Durban II has concluded, and nearly everyone has gone home. Next month, however, brings an event far more significant and substantive than any racism-review document or yet another outrageous speech by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: The United States will formally join the United Nations Human Rights Council. Unlike the one-shot Durban Review Conference known as Durban II, the Human Rights...
There we were, sitting in our home office and talking, when suddenly, my husband shot up and bolted out the back door. As I followed him, I heard him scream that some kid had just stolen our 4-year-old daughter's bicycle, which she had received as a birthday gift. As my husband bolted after this kid and his two friends, the...
Matthew Maryles, a veteran board leader of a prominent Jewish day school in the New York area, once said that such an education is so fundamentally important to the community's future that its funding must be seen as a multi-generational responsibility. Luckily, large-scale investment in Jewish day schools is not a new thing for Philadelphia. In addition to ongoing support...
The ranges of Jewish and Catholic reactions to Pope Benedict XVI's journey to Jordan and Israel reveal more about the dynamics of interfaith discourse than about the trip itself. The pope's trip, in its symbolic opportunities, largely duplicated that of John Paul II in 2000, creating obvious points of comparison. Because of differences between these two men's biographies and personalities,...
When I returned to campus from last week's AIPAC Policy Conference in Washington, D.C., my friend Elliott's mother was in town. Elliott is a religious Protestant, and because I am traditional Jew, our friendship is a bit unconventional. One night, we all sat down for dinner, and before I unfolded my napkin, the topic of religion had been broached. Elliott's...
Tammuz 11, 5773
