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The World, the Jews and the Science of Human Survival [Course]
Anti-Semitism, division, separation, violent conflicts and a general breakdown of the institutions of human society. Is there a science that can explain the laws that govern our development as a society, as a species? What can 4000 years of human history and big data tell us about ourselves? Why is it that despite our technological advancement we’re still facing the same issues that have been plaguing our society for millennia? And what do the tales in the bible have to do with it? Could there be a deeper meaning to the texts that have been capturing our imagination, uniting us and separating us at the same time? Is it possible that science, religion and human history are not at odds with each other but are actually different points of view of the same thing? Different points of you? We promise to answer these questions and many others about the origin of the Jewish people, their unique role in humanity and how can we come out of the crisis that is gripping the world today. Start the course...
Anti-Semitism Roundup 2014-2015
Timeline of Growing Pressure on Jews and Israel...
Purim: You Won’t Believe What This Story is Really About
Once upon a time, there lived a Persian king, whose name was too difficult to pronounce. His wife, Queen Vashti, disobeyed him, so he divorced her and had a beauty pageant to choose the next queen. Mordechai sent Esther to the contest; she defeated all the other beauties and became the new queen, but she did not mention that she was Jewish. At around that time there was a very bad man with a very easy name to pronounce—Haman. He was the king’s prime minister, and he could talk the king into almost anything. Haman had a special quirk: he could not stand Jews. One day, he went to the king and told him: “There is a certain people, scattered and dispersed among the peoples.” Haman explained to the king that he’d be better off without them because they don’t keep his laws; the king agreed and gave him the go-ahead to kill them all. When Mordechai heard this, he was shocked. He started yelling about it all over town, all the way to the king’s gate. He told Esther about the plan to kill the Jews, and that she must go and beg the king to undo it. Esther was frightened because she didn’t think the king would agree to her request, but she finally agreed. She had one condition – that the Jews would gather and unite in thought of her success. “Then,” she said, “although it’s against protocol for me to approach the king, I will do it, and hope for a miracle.” The rest is history: A miracle happened, the king greeted Esther warmly and accepted her request. She told him she was Jewish, that Haman was planning to kill...
BBC Wants to “Lay the Holocaust to Rest”
For the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the BBC posted in its The Big Questions Twitter account the following question: “Our one big question this morning: Is the time coming to lay the Holocaust to rest?” That same day, Professor of Modern Judaism at Indiana University, Shaul Magid, titled his article in Tablet magazine as follows: American Jews Must Stop Obsessing Over the Holocaust. In his article he describes the view of the highly acclaimed scholar, Prof. Jacob Neusner, that we must “normalize the Holocaust” in order to advance our “intellectual and spiritual acculturation.” I wish it were that easy. I wish that British actress Maureen Lipman wouldn’t have to consider “leaving Britain because of a “worrying” rise in attacks on Jews.” I wish that “Belgian public schools” would not be turning into “Jew-free zones.” In short, I wish that we could all put the Holocaust to rest, or at least “normalize” it, but it isn’t going to happen. There is Nothing Normal About the Holocaust When people deny there was ever a Holocaust, and then promise to finish what the Nazis began, you know that there is nothing normal about the Holocaust. And if we don’t understand why it happened, and why specifically to us, then some version of it will happen again, guaranteed. First, we need to realize that we are not a “normal” people. The sheer number of Jews among the Nobel Prize laureates indicates that there is something different about us. The fact that we are invariably the immediate culprit whenever things go wrong in some country (even in countries with hardly any Jews), or the...
International Holocaust Remembrance Day
January 27th was International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Perhaps in preparation for this important day, the BBC dedicated its The Big Questions Twitter account (#BBCTBQ) to this occasion in the following manner: “Our one big question this morning: Is the time coming to lay the Holocaust to rest?” If you have ever looked for an example of the zeitgeist, this title is quite indicative. But for all the dismay that such statements invoke, what really worries me is how we, Jews, treat our past. If titles such as American Jews Must Stop Obsessing Over the Holocaust can be casually attributed to prominent individuals such as Prof. Jacob Neusner, there is real cause for concern. I must admit that I, too, am not keen on dwelling over the past. But we cannot normalize the Holocaust because there is nothing normal about it. The Holocaust is a stark reminder that the acculturation (which is nothing more than euphemism for assimilation) that the majority of American Jews seek will not happen, not now, not ever, not in America, nor anywhere else. Six centuries ago we tried to assimilate in Spain, and we all know how this ended. Ninety years ago we tried to do it in Germany, and it became an even greater tragedy than Spain. Now we are trying to do it in the US. There is no reason to expect it to end well. While it is true that if you look at the values that American society proudly nurtures, there seems to be no reason to think that what happened in Germany will happen here. But the Jews in...
What Does It Mean To Be Jewish Today? Course – Lesson 10: Living in an Integrated World
Lesson 10 Transcript:Lesson 10: Living in An Integrated World With Chaim and Gilad Chaim: Hello and welcome to our tenth and last session of What Does It Mean to Be Jewish Today. Hello Gilad. Gilad : Hello Chaim! Gilad made a special effort to be with us tonight. He wasn’t well and until the last minute we didn’t know if he could make. You’re ruining my act. I want our friends to appreciate it because you really made a big effort. We have a special session tonight. It’s going to be very crowded with lots of content points, so I’m not sure how much time we’ll have to answer questions, but we will do our best to fit everything in. We also have announcements. We have questions as usual on the question and answer chat. Even if we don’t get to them now, maybe we can get to them later in an email. Now we’re basically only going to focus on the practical aspects on implementing rules that make society unified. We talked about how unity is the key to everything. It’s the key today to the salvation or sustainability of humanity in general. We talked about how it’s always been the key to the salvation of the Jews. That is, whenever Jews are united, they are strong. And there’s either no or less animosity toward them. We’re going to talk only about how we can make a difference, because if we change society from the self-interest mode that it’s working in today to a society-interest mode that it should be working in, just like everything else in...