Tag Archives: secularism

(Mutation) Political Judaism (Jerusalem Day)

Posted on May 10, 2021 by zjb

After 9/11, there was a lot of back and forth about Islam and Islam and Politics. Over the years, the term Political Islam emerged to define a distinct and reactionary mutation in modern and contemporary Muslim cultures. No such critical … Continue reading →

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(Secular Common Sense) Bankers & Trump (Coronavirus)

Posted on April 16, 2020 by zjb

I know a lot of you are down on capitalism, but this little note here that even the bankers don’t seem to like Trump very much is very funny, but also to the point.  About the idea of a big … Continue reading →

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Religion is Not Essential (Coronavirus)

Posted on April 13, 2020 by zjb

Whose labor is essential? Whose labor is not essential? That’s the question. In modernization/secularization theory a lot of ink gets spilled about the public sphere in relation to the religious sphere. There’s the notion contested this way and that way … Continue reading →

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(Andrew Cuomo) Liberal Political Theology (Coronavirus)

Posted on April 13, 2020 by zjb

Like the one today (April 13), I’ve been watching a lot of these daily press conferences with Gov. Cuomo of New York in response to the Cornonavirus pandemic. Personally, I find them unvarnished and reassuring. Listening for religion and religion … Continue reading →

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(Maimonides) The Difference Between Religious & Secular Is The Difference Between Heaven & Earth (Mishneh Torah)

Posted on March 31, 2020 by zjb

By way of a little contribution via Maimonides to academic arguments about the existence or non-existence of “religion” and “the secular.” The argument is that the two terms along with the judgment that posits either the difference or separation between … Continue reading →

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(Maimonides Says) Cultivate the Middle Way (Hilkhot Deot) (Coronavirus)

Posted on March 29, 2020 by zjb

At the time of a global health pandemic, where better to turn than to the Great Eagle? Hilkhot Deot is a moral-medical compendium, famous for its elaboration upon the Aristotelean mean. But that’s not the half of it. The larger … Continue reading →

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(Mid-century Modern) Protestant Catholic Jew (Will Herberg)

Posted on February 2, 2015 by zjb

Reading for the first time Will Herberg’s classic Protestant-Catholic-Jew: An Essay in American Religious Sociology (1955), I was surprised to see so many interesting things. To start, I’ll only say that the most obvious problem with the book is the … Continue reading →

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Irregular Surfaces (In Jerusalem) Tisha B’Av (At the Wall)

Posted on July 15, 2013 by zjb

  Is this really Israel? Last year I posted a post, “I like Tisha B’Av.” This year, in Jerusalem at the Jewish Quarter and Western Wall, not so much. Not just right wing and orthodox, but stone-like and hermetically sealed. … Continue reading →

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Zionist Culture Criticism (anti-Judaism)

Posted on September 20, 2012 by zjb

(Joseph Hayyim Brenner) It’s probably not a bad idea to remember that Zionism also has a face. I said awhile back that I wasn’t going to post about either it or Israel, that I wanted to take a break, and … Continue reading →

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Eat (Secular) (Rational) (Deuteronomy)

Posted on August 19, 2012 by zjb

Are the origins of secularity culinary? The book of Deuteronomy is insistent about centralizing the cult in one specific place, “the place where I will show you,” namely in Jerusalem. “There you shall offer your burnt offerings…But whenever you desire, … Continue reading →

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