Tag Archives: liberalism

Exodus and Revolution (~Political Theology) (Images) (Michael Walzer)

Posted on April 19, 2013 by zjb

Books come to you in your moment of need for them. I’m sure I would not have “understood”  Michael Walzer’s now classic Exodus and Revolution had I read it in graduate school like I probably should have. New intellectual currents … Continue reading →

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Visual Tefilah (Prayer)

Posted on April 4, 2013 by zjb

Behold the liturgical future: projecting words of prayer and graphic images on high-capacity double screens set up on either side of the ark up on the bimah (prayer platform). The idea is to project the prayers of the prayerbook onto … Continue reading →

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Jewish and Democratic (III) (The In/Coherence of Liberal Zionism) (Dead Dog?)

Posted on March 19, 2013 by zjb

Liberal Zionism a dead dog? Maybe, maybe not. In American, most Jews, I bet, are not religious and/or rightwing, not radical one-staters, not religious and now leftwing. They hew pretty much down a stressed out and shapeless middle. Obviously, the … Continue reading →

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Consumption, Fertility, Orthodox Judaism (David Brooks)

Posted on March 8, 2013 by zjb

Open-orthodox friends of mine at FB were all over the recent David Brooks paean at the NYT to orthodox fertility and constricted possibilities. After going through and telling his readers about the assembled glories at the snack section of a luxury … Continue reading →

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Authority of Authority (Talya Fishman & Haym Soloveitchik) (The Jewish Review of Books, the Tivkah Fund, and Conservative Jewish Thought)

Posted on December 20, 2012 by zjb

About a year ago, I penned online at Zeek Magazine a vicious attack on the Tikvah Fund and the Jewish Review of Books, which is funded by the Fund. In it, I attempted to expose the Tikvah Fund as a … Continue reading →

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Thanksgiving Americana (Norman Rockwell and Franklin D. Roosevelt)

Posted on November 22, 2012 by zjb

I can think of no piece of kitschy Americana as often ridiculed as this idealized image of a Thanksgiving holiday feast by Norman Rockwell. It’s been kicked around by the cultural studies people as an emblem for the politics of … Continue reading →

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Religion ↔ Politics

Posted on November 14, 2012 by zjb

It’s coming more and more clear to me why I don’t want to conflate (identify) religion and politics, or to reduce one to the other. The institutional ramifications of any such theoretical positioning can only be catastrophic, a disaster for … Continue reading →

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Religion ~Politics (After 2012)

Posted on November 12, 2012 by zjb

(Andy Warhol, Crosses [c.1981-2]) Maybe after all is said and done, Jesus wasn’t a radical progressive, the rabbis were neither conservative nor liberal, and the prophets weren’t political. Maybe just maybe they had other things on their mind, some other … Continue reading →

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Liberalism (Vindication) (Obama 2012)

Posted on November 7, 2012 by zjb

Obama’s speech last night was a vindication of liberalism, based as it was on appeals to people from all walks of life. And I can’t help but think that it represents, or comes close to representing those very values important … Continue reading →

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Obama!

Posted on November 6, 2012 by zjb
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