Virtual Talmud

The Task Is Never Finished

Rabbi Susan Grossman — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 12:31:46 +0000

It has been heartwarming to read the warm responses to Rabbi Waxman's post asking Beliefnet to reconsider its decision to cancel Virtual Talmud. Virtual Talmud offered an alternative model for internet communications: civil discourse pursued in postings over a time frame of days (rather than moments) predicated upon the belief in the value of and respect for alternative viewpoints.
We hope we have...

Read the full post here »

The post The Task Is Never Finished appeared first on Virtual Talmud.

Some Parting Reflections

Rabbi Joshua Waxman — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 13:00:29 +0000

Well, loyal readers, all good things must come to an end and we’ve been informed that this particular experiment in blogging as a forum for creating wide-ranging discussion on topics of interest to contemporary Jews has run its course. Maybe it’s that blogging doesn’t lend itself so well to the longer and more thoughtful reflections we tried to put out, or that multi-person blogs do better when they involve ruthless smackdowns rather than nuanced responses. Whatever the case, I’ve...

Read the full post here »

The post Some Parting Reflections appeared first on Virtual Talmud.

Obama’s Lesson and The Jewish Community

Rabbi Eliyahu Stern — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 12:09:08 +0000

There are few times in this blog’s history when I have felt that Rabbi Grossman was one hundred percent correct in her criticisms of my ideas. However, a few weeks ago she called me out for citing a few crack websites on Barak Obama’s advisors. She was right. I never should have cited those websites--they were wrong and I apologize to my readers for my misstep.
As I intimated in my first post the notion that Obama is somehow bad for the Jews is absurd based on what we know and what we have...

Read the full post here »

The post Obama’s Lesson and The Jewish Community appeared first on Virtual Talmud.

The Future of Race Relations

Rabbi Joshua Waxman — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 16:04:41 +0000

As a post-baby boomer, it is interesting to me to see how much of today’s conversation about racial relations is still rooted in the 1960s experience and rhetoric of the civil rights struggle, and the disenchantment that followed. Many in the black and Jewish communities look to this period either with hope as a sign of what it is possible to achieve, or with disenchantment as proof of the other group’s faithlessness. The fact that so much of our dialogue--and so many of our...

Read the full post here »

The post The Future of Race Relations appeared first on Virtual Talmud.

Wright and Wrong of Race and Jews

Rabbi Susan Grossman — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 12:50:11 +0000

Years ago, as a rabbinical student, I was one of a group of rabbinical students who visited an African American seminary in Atlanta. My fellow rabbinical students and I expected an uplifting weekend of interfaith sharing like we had experienced in visits to other (largely white) seminaries. We were unprepared for the raw anger directed against us as Jews. We were blamed for "Jewish exploitation of blacks." We heard stereotypical charges against Jewish pawnbrokers and Jewish landlords, the...

Read the full post here »

The post Wright and Wrong of Race and Jews appeared first on Virtual Talmud.

Spitzer’s Mask

Rabbi Susan Grossman — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 13:54:05 +0000

It may be a twist of fate that Eliot Spitzer faced his downfall a few days before Purim, the Jewish holiday that entertains how people are often not what they appear. Spitzer appeared to be someone who defended and upheld the law of the land. He was known as a ruthless attorney general. Now we know it was all a mask. Spitzer’s sin was not only that he cheated on his wife. He also cheated on the people of New York who voted him into office as...

Read the full post here »

The post Spitzer’s Mask appeared first on Virtual Talmud.

Drowning with Spitzer

Rabbi Eliyahu Stern — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 14:03:25 +0000

My Dad had a terrific insight on the lessons learned from the Spitzer fiasco and the rise and tarnishing of his successor, David Paterson. In Ethics of our Fathers we are told that Hillel “once saw a man’s skull floating on a body of water: whereupon he said: Because you drowned others, you shall be...

Read the full post here »

The post Drowning with Spitzer appeared first on Virtual Talmud.

Why Prostitution Degrades Us All

akornfeld — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 10:51:44 +0000

In this Jewish season of farce, a lecherous ruler (King Achashverosh) is mocked for his desire to have a pretty woman (Queen Vashti) dance for his court wearing nothing but the royal crown. Truth, of course, is even stranger than fiction, as another lecherous ruler (Eliot Spitzer) has been mocked for his desire to have pretty women (the ladies of Emperors Club VIP) go a bit further than dancing. Spitzer’s behavior is contemptible and, quite frankly, I think he has richly earned the abundant...

Read the full post here »

The post Why Prostitution Degrades Us All appeared first on Virtual Talmud.

Haman, Anti-Semitism, and the Internet

Rabbi Susan Grossman — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 11:40:06 +0000

It has been said that if you say something often enough and emphatically enough, more and more people will believe it. Something that at first may seem obviously ridiculous with repetition becomes accepted fact. That is why Holocaust deniers are placing their works in college libraries so that future students will come to question the historical fact of the Holocaust. That is also why purveyors of hate are having a field day with an Internet that provides unlimited and immediate access to spread...

Read the full post here »

The post Haman, Anti-Semitism, and the Internet appeared first on Virtual Talmud.

Hate Is at Home on the Internet

Rabbi Joshua Waxman — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 17:49:02 +0000

It is a truism that the power of the Internet is to allow for the proliferation and dissemination of information without passing through central sources (newspapers, radio, TV) that would screen or block them. The advantages are obvious: repressive governments can be pressured by bloggers, writers and artists who are given a forum for bringing their work directly to viewers, and so forth. The danger, of course, of not having barriers to putting out information is that a lot of junk gets out...

Read the full post here »

The post Hate Is at Home on the Internet appeared first on Virtual Talmud.