Germany v. Israel
Thursday, June 7, 2007

An interesting debate has broken out in Germany over whether Israel should encourage German Jews to migrate or leave them be to replant the Jewish community depleted because of the Holocaust. I'm with the Germans here. The Diaspora is good for Judaism and good for Israel.

The leaders of Germany's Jewish community have warned Prime Minister Ehud Olmert they would request the German government's help in preventing Israel from encouraging Jews settled in Germany to immigrate to Israel.

Stephan J. Kramer, who heads the Central Council of Jews in Germany, sent the warning following Israel's decision last week to extend the jurisdiction of Nativ , the government body in charge of promoting immigration from the Former Soviet Union to Israel. Nativ and the Jewish Agency will cooperate in running ulpans (Hebrew courses) and other educational programs in Germany, which is home to some 200,000 Russian-speaking Jews who moved there from the Former Soviet Union in recent years.

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Posted by B Feiler at 3:15 PM 0 comments

Fire on the Mountain
Thursday, May 24, 2007

From the AP: Fire heavily damaged a synagogue Thursday, and police said they suspect arson.

The blaze struck on the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, which celebrates Moses' receiving of the Torah from God.

Police did not give a motive, but there have been incidents of anti-Semitism in Geneva recently, including graffiti scrawled on another Jewish house of worship.

The blaze broke out at 5 a.m. in the Hekhal Haness Synagogue in Geneva's Malagnou neighborhood. About 40 firefighters responded and had the fire under control an hour later, police spokesman Philippe Cosandey said. No one was hurt.

Cosandey said investigators suspect arson because there appeared to be several sources for the flames.

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Posted by B Feiler at 8:18 AM 0 comments

The Sam Harris of France
Wednesday, April 25, 2007

The WSJ runs a fascinating piece (reprinted on this blog) on the rise of evangelical atheism in France. If you're interested in why the U.S. continues to be religious and Europe does not: First, this article will challenge your assumptions, and Second, this is a must read.

Indifference to faith has left Europe’s churches mostly empty. But debate over religion is more intense and strident than it has been in many decades. Religion is re-emerging as a big issue in part because of anxiety over Europe’s growing and restive Muslim populations and a fear that faith is reasserting itself in politics and public policy. That is all adding up to a growing momentum for a combative brand of atheism, one that confronts rather than merely ignores religion.

Karen Armstrong, a former Catholic nun and prominent British author on religion, calls the trend “missionary secularism.” She says it mimics the ardor of Christianity, Islam and Marxism, all of which have at their core an urge to convert nonbelievers to their worldview.

Mr. Onfray argues that atheism faces a “final battle” against “theological hocus-pocus” and must rally its troops. “We can no longer tolerate neutrality and benevolence,” he writes in “Traité d’athéologie,” or Atheist Manifesto, a best seller in France, Italy and Spain. “The turbulent time we live in suggests that change is at hand and the time has come for a new order.”

As with many fights involving faith, Europe’s struggle between belief and nonbelief is also a proxy for other, concrete issues that go far beyond the supernatural. In this case, they involve a battle to define the identity of a continent.

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Posted by B Feiler at 8:03 AM 0 comments

No Church, Please, We're British
Wednesday, April 4, 2007

How low can church attendance go? Really low. I wonder when this God gap between the U.S. and Britain will begin to affect our "special relationship?"

One in 10 people in the UK attends church every week and one in seven goes once a month, according to research.

Christian charity Tearfund's survey of 7,000 people puts the UK among Europe's four least observant countries. Two-thirds of those polled had not been to church in the last year, except for baptisms, weddings or funerals - but 53% identified themselves as Christian.

Tearfund said nearly three million more people would attend regularly if given the "right invitation".

It said churches could do more to offer encouragement to potential worshippers. The poll, conducted last year among people aged 16 and over, suggests that one in four UK adults attends church at least once a year.

Tearfund said 53% of people identified themselves as Christian, compared with almost three-quarters who had in the last census in 2001.

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Posted by B Feiler at 8:01 AM 0 comments

Nazi Tourism
Monday, March 5, 2007

You've heard of eco-tourism. How about Nazi tourism? The City of Vienna is in New York this week pitching itself as a honeymoon spot for Jews, highlighting a decades-long campaign to make Jews feel welcome in a city long associated with Hitler and the Holocaust.

The tour also touts Vienna's successes in urban renewal, waste management and attracting innovative industries. But at its heart are the amends it has made for its Nazi past – paying out reparations, returning stolen property, and helping to set up a “Jewish Welcome Service” that over the past 27 years has funded hundreds of visits by Austrian Jews who fled the Nazis.

Austrian authorities have paid for the rebuilding of synagogues, Jewish schools, memorials and other institutions serving the capital's 7,000 Jews.

