Wonderful news. Michael Walzer has condemned the Gaza war as an unjust war, in the Hebrew version of Haaretz. So reports Jerry Haber. Remember that Walzer welcomed the Gaza war back in January at Dissent and said it wasn’t disproportionate…
I need to document something important that happened in 2009 in American Jewish intellectual life that someday people will look back on in horror. Twice in the last month I have had conversations with Jewish intellectuals who must go nameless…
From Richard Witty to Clark University President John Bassett this morning : Dear Mr Bassett, I’m writing to you to request that you review the decision to cancel the Norman Finkelstein lecture at Clark scheduled for April 21. While I…
When I was in college, the social history of slavery began to appear. Scholars were writing about the world that the slaves made. Even in chains, they had music, story and custom that was different from the whites, and it…
Blunt censorship. Clark University has cancelled a talk later this month by Norman Finkelstein, saying it will shed more heat than light. This on the same week that Joseph Massad is said to have gotten tenure at Columbia. So reports…
Amir Oren in Haaretz says that Obama has accepted Israel’s view of the global danger of a nuclear Iran and may countenance an Israeli attack– and meanwhile won’t take any bull on settlements. Bruce Wolman writes: Wishful thinking by Oren,…
Rabbi Michael Lerner, at Huffpo, on how Passover became problematic this year: As several congregants put it to me, “We Jews have become Pharaoh to the Palestinian people — so we would be hypocrites to sit around our Passover table…
Here’s a wonderful event. Wayne Gilchrest, former congressman from Maryland, holds forth two days ago, at a forum on Capitol Hill, about the Israel lobby’s role in blocking a “more objective” policy in the Middle East. Watch this video and…
Donald Johnson sent me this note: I visit Norman Finkelstein’s site about once a week. I usually get there by googling his name and then clicking. That didn’t work yesterday, because apparently Google no longer provides links to Norman’s site….