Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
Archaeological dig has revealed a Samaritan temple at Mount Gerizim, 50 miles from Jerusalem. It suggests a struggle for supremacy between Jews and Samaritans in the Holy Land that's been hidden from history. Here's what we now know
![Separation Wall by [l a u r a]](http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2284/2421955354_ff5feec3a4_s.jpg "Separation Wall by [l a u r a]")
Crisis of Zionism author responds to criticism that he's leftist and polarising. "I actually occupy a shrinking center of American Jews fiercely committed to Israel's existence but profoundly troubled by its current course"
On the Bible's last book. "Revelation, far from being meant as a hallucinatory prophecy, is actually a coded account of events happening at the time of writing. It’s really a political cartoon about the crisis in the Jesus movement"
Rabbi responds to ultra-Orthodox attempts to send women to the back of the bus in Israel. Talmud's message to men: Problem is not with women in public; it's with the sexualised way you choose to look at them (h/t Stuart Bailey)
"The expression 'Jewish Christian', made up of two seemingly contradictory concepts, must strike readers not trained in theology or religious history as an oxymoron." But it isn't. Here is the full story of Judaeo-Christianity
Enjoyable review of "The Terror of God", by Islamic scholar Navid Kermani. Uses neglected work of Persian poet Faridoddin Attar to chart a long tradition of angry piety - of dissing God - across Judaism, Islam and Christianity
Israeli policies have created a surge in a new form of ultra-Orthodox Judaism, at once cloistered and militant. These are young people, with large families, unprepared for work or democracy. A difficult, if not disastrous situation
Yoram Kaniuk, novelist, 81, wins court victory in Israel. He can be Jewish by nationality, but an atheist by religion. Sounds like progress. But raises new questions about church and state relations, and what it means to be Jewish
These picks are appearing on the holiest day of the Jewish year: Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. And so the last word to a blog all about atonement, on the website of the Israeli daily, Ha'aretz
Philo-semitism and anti-semitism sound like opposites, but they're really cousins. Both derive from "an unhealthy interest in Jews and an unreal notion of who and what Jews are. Both deal not with Jewishness but with 'Semitism'"
Brief history of the synagogue in America. First congregations founded by Sephardic immigrants. By the 19th century and the arrival of Ashkenazi Jews, splits, rifts and factions were providing rich source material for jokes
Amazing story. Donato "Shitface" Manduzio, southern Italian Catholic peasant, converts to Judaism in 1930s. Persuades dozens of neighbours to follow. They survive fascism, meet Jews from Palestine, reach Israel in 1949
"When Elena Kagan was sworn in as a Supreme Court Justice, did her mother murmur, 'Maybe she’ll meet someone'?"