“Everything is OK. I feel good here,” said Raphael Chai Malkov, who moved to Vienna from Israel in 1989 and owns a kosher bakery and grocery. “I hope it will stay this way.”

Three of the 12 planned events deal with Jewish themes – a visit to a Brooklyn Hassidic community by representatives of Vienna's Jews; a discussion of “Contemporary Jewish Vienna,” and a showing of “Zorro's Bar Mitzvah,” a documentary about four Austrian Jewish youths preparing for their religious coming-of-age ceremony.

BTW, here's what Variety says of the film: Vet documaker Ruth Beckermann blends healthy irony with bemused respect in "Zorro's Bar Mitzvah," which follows four youngsters in Austria as they celebrate becoming full members of the Jewish community at age 13. Film smoothly challenges the unstated taboo of portraying well-off German-speaking Jews whose children are thriving and have no qualms about expressing their Jewish identities. Intimate, communicative lensing and keen editing suggest an all-media career for Jewish and non-Jewish auds alike.

To learn more about the film, click here.

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Posted by B Feiler at 7:00 AM 0 comments

Shakespeare Meets Saddam Hussein
Tuesday, February 20, 2007


Given the frequency with which Shakespeare is reinterpreted for contemporary times, perhaps the news that Richard III is being done in Stratford as an Arab dictator should come as no surprise. But it does! And how interesting. The NYT sums up the road from Shakespeare to Saddam and beyond:

As played by the Syrian actor Fayez Kazak, the title character in “Richard III: An Arab Tragedy” is a preening, plotting devil with the vulpine intelligence and maniacal charisma of the late Saddam Hussein. But he is not Mr. Hussein, even if the director and adapter of the play, Sulayman Al-Bassam, briefly conceived of him that way.

“It was clear that once I’d gone into the process of research into that historical parallel that it was a sort of a non sequitur,” Mr. Bassam said. And so, commissioned to bring an Arabic production of “Richard III” to Stratford as part of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s yearlong Complete Works Festival, Mr. Bassam set his play in an archetypal present. His unnamed oil-rich Arab state is easily understood in Shakespearean terms, every bit as steeped in blood, riven by tribalism and replete with corruption as the world of 15th-century England.

The form has freed him to consider contemporary Arab politics in a way that would have been all but impossible without the refracting mirror of Shakespeare, said Mr. Bassam, 34, who is half Kuwaiti and half British. “You could write such a play,” he said, musing on the notion of a present-day political work, “but you’d be best advised to set it in England in the 1400s. That would be a very good starting point for your contemporary play.”

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Posted by B Feiler at 7:15 AM 0 comments

And Mel Gibson for Prime Minister
Thursday, December 21, 2006

I spent a number of Christmases in Israel. The day is dissonant on a number of levels. For starters, it's not a holiday and business goes on as usual. Most Israelis, in fact, have no idea of the significance of December 25th. I'm always surprised how little they know about Christianity. Jews who grew up in America often take it for granted that everyone in the world knows about Christianity because it's so deeply ingrained in the calendar of the United States. But not so.

Bethlehem on Christmas Eve can be a special place. Different denominations have different services, in the church on Nativity Square, in the nearby caves, and elsewhere. For a number of years, the main square had a celebratory feel as a sort of Palestinian Independence Day, as December 25 is the day Israelis handed over day-to-day control of the city in the late 1990's.



But one feature of Bethlehem around this time of year is that it's swarming with American journalists who are asked by their imagination-free editors at home to write a story about the "town of Jesus' birth" for publication of Christmas day. Fair enough.

I was reminded of that trend this week with the news out of Poland that a few lawmakers have proposed making Jesus king of Poland. So silly that even the Catholic Church laughed at it. But it will have one sweeping impact, I predict: Journalists in Jerusalem will be making fewer treks to Bethlehem as a certain story out of Poland will be taking the place of the standard "Is-there- room-at-an-inn?" story out of Bethlehem this year.

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Posted by B Feiler at 3:05 PM 0 comments

Pass the crumpets, Mohammad

Looking for more evidence of the rise of Muslim immigrants into Europe? Mohammed (and its alternative spelling Mohammad) have officially cracked the Top Ten of baby names in England, beating out George and Joseph. The British government released the statistics today, showing that 4,255 children were named after the prophet this year, beating out the number of Georges (3,386) or Josephs (3,755). The top three names were the biblically influenced Jack, Thomas, and Joshua.

Update: Mohammad does not make even the Top 100 of baby names in the U.S. And for the record, Jesus comes in at an anemic 73, behind three of the gospels, Matthew, John, and Luke.

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Posted by B Feiler at 11:30 AM 0 comments

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