The feeling that their own nation is sacred and should be protected against outside forces makes people choose right-wing politicians who promise them an ideal flourishing prosperous nation
On Some View on the World Immanuel Verbondskind looked at the day which is normally a special day for children with a lot of fun. Though this year Purim was not as such a moment to celebrate. Five days after one of the most solemn days of the year, the International Holocaust Memorial Day, we… Lees verder Purim in days of Ukrainian war
Since childhood, we are taught ideal philosophies like we all are equal, one God, gender equality, secularism, brotherhood, etc. Moral books are full of such teachings. But when we grow up and get to know someone else whom we would like to take as a partner to go together through life it all becomes different, suddenly religion, culture, skin colour, genetic makeup, or country of origin matter a lot.
In this article, we look at the result of an American survey and the way different Jewish branches handle the way of life and marriage of their people.
These days of the Passover festival are ideal to show to the world how we all together should go for a peaceful world where everybody, whatever their faith can live together and are prepared to reach out a helping hand when needed.
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To remember
burning of Notre Dame de Paris = fitting metaphor for current moment, when religious engagement is on the decline in the West, + order of the Old World continues to slip away.
living in a time in which many Jewish people feel kinship with Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, + Buddhist neighbors > our partners in faith
Religious differences historically yielded enmity + outright hatred between people of different faiths
blood libel accusations > Jews in medieval Europe falsely accused of killing Christian children to use their blood for making matzah, often emerged around this time of year.
open the door “for Elijah” during seder = attempt to show non-Jewish neighbors > are not doing anything nefarious.
open door = metaphor for seeking opportunities to collaborate with our neighbors for the common good.
special guest, Dr. Ahmed Shaheed, diplomat from the Maldives, United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion > last big project documenting human rights abuses in Iran + preparing report on worldwide anti-Semitism to be delivered to the United Nations General Assembly next fall.
Mark Potok, formerly of the Southern Poverty Law Center and a well-known authority on hate groups,
Ira Forman, Oren Segal, Mark Molinari, Steven Bayme, Brian Levin, Jeff Finkelstein+ Seth Adelson seated around the table.
U.S.A.
has seen annual increases in hate crimes vastly over-represented
Hate crimes against Jews are vastly over-represented; 13% of all hate crimes = anti-Semitic.
White supremacists focus fighting the “white genocide,” “engineered by Jews” + the web to foment horrible ideas about Jews.
Anti-Semitism = evident on the left and the right of political spectrum
It was indeed tragic to watch Notre Dame de Paris on fire last week, to ache for the loss of a building so deeply connected to the history of Paris and Europe, to lament the destruction of antiquities and works of art. But the burning of Notre Dame is, I am sorry to report, a fitting metaphor for our current moment, when religious engagement is on the decline in the West, and the order of the Old World continues to slip away.
Gargoyles of Notre Dame
It is notable to me that we are living in a time in which many Jewish people feel kinship with our Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, and Buddhist neighbors, our partners in faith; consider the interfaith cooperation that has happened here in Pittsburgh in the wake of the 18th of Heshvan (the Hebrew date of Oct. 27th, 2018) – the local Muslim community fundraising…
There are people who find occupation is the sheer existence of Israel and her people. The many actions we see Israel undertaking now may indicate that lots of people in Israel either do not know or do not want to know about God His Plan and His Way of doing things or (worse) do not currently know Him.
After World War II the children which were placed in Catholic families often found no Jewish families to take care for them or to bring them up in Jewish traditions. Most of them even did not have the opportunity to learn Hebrew and got estranged from Jewish traditions. They married and got children who started to wonder about their ancestors. Several of them also wanted to go back to the Jewish culture and found stronger bounds with Jewish religion, whilst others wanted to keep their faith in the Messiah, but did not want to be counted under the trinitarian Christians.
In Belgium and Holland we may find several populist politicians who do not mind to be enablers of hate speech against certain groups of people and who do not mind to go in against the freedom of speech, expression and religion. since a few years Muslims could receive hate and abuse and more and more Jewish communities also became targetted. The number of suspected far-right extremists referred to the Prevent anti-radicalisation programme has increased by more than a quarter, new figures show, as the number of Islamists falls. Also in our regions we must be careful not to loose democratic rights, seeing that around us over half the nations in the world are experiencing significant democratic decline.
Looking at the results of two surveys (one from 2013 and one from 2017) which mainly looked at one group of "Messianic Jews" instead of looking at all sorts of millennial Jews.
Jeshuaisten / Jeshuaists 