Interesting piece by Yoram Hazony in Mosaic. How to shore up this collapsing front? Given the history I have described, it seems likely that there is now only one way: an alliance of Old Testament-conscious Protestants and nationalist Catholics and Jews who will seek to update the biblical and Protestant heritage of the West and restore it…
Another pointed article from Nassim Nicholas Taleb. My view as follows. It is correct to say that any attempt to define religion is a problematic enterprise. For a start, Judaism strictly speaking, is not a religion in the same sense that Christianity is. Christianity historically, turns on belief as the criterion of identity, an emphasis on a theology.…
I’ve been following the fascinating work of Tudor Parfitt for the past thirty or so years. He is known primarily for his television programmes broadcast on the BBC and Channel Four. I finally got to reading his book Black Jews in Africa and the Americas. In this age of crude identity politics and “cultural appropriation” fundamentalists, the…
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As improbable a pairing as one can find, Nozick’s essay reminded me of Feuerbach’s The Essence of Christianity (see extract after Nozick). ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Robert Nozick "The Holiness of Everyday Life" in The Examined Life (1989, chapter 6, pp. 55-60). EACH AND EVERY portion of reality, the Transcendentalists said, when viewed and experienced properly, stands for and…
This old review of Alan Mendelson’s Philo’s Jewish Identity validates the view that I’ve held since the mid-90s. That is, enabling us to see Philo as a proto-modern Jew. Jewish IdentityJudaismPhilosocial identitysocial ontology
Here is a rather obscure and confused invocation of stigmergy. Our habits, the way we present ourselves to others and the persona we have created, our social context – all these things constrain us, limit our capacity for change, and drag the “old” us into any attempt to start afresh. Kol Nidre annuls those vows…
Here’s a plug for an Oxford days chum. The book has won the Baron prize. FrankismIsraelIsraelitesJacob FrankJewsJudaism
manwithoutqualities 