Archive for category Culture
Big Brother
Posted by Yonason Goldson in Culture, Philosophy on August 10, 2010
Life imitates art, in the darkest, most Orwellian way.
The Second Amendment and the Oral Law
Posted by Yonason Goldson in Culture, History, Philosophy, Politics on July 14, 2010
When the words of our fathers succeed or fail to guide us in their footsteps.
The Unfairness Doctrine
Posted by Yonason Goldson in Culture, Politics on June 23, 2010
The World Cup exposes a dangerous trend in world politics.
Hat tip: Marc Jacob.
The Limits of Liberalism
Posted by Yonason Goldson in Culture, Israel, Philosophy, Politics on June 9, 2010
The flotilla fiasco forces us to ponder the ideology that compels America’s most liberal president ever to side with tyrants and theocrats.
The answers are disturbingly simple.
From the Editor of JewishWorldReview.com
Posted by Yonason Goldson in Culture, Politics on May 2, 2010
Friday, April 30:
“Yesterday’s lead article, “The real reason why Jews are Liberals” by Rabbi Yonason Goldson, brought a huge amount of traffic — and diverse mail. No matter what your stance, it’s accurate to say the article provoked a lot of thought. Responses came from around the world. Some could be columns in their own right.
Jews lauded the author for putting into words what they’ve tried to explain for years. Gentiles wrote in to say they finally had an answer — and an articulate and intelligent one at that — to a question that they’ve found mind boggling.
In case you missed the piece, it can be found here:
Please use our “share” features — including “e-mail a friend” — to spread the column. We also suggest you bookmark it or print a copy for future reference.”
Why Jews are Liberals
Posted by Yonason Goldson in Culture, Philosophy, Politics on April 29, 2010
As much as all conservative values trace their origins to Jewish tradition, liberal values trace their origins to the same source — to exactly the same degree.
A Few Words from the Wise
Posted by Yonason Goldson in Culture, Politics on April 10, 2010
Given the current political climate, it’s time to rerun these pearls of wisdom.
The Sunset of Human Compassion
Posted by Yonason Goldson in Culture on March 18, 2010
Back in the 1960s, psychologist Stanley Milgram carried out his now infamous experiment at Yale University, in which he demonstrated the kind of submission to authority that could produce the Holocaust, or any other form of genocide. Now French national television has turned his experiment into a reality show.
In the documentary “The Game of Death,” French contestants were encouraged by an authority figure to administer lethally dangerous electric shocks to another contestant — actually an actor playing the part of a helpless victim. With every wrong answer from his fellow contestant, the punisher would raise the voltage level in order to win the game.
As the “contestant,” strapped into a booth and hooked to electrodes, appeared to writhe in pain and beg for mercy, the studio audience chanted “Punishment! Punishment!” If we have ever wondered how ordinary Germans could have tacitly endorsed the wanton cruelty of Nazi camp guards, we needn’t look much further for an answer.
A friend of mine once told me the story of how, as a yeshiva boy some decades ago, he had been watching his classmates play a game of basketball. One of his teachers, an old-world European rabbi, came along side him to watch the game. After several minutes the rabbi said, “I don’t understand. This one wants the ball. Why doesn’t the other one give it to him.”
My friend answered with teenage innocence: “Rebbe, it’s a game.”
The rabbi’s eyes widened. “A game?” he asked. “It’s a game to keep something away from someone who wants it! What kind of game is that?”
What passes for entertainment reveals much about the values of society. In a few decades we’ve gone from competition to exhibitionism to sadism. It’s too frightening to contemplate where we’ll go next.
The Dangers of Historical Revisionism
Posted by Yonason Goldson in Culture, History on March 17, 2010
I can’t say that I am surprised over the reactions to my recent article in the St. Louis Jewish Light rebutting a local rabbi’s remarks about Moses. In retrospect, I should have realized that many readers would misinterpret my passion as personal or as politically motivated. I regret that, by not taking a softer tone, I left many unable to coolly evaluate the substance of my argument.
I should clarify that I was writing as an individual, not as a representative of or in coordination with any other authority or institution. I should clarify further that, as I believe my students will attest, one of my major themes as a classroom teacher is the primacy of respect for all people who aspire to uphold standards of ethics and morality and for all beliefs that set such standards. If, by expressing my indignation at a public demonstration of disrespect, I crossed over the boundaries of respectfulness myself, that only proves that I still have much to learn, even from my own lessons.
Having said that, I must also reiterate my distress that the same objections to my criticism were not raised in response to my colleague’s denigration of Moses. Why the double standard? Why is one verbal attack so much less tolerable than the other?
A broader investigation of the topic can be found here.
Objection!
Posted by Yonason Goldson in Culture, Jewish Unity on March 10, 2010
Apparently, many in the broader Jewish community have taken exception to my rebuttal of Carnie Rose’s article, in which he defames the character of Moshe Rabbeinu (Moses).
I don’t have to wonder how the general readership of the Jewish Light would have responded had an editorial been run condemning Martin Luther King for infidelity. Would not the Jewish community have responded with justifiable outrage? Would not leaders and layman alike have — correctly and properly — vilified the editorialist for needlessly smearing America’s most iconic civil rights leader and obscuring the greater issue of the continuing battle for civic justice?
Why then, was there not a whisper of discontent when Rabbi Rose concocted imagined criticism of Moshe the Lawgiver’s personal conduct? Is the Jewish community so conflicted that its commitment to anti-defamation does not extend to the greatest of Jewish luminaries? Could Rabbi Rose not have found a single source in all Torah literature from which to teach the importance of sensitivity to family members without engaging in baseless slander? And why have I been compared to a member of the Ku Klux Klan for calling him out for his defamatory remarks?
The immediate object[ive] is to stop, by appeals to reason and conscience and, if necessary, by appeals to law, the defamation of the Jewish people.
This quote is taken from the mission statement of the anti-defamation league. Whatever comments I made about Rabbi Rose’s article were consistent with that mission, both warranted and defensible in light of his profoundly and needlessly offensive remarks. I take it as a disturbing sign of the moral confusion of our times that the same Jewish notables who have condemned me for defending the honor of Judaism’s greatest hero expressed not the slightest concern over Rabbi Rose’s wholesale denigration of Moses, a figure far greater and more significant than either Rabbi Rose or myself.
Torah Ideals 
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