013 by zjb

About a recent article in the NYT about older workers working in the fast food industry for sub-living wages, I think this is the important analysis. The fast-food industry says that what is going on here is a structural anomaly: … Continue reading →

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Evangelii Gaudium (New Liberal Religion) (Pope Francis)

Posted on December 2, 2013 by zjb

Lost in the attention given to the recent exhortation by Pope Francis was that the document, Evangellii Gaudium (Joy of the Gospel) (2013) is a document about church mission, a church that “goes forth” out into the world. The vision … Continue reading →

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Lungs (New Liberal American Religion)

Posted on November 14, 2013 by zjb

For an inkling of what a New Liberal Religion might possibly look like after a generation of bone-crushing religious conservatism, check out this “room for debate” in the NYT. At least that’s what I’m calling it, New Liberal Religion. New … Continue reading →

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(Unfalsifiable) Anti-Zionism

Posted on October 29, 2013 by zjb

Just as bad as the “Zionism” it rejects, a lot of genuinely radical anti-Zionist writing will often seem not to allow anything in that might disturb its own tight narrative coherence. The logics are unfalsifiable, i.e. without criteria or evidence … Continue reading →

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Place and Placelessness, Human Rights and History (Samuel Moyn)

Posted on October 17, 2013 by zjb

I was not expecting to need to read Samuel Moyn’s The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History, but it’s a good thing I did. The sharpness of the book lies in the clarity with which Moyn wants to delineate Human … Continue reading →

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American Liberalism (Syria) (Yom Kippur)

Posted on September 13, 2013 by zjb

Famous in among Jewish art aficionados, almost all the adult figures in Maurycy Gottlieb’s 1878 painting of Jews Praying in the Synagogue on Yom Kippur are looking around this way and that. They are either introspecting or missing the main … Continue reading →

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