31 Mar
2012 May/June, Book Review, Issues, Topics

Book Review | In Love with Life—and Himself

By Alan A. Stone DucClaude Lanzmann is known on this side of the Atlantic as the Frenchman who created the monumental film, Shoah. He tells us that American Jews did not contribute a single penny to his efforts. Lanzmann traveled all over the United States, hat in hand, trying to raise money from wealthy Jews. They wanted to know what his ultimate message was going to be or, more galling to him, pontificated about what it should be. If truth be told, Lanzmann did not know exactly where his decade-long project would take him. His method was to immerse himself in the facts, talk to the experts, track down and film the Jewish survivors, the Poles who watched and the Germans who made the Holocaust happen. Only after years of this effort did he “imagine” what Shoah would be! The...

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31 Mar
2012 May/June, Ask the Rabbis, Issues, Religion, Series, U.S. Politics

Ask The Rabbis | Will It Matter to Jews If There Is a Mormon President?

INDEPENDENT Historically, the religious affiliation of a governmental leader has never been an issue for the Jewish people, as long as the government involved was not itself oppressive. Although Jews were thoroughly and severely oppressed over more than 1,600 years by leaders with Catholic or Protestant beliefs, the Mormon Church has been extra nice to us, even going so far as to beseech God on our behalf for entry to Heaven. And although we would prefer that they cease and desist from such beseeching—namely, from baptizing us post-mortem—it’s still a far nicer gesture on their part than the historic campaigns by other Christian denominations to Christianize us by way of torture, expulsions, forced conversions and seasonal auto da fés, which often included burning us at the stake in the public square. Some Jews might see Romney’s belief system...

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31 Mar
2012 May/June, Arts, Issues, Jewish Word, Topics

Jewish Word | The Rabbinic Way of Fiction

By Sala Levin You may know the story: Abraham, in an effort to convince his father, Terach, that idol worship is wrong, takes a hammer and smashes the idols that his father sells. He leaves the hammer in the hand of the largest idol and tells his father that it destroyed the others in a fight. When Terach says that idols don’t have that kind of power, Abraham asks him why, in that case, he would worship them. The story is so famous that many believe it comes from the Torah. But it doesn’t. It was written by rabbis to illustrate the depth of Abraham’s conviction that idol worship was wrong. It is what’s called midrash. Derived from the Hebrew root daled, resh, shin, or drash, meaning “to seek” or “to inquire,” the word “midrash” appears only twice in...

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31 Mar
2012 May/June, Culture, Israel, Israel's Arab Citizens, Issues, Staff Picks, Uncategorized

Double Exposure

By Yoav Stern A Moment Magazine Special Series Israel's Arab Citizens Israel’s Arab citizens consume both Arabic and Hebrew newspapers, radio and television. But when it comes to the Arab-Israeli conflict, there can be a stark difference in news coverage. Are two media good for one country? Night is closing in on the building that houses Radio Shams on the outskirts of Nazareth. Usually at this hour on Friday—right before Shabbat and the country’s weekly day off—Israel’s only privately owned Arabic station broadcasts music. But this Friday in mid-September is different. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, known to his people as Abu Mazen, is about to deliver a speech before the UN General Assembly in New York, calling for recognition of a Palestinian state. In the studio, Jack Khoury leans into the microphone to welcome his listeners. Khoury, 38, is...

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