More in ‘Jesus’

Hitler’s War on Christmas Revealed

Exhibit reveals Nazi plans to de-Christ Christmas
By Hadara Graubart | 11:01 AM Nov 18, 2009

If, in keeping with the trends of the time, Bill O’Reilly decides to use Nazi imagery to express his rage at the “war on Christmas” this year—well, he may actually have a leg to stand on. Turns out Hitler & Co. did have beef with the holiday, and, as demonstrated in a new exhibition in ...

Sundown: The Big Questions

On Halloween, heresy, and Hitler
By Hadara Graubart | 5:00 PM Oct 30, 2009

• A mother addresses what she calls “one of the biggest Jewish dilemmas”: Can our kids celebrate Halloween? Her conclusion seems to be that the only reason to say yes is that costumes are “cute” and the only reason to say no is that it skeletons are “spooky.” [Jewish Journal]
• The Telegraph takes on a ...

Christmas Without Jesus?

Not if California ballot measure makes it on the ballot
By Allison Hoffman | 1:00 PM Sep 9, 2009

Not bad enough that California’s ridiculous initiative-and-referendum system can essentially bankrupt the state? Turns out it might do this, too: Put on the ballot the question of whether Christmas carols should be compulsory in public school assemblies. Former Los Angeles Times reporter Joe Mathews notes on his New America Foundation blog that a brother-and-sister pair ...

Sundown: Dude Jumps Like a Lady

Freedom of the press, fight or flight, and juice for Jesus
By Hadara Graubart | 5:15 PM Sep 3, 2009

• Berlin 36, a new German documentary, tells the story of a female Jewish high-jumping phenom whom the Nazis replaced in the 1936 Olympics—with a man in a skirt. [Times of London]
• An interview with noted Holocaust denier David Irving will be featured in Spanish newspaper El Mundo’s series of “innovative” views on WWII ...

U.S. Jews Kvetch to U.S. Catholics

Are they trying to convert us?
By Jesse Oxfeld | 11:20 AM Aug 21, 2009

The AP is reporting today that representatives of the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee, and rabbis from the Orthodox, Conservative and Reform movements got together to send an aggreived letter to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. They’re complaining that the bishops issued their own letter in June, which seems to suggest that they ...

Sundown: Fiction Stranger than Truth

No church in school, Yemenite Jews, and an Israeli Robin Hood
By Hadara Graubart | 5:29 PM Jun 29, 2009

• James Frey, no stranger to self-exaggeration, is working on a novel called Illumination: The Last Testament of the Holy Bible, about an Orthodox Jew who thinks he’s God’s gift—literally, as in the Messiah. [NYT]
• A high school in Washington state prohibited students from forming a school-sponsored Bible club, partially because members “would have to ...

Sundown: Animals vs. Religion

Dog fur, Jesus, and the dignity of Iranian Jews
By Hadara Graubart | 5:00 PM Jun 18, 2009

• A proposed animal-welfare law in Israel would outlaw the import of products made from the fur of dogs, cats, or rabbits. Apparently, this would encompass shtreimels, hats worn by Hasidic Jews on special occasions. Knesset Member Menachem Eliezer Moses calls a ban “inconceivable,” despite the fact that synthetic shtreimels are perfectly kosher. [Arutz Sheva]
• ...

Ritual & Observance

All You Need Is Hate

Relationship advice from an angry God
By Liel Leibovitz | 11:14 AM May 15, 2009

A man, I believe, is defined as firmly by what he hates as by what he loves.
Sure, we can go ahead and post, with the help of ubiquitous social networking sites, a litany of partialities, celebrating our fondness for everything from Jane Austen to mint ice cream. But very few of us are equally as ...

Books

True Confessions

A new book probes Augustine's vexing 'defense' of Judaism
By Adam Kirsch | 11:47 AM Dec 8, 2008

Near the end of Augustine and the Jews, her brilliant and challenging new book, Paula Fredriksen offers a summary of the remarks about Jews that Saint Augustine made in his sermons on the Gospel of John. This Gospel is by far the most hostile of the four in its depiction of the Jews of Jesus’ ...