The Worthy Dispossessed
This past week saw much coverage and commentary on Israel’s “pull-out” from the Gaza Strip. It was only a matter of time, I thought, before Elie Wiesel would weigh in on this “historic” occasion. Now…
Category: Israel
A Jewish Theology of Liberation
A review of Toward a Jewish Theology of Liberation, 3rd expanded edition, by Marc H. Ellis. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2004. First Published in the Journal of Palestine Studies (2005). At the 60th anniversary…
Long Live Hybridity
On Edward Said, Freud and the Non-European Introduction b Christopher Bollas Response by Jacqueline Rose Verso, 2003 In Jacqueline Rose’s eyes, Edward Said’s reading of Freud’s Moses and Monotheism is “[a] political parable, then,…
Dangerous Solidarity
This week, March 24, marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of when El Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero was assassinated while celebrating Mass. A month before, he had sent a letter to then-president Jimmy Carter, imploring him to…
Being at the End of the Year: Reflections on Hope
For Andrew Wimmer Exuberance is Beauty. William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell[1] It’s been a rough year. Just considering the big picture, to think of Fallujah, Abu Ghraib, and Rafah, is enough…
Righteous Jews
for Hedy Epstein A reflection on Roane Carey and Jonathan Shanin, ed., The Other Israel: Voices of Refusal and Dissent (New York: The New Press, 2002). 1. When I came back from Palestine after working…
Poet against War – Aharon Shabtai: A Voice Mocking in The Wilderness
It’s summertime and this means vacation for some of us, and people will be browsing in chain bookstores for the perfect summer escapist read: mysteries, sci-fi, biographies, anything to take our minds off of work,…
Beatitudes
In April 2004 Marc Ellis invited Hedy Epstein and me to come to speak at Baylor University. Marc had been my professor at Maryknoll and had supported my work on Elie Wiesel. During a visit…
On Edward Said
Edward Said died last fall, and his loss has been felt throughout the Arab world. When I was in Palestine, in both Gaza City and Ramallah, there were posters all over the place commemorating Said’s …
Jewish Progressives Wrestle with Renewal and the Legacy of Auschwitz
First published in National Catholic Reporter, March 1995 A time for self-congratulation, or self-interrogation? Over the next several months, U.S. citizens will be reminded of the end to the horrors of World War II fifty…