Sephardic Heritage Update 701

[David Shasha]

Friends,

 

            We begin this week’s newsletter with yet another bizarre Ashkenazi thought-piece.  The name Rachel Dolezal might be old news by now, but just a short time ago we learned of the NAACP leader who claimed to be Black when in fact she was White.  Riffing off that issue, Ilona Gerbakher questions whether it is possible for Jews to be Arabs.  A scholar of Middle Eastern Studies, Ms. Gerbakher never once mentions that Jews did in fact live in the Arab-Muslim world and adopted the culture of the people around them in a form of Convivencia.  Her angst-filled article is one more example of a Whites-only Jewish world where Sephardim have no place.

 

            One of the most prominent Ashkenazi voices challenging Arab-Jewish Convivencia is David Nirenberg.  In a review of Professor Nirenberg’s latest book, Alex Novikoff reminds us once again of the outsize power Ashkenazi Jews have in determining how we think about Jewish and Muslim interaction over the course of history.

 

            Batya Unger-Sargon reports on yet another Ashkenazi-centrist Shaul Magid and his Hippie-style Judaism on Fire Island.

 

            Israeli writer Etgar Keret looks critically at the deterioration of Israeli democracy in the wake of the recent Jewish violence against Palestinians.

 

            In a lengthy article Frank Viola presents the Anti-Jewish thinking of Martin Luther and its emphatic rejection of Law and Justice.  It is a benighted Christian vision rooted in nihilism and moral anarchy.

 

            Reading the article on Luther will prepare us – again! – for the ongoing march of Christian Zionism.  Emily Alhadeff reports on the latest from the movement.

 

            Joseph Treaster presents yet another plea for a Liberal Arts education.

 

            We close with Lynn Stuart Parramore’s article on the way that the 1% Hedge Funders and other financial swindlers use philanthropy as a means to show the world what really good people they are.  We must not be swayed by such attempts to buy a good name.

 

 

 

David Shasha

 

           

 

Arab Like Me: Rachel Dolezal and My Anxious Jewish Mask

By: Ilona Gerbakher

 

Review Essay: Do Good Fences Make Good Neighbors?

By: Alex Novikoff

 

How Music and Meditation Jazzed Up Jewish Life on New York’s Fire Island

By: Batya Unger-Sargon

 

Do Israelis Still Care about Justice?

By: Etgar Keret

 

Shocking Beliefs of Martin Luther

By: Frank Viola

 

Born Again, all Over Again

By: Emily Alhadeff

 

Liberal Arts, a Lost Cause?

By: Joseph B. Treaster

 

Meet the Hedge Funders and Billionaires and Who Pillage Under the Shield of Philanthropy

By: Lynn Stuart Parramore