16 February 2010

Post to Maskil_Activity 02/16/2010

  • tags: Secular

    • Moreover, if Deri were to bother picking up some secular knowledge, he might learn that modernity has brought about new identities everywhere, and that all cultures needed to deal with secularization. In particular he would notice that the Haredi movement is itself a quintessentially modern movement that is only 200 years old and in no way represents "authentic" Judaism. Its raison d'etre, to this day, is to be a reaction against the power of the Enlightenment - a phenomenon to be found in the other monotheistic religions, too. Before that, from Maimonides and Ibn Ezra to the Gaon of Vilna, the greatest Jewish thinkers were open to knowledge from other sources and thus injected Jewish thought with ever new stimuli and materials.

  • tags: Environment

  • tags: no_tag


    • "There is an assault on the basics of law and order but most important I
      see this as part of a very pernicious attempt to stifle alternative voices,
      and most seriously to equate criticism with betrayal. And there is a very
      strong political underpinning to that. I would go further ... behind this
      [is] a group of people who don't want a political settlement. They don't
      want peace, so they're trying to delegitimise the human rights movement."



      She says that Im Tirtzu "expropriated" the term Zionism while "probably
      acting in the most anti-Zionist way I can imagine. They forgot to read the
      [1948] Declaration of Independence which talks of equality of all citizens
      of race, colour, creed, gender, nationality, etc. They also forgot the
      chapters in the Declaration where Israel extends its hand to its neighbours,
      they forgot basic democratic principles. They are hellbent to denounce
      anyone who dissents from the government line. Or dissents from their
      definition of what being a loyal Israeli is. That is ridiculous. Democracies
      are all about disagreements."




Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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