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POPSSep 30th: Rosh Hashanah - Culture trumps country Today is the first day of the Jewish holiday, Rosh Hashanah, start of the civil year in the Hebrew calendar. Members of the USA congress are taking the next two days off, despite the fragile condition of the US economy.
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POPSScholar claims to find medieval Jewish capital A Russian archaeologist says he has found the lost capital of the Khazars, a powerful nation that adopted Judaism as its official religion more than 1,000 years ago, only to disappear leaving little trace of its culture.
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POPSOlivier Roy: Europe's difficulties with its Muslims a subject of oversimplification Olivier Roy is one of the most renowned experts on political Islam. In this interview with Michael Hesse, he talks about religious fundamentalism, Islam in Europe, and explains why the Muslim middle classes in the West ought to be recognized as a western faith community, not as an alien culture: the modern brands of fundamentalism (wahhabism, but also protestant evangelicalism) are not the product of traditional cultures, but on the contrary the product of a crisis of traditional cultures, the product of deculturation and globalization. Religious tensions are linked with the crisis of traditional cultures, and are not their expression. Deutsche Fassung: Interview mit Olivier Roy - "Radikale Muslime sind verwestlicht"
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POPS'Nazi' Pope Runs 'Child-Abusing Cult,' says HBO's Maher I am no Catholic...or defender of Imus or Pat Robertson or the LDS; but why does this hateful man's remarks not receive the condemnation that they deserve? There seems to be selective outrage within our society. He appears to have his own brand of 'cult' thinking that he spreads with impunity.
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POPSIsrael Safe-Haven for Criminals & Tax Evaders for Jews!!!
Putin’s tremendous influence on Russian Jewish oligarchs presents a problem. Putin is very different from previous Russian leaders: he is not a nomenclature bureaucrat who carefully charts his course, but a petty KGB officer turned corrupt businessman turned politician turned tsar. Putin is, in a sense, rootless; he lacks political fundamentals. His thinking is that of the proverbial “new Russian” businessman, entirely lacking strategic dimension. The nearest Western analogy is of a spoiled and not particularly bright child who suddenly became a large company’s CEO. Putin is unpredictable; he makes moves based on curiosity and desire to show his power. Now the Putin-controlled Jewish magnates can establish control over Israel. They can spend much more on elections than any Israeli party, and invest more in the electoral-oriented welfare than any charity. In all likelihood, the MAPAI-built security apparatus of Israel would grind the oligarchs. ...Israel ENews.
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POPS"Zionism is Bankrupt" Richist Zionist from USSR "Lev Avnerovich Leviev (born in Tashkent, Soviet Union) is a Chabad Orthodox Bukharian Jewish billionaire who lives in London. Leviev is ranked 210th among the world’s wealthiest people, with an estimated personal net worth of $6.5 billion, although his associates put the figure closer to $8 billion. Lev Leviev was born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan in 1956. His parents, Avner and Chana Leviev, were prominent members of the Bukharian Jewish community. In 1971, when he was fifteen, his family immigrated from Uzbekistan to Israel. Shortly afterwards, Leviev began to work as an apprentice in a diamond polishing plant, learning the 11 steps of the diamond cutting process. After serving in the IDF, he established his own diamond polishing plant. ...Wikipedia. Blood diamonds? No evidence of any persecution in USSR. Myth too?
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POPSGandhi's Grandson Quits under Zionist Attack. "The grandson of Indian spiritual leader Mahatma Gandhi resigned yesterday as president of the board of a conflict resolution institute after writing an online essay on a Washington Post blog calling Jews and Israel "the biggest players" in a global culture of violence."
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POPSReligious courts already in use in England Jewish litigation is more varied, but a typical dispute might relate to a partnership, a Jewish school, a Jewish charity or a transaction between two businessmen. The court can hear cases concerning quite large companies, but they must always be privately owned, in that both parties must be Jewish in order to accept the authority of the Beth Din. The service provided by the Beth Din is best described as binding civil arbitration, and they do not seek to replace the state's civil courts. "If one side does not accept the authority of the Beth Din, concerning divorce or any dispute, we cannot act", David Frei clarifies. "And in the case of divorce, the parties must still obtain a civil divorce alongside the religious one."
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POPSGilded Lions to Jewelled Horses How traditional Jewish craftsmen helped to create the American carousel. American Folk Art Musuem, October 2, 2007 - March 23, 2008. Well worth a visit.
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POPSOn Mark Lilla's "The Stillborn God: Religion, Politics and the Modern West" Continuation: "We must remind ourselves," he writes, "that we are living in an experiment, that we are the exceptions. We have little reason to expect other civilizations to follow our unusual path, which was opened up by a unique theological-political crisis within Christendom." In short, Lilla believes that we> have gotten one thing utterly wrong: We are not us. We are them. We are not the rule; we are the exception. The rule for Lilla is a blurring of the political and theological that has defined most societies from time immemorial and Western society for most of recorded history until only recently. Since the dawn of Christianity, there has been a deep confusion in Western society about what constitutes a good society, and Lilla astutely highlights what he sees as the limitations of the New Testament in not "articulating a clear, coherent picture of the good Christian political order."
