In the movie “Annie Hall”, Woody Allen plays the character Alvy Singer. In one scene he is standing in line near a guy who is pontificating about the media. The screenplay goes like this: Man: It’s the influence of television. Yeah, now Marshall McLuhan deals with it in terms of it being a-a high, uh, […]

Well, in the recent month or so this blog was a bit sick… It happened after the imaginary gods could not interfere. Some evil spammers took their place and did their best to publish their crap products here. I’m still struggling with these fucking php scripts and WordPress configuration, so please bear with me. Any […]

“Wise men make proverbs, but fools repeat them.” – Samuel Palmer How do we know God wants us to refrain from stealing from others? How can we be so sure the Almighty is against adultery? After all, it’s kind of difficult to pinpoint any individual meeting with him (her? them?) recently. Yet, millions of people […]

(Original version in Hebrew by Naor Livne, may be found here) The Daily Planet’s roof. Superman is standing on the roof, looking down. Even an ordinary man with no super powers would notice the situation down below is far from ideal. The town is on fire, and in the few places still untouched by the […]

An interview with Emunah Alon, the wife of Israeli right-wing parliament member Benny Alon, took place in March 2003 on the IDF radio channel. The interviewer asked her about certain rumors, saying that Yigal Amir had discussed Rabin’s murder with her husband before performing the act. Mrs. Alon explained how that specific discussion was about […]

“I have always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of their thoughts.” – John Locke In 2003, Sheikh Abdullah el-Faisal was put in jail for nine years. The judge recommended that el-Faisal, from Stratford in east London (UK), should serve at least half of the sentence and then be deported. Abdullah el-Faisal had […]

New York, NY — Is religion a virus that infects otherwise healthy individuals? That is a question raised by a provocative new book entitled, The God Virus. It is by noted psychologist and student of religion, Dr. Darrel Ray. In a cogent and highly readable analysis, Dr. Ray traces the contagion course of religion as […]

Here is a short and very partial list, just to get an idea of some of the more peculiar religious Jewish verdicts mentioned in the Israeli media during the last few years. All have good religious explanations. Note that some of them obviously contradict others: It’s not allowed to pick your nose on the Sabbath. […]

Some two millenniums ago, Jewish priests were not allowed to be near dead people or even cemeteries. This ancient law evolved into religiously forbidding people carrying the last name of, say, ‘Cohen’ (Hebrew for ‘Priest’) from entering cemeteries. But what is the extent of a cemetery? It appears that the Jewish god also regards the […]

“Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together.” – Vincent van Gogh Picking your nose in public is certainly not a nice thing to do. Picking your nose in private is probably okay… unless it’s Saturday and you’re one of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef’s followers. The interesting verdict […]