Passover is perhaps the ultimate holiday for people like me who celebrate the freedom-enhancing potential of voting with your feet. After all, it’s about people who voted with with their feet to escape slavery. Economist Arnold Kling, however, is more skeptical. He poses the following “libertarian seder questions”: 1. Why did the Egyptians not attempt […]
Archive | Jewish Culture
Birthright Applicants vs. Peter Beinart
Last May, I began a post this way: Peter Beinart has written a scathing indictment of organized American Jewry’s “conservative” views on Israel. He claims that “right-wing” Israeli policies, combined with American Jewish groups’ unflinching support for Israel, are alienating young American Jews, and reducing their attachment to Israel. Beinart’s essay has received a remarkable […]
New York Times (?) on “Jewish Voice for Peace”
As regular readers know, I’m often critical of the New York Times’ reporting on various matters. But this morning, the ninth most popular article on the New York Times website, about the hard-leftist “Jewish Voice for Peace,” is not even a Times piece, but reprinted from a local San Francisco online startup called the Bay […]
Trivia Question
Without Googling or otherwise cheating, where is the only kosher McDonald’s outside of Israel?
Happy Chanukah!
Today is the first day of the holiday. Below is this year’s big Chanukah Youtube hit.
Teaching English and Math Means “Imposing Western culture on Jewish culture”
Here’s an article that reads like a parody, but isn’t. A former education minister of Israel, Yitzhak Levy, objects to the imposition of a core curriculum on state-funded Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) schools. This core curriculum, apparently, consists of English and Mathematics, neither of which, to my knowledge, are in tension with any known version of Judaism. […]
Shanah Tovah!
The category of “Best Rosh Hashanah Video on YouTube” is probably not that competitive, but here’s a favorite of mine. The Hebrew is actually PG-13 or so, and not especially profound. But I love how the “author” worked with a popular and very catchy Muppets song. Shanah Tovah, for the uninitiated, means “Happy New Year.” […]
Chinese Food On Christmas
From today’s hearing: “Where were you on Christmas Day?” Graham asked. “Like all Jews,” Kagan responded, “I was probably at a Chinese restaurant.” “I could almost see this one coming,” Leahy quipped. Then Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) jumped in: “Those are the only restaurants that are open!” I, too, was at a Chinese restaurant last […]
“From Date to Mate” Update
I blogged about this show on Jan. 1: That’s the name of a mock reality show available online on Shalom TV. It’s about four single Jewish twenty-somethings in Manhattan who have agreed to have their online dating life followed by t.v. cameras for eight months. I’ve watched the first two episodes, and two things strike […]
Genetic Evidence Shows Common Origins of Jews
N.Y. Times: Jewish communities in Europe and the Middle East share many genes inherited from the ancestral Jewish population that lived in the Middle East some 3,000 years ago, even though each community also carries genes from other sources — usually the country in which it lives. That is the conclusion of two new genetic […]
More Interesting DNA Information
from my 23andMe genetic profile. The three populations I most resemble from a genetic perspective (besides other Ashkenazic Jews, and, I assume, likely Sephardic Jews as well) are Druze, Bedouin, and Palestinian.
Jews, Liberalism, Nationalism–Some Interesting Historical Continuities
Ted Bromund has this interesting follow up to the Noah Pollak piece I linked to Wednesday: The problem today is not that the peace process has failed or that this reveals the failure of the liberal vision. All that is true enough. The problem is that the liberal vision itself has changed. Not all liberals […]
Peter Beinart–Trite
Peter Beinart has written a scathing indictment of organized American Jewry’s “conservative” views on Israel. He claims that “right-wing” Israeli policies, combined with American Jewish groups’ unflinching support for Israel, are alienating young American Jews, and reducing their attachment to Israel. Beinart’s essay has received a remarkable amount of attention, especially considering that its underlying […]