More in ‘Jesus’

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 ...

• 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 ...

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 ...

• 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 ...

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 ...

• 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 ...

• 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]
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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 ...

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’ ...