By Rabbi Ben Kamin SAN DIEGO–What must God think of all the arguing about religion? Thanksgiving is a day when heaven may get some relief from this concern, when Americans of all faiths sit at one spiritual table with many of the same trimmings and family customs. Thanksgiving liberates us from specific theological claims and […]
A holiday that includes all religions Read More »
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By Rabbi Michael Leo Samuel CHULA VISTA, California — Once upon a time, some American tourists went to Mexico on a vacation; they toured some hot springs, where they saw the natives washing their clothes! One tourist said to his guide, “My, isn’t it wonderful how Mother Nature provides her children with hot water to wash
Mindfulness and the Art of Thanksgiving Read More »
Michael Leo Samuel-Rabbi, USABy Rabbi Ben Kamin SAN DIEGO — Forty-eight years ago today, Nov. 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy, 46, was slain while riding in a motorcade in Dealey Plaza, Dallas. The world stopped; the kinetic, violent, transformational 1960s truly sprung, at 12:30 PM CST, when the shots were fired from the Texas School Book Depository
JFK now longer dead than alive Read More »
USA
By Bruce Kesler ENCINITAS, California — University of California President Mark Yudof on Sunday issued a press release that “ I am appalled by images of University of California students being doused with pepper spray and jabbed with police batons on our campuses.” President Yudof went on: “I intend to convene all 10
U.C. President Yudof not so vigilant when violence is against pro-Israel Jews Read More »
USABy Rabbi Ben Kamin SAN DIEGO –Sometime in the blistering heat of 1965, while Martin Luther King, Jr. and his allies were marching for the nation’s first inclusive voting rights bill, a wiry, feisty, articulate Baptist minister stood up to the condescending white sheriff of Dallas County—which encompasses Selma, Ala. Rev. Cordy Tindell Vivian, better
C.T. Vivian is a very human civil rights icon Read More »
USAWASHINGTON, D.C. (JINSA) — Happy Veterans Day 2011 to all the men and women who serve and have served in the Armed Forces of the United States of America. Today, Nov. 11, Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki made a plea for jobs in the pages of the Wall Street Journal. Hardly
Time for employers to step up for the veterans Read More »
USABy Rabbi Ben Kamin SAN DIEGO — This weekend, while most Americans are continuing to shake their heads over the terminally drooping economy, the decidedly uninspiring race for the Republican presidential nomination, and the hard-to-discern frenzy about the Eurozone, something is happening in Memphis, Tennessee, that is worthy of our attention. The National Civil Rights
Civil Rights Museum in Memphis celebrates its 20th anniversary Read More »
USABy Rabbi Ben Kamin SAN DIEGO–When the local director for a homeless rescue agency called on me to participate in yesterday’s interfaith vigil, I was glad to accept. Then I felt embarrassment while learning in the communications that sixty-one homeless persons had died on the streets of San Diego since the last annual vigil and
61: The number of homeless deaths in San Diego Read More »
USANEW YORK (Press Release) … A nationwide survey of the American people released today by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) found that anti-Semitic attitudes have risen slightly in America, demonstrating once again that “anti-Semitic beliefs continue to hold a vicegrip” on a small but not insubstantial segment of America. The ADL survey found that 15
Anti-Semitic attitudes increase slightly in U.S. — ADL Read More »
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By Judy Lash Balint JERUSALEM — The largest gathering of the organized Jewish community takes place in Denver on Sunday-Tuesday. The last time the GA was held in Denver in 1994, I was there–one item was glaringly absent from the agenda, as it is today in 2011. (This article appeared originally in the Jerusalem Post:
Deja Vu in Denver: Pollard off the agenda Read More »
USABy Rabbi Ben Kamin SAN DIEGO — It seems that many are dismissive of the ‘Occupy’ movement that is proliferating in American cities and some foreign communities as well. It was described as “mobs” by at least one leading Congressman who derides the movement. Not. It’s an amalgam of socially disenfranchised low-income people, unemployed professionals,
‘Occupy’ movement is Civil Rights movement of today Read More »
USABy Rabbi Ben Kamin SAN DIEGO — October baseball, mixing in with the autumn leaves, early football, and the Jewish holidays, is in full swing. The game, like the soul, has eternal life—it only freezes in winter, while we gather around hot stoves of nostalgia and hope. The skeptics love to prophesy the decline or
Baseball will survive its erring players Read More »
USABy Rabbi Ben Kamin SAN DIEGO — To quote from historian Diane McWhorter’s recent essay in The New York Times, “If you recognized the name of only one of the two greats who succumbed to cancer [last] Wednesday, that’s perhaps because the work of the Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth, who died at 89 in a
Jobs and Shuttlesworth each made their mark Read More »
USA
By Jeanette Friedman Jeanette Friedman NEW YORK — On the Friday night, immediately after Rosh Hashanna, my son Dan called for Shabbat dinner at Occupy Wall Street. There were about 25-30 of us who made kiddush, ate cholent (translates these days into vegetarian chili), had tuna fish instead of gefilte fish and drank lots of
A Yom Kippur fast while occupying Wall Street Read More »
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