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POPSTV Show seeks to Humanize Arab-Israelis More: But "Arab Work" is more than a wacky sitcom about life for the Arab minority in Israel. It's a risky attempt to use slapstick humor to lampoon both sides in this deadly, divisive arena. "It's not perfect, but under the right circumstances it can be for Israeli-Arabs what 'The Cosby Show' was for blacks in America," said Vered Livne, the executive director of Agenda, an Israeli media strategy firm. "It has a chance to lower the barriers that Israeli Jews put up when they hear an Arab voice." Recent studies have found that discrimination against Arab-Israelis is on the rise. In one poll, 60 percent of Jewish Israelis said they felt hatred or hostility when they heard someone speaking Arabic. Three-quarters said they wouldn't live in the same buildings with Arabs. More than half said Arabs and Jews should be separated in places of entertainment.
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POPSReligion/Science - Oil/Water No matter what mental rationalization you've thought up the bottom line is that science and religion are at odds with one another. Ask anyone who has waded through the tortured reasoning of theists to reconcile their beliefs with scientific facts knows that believing in talking snakes, burning bushes, Jewish zombies, or virgin births has to forgo reality and enter a world of myth and fairy tales. Ordinarily this could be viewed as simply a character quirk. But unfortunately it has wider reaching consequences. We are dumbing down our children because of irrational belief in a bronze age culture's view of the world. In our society, ignorance is thought charming while intelligence is "elitism". How ass backwards is this?
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POPSDeath, burial, rites of passage How we "process" death varies HUGELY from culture to culture. A recent clipmark referenced "Green" burials. Before deciding if this is a good idea, one should visit this site to see the differences from culture to culture. /e
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POPSJewish Intelligence In Norman Costner's history of Judaeism, The Sacred Chain, it is taken as true that by cultural selectivity, many Jews have inherited genes for 'intelligence'. Thus they have provided the world with the likes of Einstein, Marx and Freud, and also some of the cleverest gangsters and swindlers.
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POPSThe Separation of Church and State and the Dinner Table
This is very interesting, since Israel falls somewhere in between secular democracy and theocracy. Since the notion of the state is intrinsically linked to the religious identity (even when not practiced) this creates a unique dilemma when the interests of the state come into conflict with the interests of the faith. Perhaps this is the true threat to the "Two State" solution. Israel is becoming embroiled in economic and political struggles that undermine the ideology that lies at the bedrock of its foundation. Perhaps it is time to realize that a modern secular state simply cannot coexist with the demands of an official religious ideology. Look at Bush for another example: although he talks about his faith, he has done comparatively little to advance the Christian agenda. This should be of note for Christian Conservatives who dream of making America a Christian nation: in the context of Euro-American culture and politics, a religious state has become impossible.
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POPSOn Coulter, Christians, And Jews Another Jewish 'thinker's perspective on Coulter's words. It helps to understand Christian theology, which gives insight to what she meant by 'perfected'. And contrary to the current anti-Christian propaganda, it will be the true Christians who will seek to protect the Jewish people.
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POPSMainstreaming Jewish Culture in the US Jewish culture and ideas are too often associated with antisemitic focus, whereas Freud, Kafka, Einstein, Marx,Wittgenstein, Woody Allen... The same is true of Palestinian culture which has the highest rate of academic diaspora in the world. Cultural celebration is an antidote to hatred.
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POPSA Jew seeking Peace in Israel. "Only recently have the majority of Israelis and the majority of the political parties that compose the government come to understand that we must break the link. The majority of Israelis realize that in order to maintain Israel as the state of the Jewish people, we must break the link, we must remove the settlements in the hinterlands of the West Bank, and we must come back home to the state of Israel within the Green Line border. As part of this new reality in Israel, the settlement movement is increasingly becoming perceived as a threat to the existence of the state. Those sentiments will strengthen if it appears that there is a real partner for peace in Palestine and that the peace process is genuine. Land and Peace "The problem that we will face, and we experienced this in the disengagement from Gaza, is that the split of opinions in Israel on the issue of land and peace is very similar to the religious-secular split in the society. Chances are that if you are a religious Isra
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POPSIsraeli Citizens Cannot Marry each other FREELY!!! This process enables people who love each other and who are not members of the same religion or group, as well as secular people, to start a family whose rights will be recognized by the government and the public. Now the minister and his friend the rabbi are establishing a separate group of religion-less people, and this disgrace is directed first and foremost at immigrants from the former Soviet Union; it's no wonder that people are beginning to organize to oppose it. And, in fact, the time has come for the citizens, the press and all the media to wake up and do something to save democracy and to prevent racism, which must be eliminated from the world. I was astonished to read that some people see the establishment of a "sect of secular people," whose members are permitted only to one another and not to anyone from the outside, as a first step to civil marriage for all: That is not the case. Here they have buried civil marriage as well as the idea of registering couples.
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