“Budrus”: Review by Michael Nagler
2010
Why the Propaganda?
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“A Lethal Obsession: Aanti-Semitism from Antiquity to the Global Jihad” by Robert S. Wistrich: Review by Milton Viorst
2010
Prophetic Courage in an Imperial Age
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“The Man Who Knew God: Decoding Jeremiah” by Mordecai Schreiber: Review by Barry L. Schwartz
2010
Word Jazz: Music and the Poetry of Rav Kook
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We can sense the shared matrix of poetry and music in the rhythmic loam of language from which they both arose. Some of our languages preserve the connection in name: in Hebrew we use shirah to signify both song and poem, as if all song implies poetry and all poetry implies music.
2010
Islam and Homosexuality
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In 2002 I began a long and lonely journey, daring to visit some of the darkest corners of the taboo that permeates the consciousness of that unlikely character: the gay or lesbian Muslim.
2010
Does It Really Work?
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Can we scare criminals into being good? A look into a new attempt at crime prevention.
2010
Philosophers of Catastrophe and the Last Kantian in Nazi Germany: How Judaism Redeems Western Philosophy
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A death-camp dog knew better than many philosophers. It took Jews like Rosenzweig and Levinas to point out the flaw and the remedy.
2007
The Simpsons: It’s Funny ‘Cause it’s True
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Flying into Orlando in a 2003 episode of The Simpsons, patriarch Homer peers down at a theme park and sees a large, distinctive Future Sphere like the one at Disney’s Epcot, and takes a decidedly dim view. “It’s even boring to fly over,” he whines. Thus begins a typically madcap set of misadventures and missteps familiar to any family that has dragged itself to Florida for a vacation it couldn’t afford, including a run-in with a fascist-sounding mouse and grossly overpriced food.
2007
Two Dystopian Movies . . . and their Visions of Hope
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WHAT DOES IT MEAN to be human? What is it that limits our humanity, and what causes it to flower? The need to find or create meaning seems to be one commonality of human existence—through storytelling, myth, or religion, we can connect to our core decency, a place untouched by the vagaries of the world. Recently, a cadre of Mexican directors—Alfonso Cuarón (Children of Men), Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth) and Alejandro Gonzáles Iñárritu (Babel)—has taken on our global humanity, offering genre-defying and emotionally rich perspectives
2006
The Electronic Intifada: Pushing the Envelope with Ali Abunimah
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IF YOU LISTEN TO NPR AND THE BBC as frequently as the editorial staff of Tikkun does, in all likelihood you’ve heard the British-accented voice of Ali Abunimah. The editor and publisher of both the Electronic Intifada (www.electronicintifada.net) and Electronic Iraq (www.electroniciraq.net) since 2001, Abunimah has established himself as one of the single most influential Palestinian intellectuals in North America.
2006
The Real Middle East
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Why They Don’t Hate Us: Lifting the Veil on the Axis of Evil
by Mark LeVine. One World Publications, 2005.
The Modern Middle East
by Ilan Pappé. Routledge, 2005.
2005
Can’t Stop the SlingShot: Hip-Hop Arises in Palestine
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We watch a group of five rappers prepare for their first show in their hometown. Dressed in requisite hip-hop style—football jerseys, baseball caps, and the like—the performers primp nervously and practice their rhymes, while they talk about their pre-show jitters. This could be any crew of kids in the world that’s recently found a voice in the global phenomenon of rap music. But the impact hits as we watch them enter a modest club to their friends’ greetings, and then hit the stage after one of them gets on the mic and announces: “We are PR, the first rappers from Gaza.”