A Reader to an Author
“A whole world collapsed before my very eyes, but you, my favorite author, are bringing it to life again.” –Miriam, in I.B. Singer’s Meshugah
Category: Jewish Tradition
Face to Face with Elie Wiesel
This short review was originally published in the bulletin of the Center for Ethics and Social Policy in Berkeley, April 1993. My book, Elie Wiesel and the Politics of Moral Leadership, was published in spring 2001….
With My Own Eyes: Israel and the Occupied Territories 1967-1973
An attorney who defended Palestinians in Israeli courts, Felicia Langer was an exemplar of accompaniment and focused, righteous indignation. In With My Own Eyes, she recounts some of her experiences in the first years of the…
A Nation of Words
Miriam Weinstein’s Yiddish: A Nation of Words is a compelling book. Go to Amazon.com and type in “Yiddish” and many books will come up whose titles are cheap, sentimental, ridiculous, goofy. Weinstein has a sense…
The Ultimate in Jewish Nightmares
I was sitting outside at RISE with a young Irish-Jewish American friend who asked me, when I showed her a particular chapter in Dear Layla Welcome to Palestine, “Who is Abbie Hoffman?” It was a pleasure…
A Nobody with Whom You Should Get Acquainted
Dear Shimmelstoy After our conversation yesterday afternoon I wrote the following lines Thanks for your encouragement If you want to pass it on To some of your students Go right ahead Bella Levenshteyn He…
Burning Children and the Duty to Resist
In May 1968 Jesuit priest Daniel Berrigan wrote a statement on behalf of the Catonsville Nine as to why they were performing an act of civil disobedience in protest of the Vietnam War. It reads,…
I Should Have Read This before Finishing “Dear Layla Welcome to Palestine”
“There’s just one request I have, Pan: please don’t stick me in any of your books. And if that’s too much to ask, do me a favor and at least leave my name out.” —…
Troublemakers (The Prophetic/2)
The major activity of the prophets was interference Remonstrating about wrongs inflicted on other people Meddling in affairs which were seemingly neither their concern Nor their responsibility A prudent woman is she who minds her…
Episodes/1 (The Prophetic)
To us a single act of injustice (Cheating in business, exploitation of the poor) Is slight To the prophets A disaster To us injustice is injurious to the welfare of the people To the prophets…