This is more of a series of questions, rather than an opinion piece. JoeUsers are encouraged to share their thoughts and opinions. on July 4th, 1976, I watched the Tall Ships sailing up the Hudson River in New York City. We stood at the edge of Spuyten Duyvel, spit of land that has had historical significance since the city was New Amsterdam and cheered. It was America's Bicentennial. What will America's Tricentennial be like? What are your predictions for the year 2076, a mere 68 year...

Ala Abu Dehein had an unremarkable life, by all accounts. But he will be remembered in death as either a martyr or a terrorist, depending on your political and religous idealogy. He entered the Merkaz Harav yeshiva, a school for Rabbinic students, with an AK-47 and an automatic pistol and began firing. When he was done, eight students would be dead. The bodies of some of the students would be found laying among copies of the Torah, the Talmud and other religous works. The gunman was from E...

Misha Defonseca is a sweet looking woman, 71 years old, living in Dudley, Massachusetts. She is also the author of a best-selling book that chronicles a remarkable story of how she, as a child, traveled 1,900 miles across Europe, sometimes in the company of a pack of wolves, in search of her deported parents. The book, entitled "Misha: A Memoire of the Holocaust Years," has been translated into 18 languages and made into a feature film in France. Not one word of it is true. Defonesca...

Despite the bold words that are being bandied about ("Failure is not an option" by example) there will be no peace in the Middle East. This week's incident at the Rafah Gate shows why. Hamas has been firing hundreds of missiles into Israel. Why? Aside from the usual hatred of Jews, they want to make sure that the current round of peace talks is derailed. Hamas is heavily invested in making sure that there is no peace. The have refused to acknowledge Israel's right to exist under any...

Every year there seem to be more and more articles by people who complain that Christmas isn't getting its fair share. There aren't enough Christmas specials on TV (something less than 24/7), the (obvious) Christmas Tree in the office is called something else, people say "Happy Holidays" as if Jews, Muslims and Hindus might think you actually know what our holidays are.....but the real truth is that people in America need more of an education in tolerance, not less. Last week in New York C...

Thanks to my son, Jon, for making me aware of this. According to the witness, the driver of the Cadillac said "I'm a ninja in my Caddy" and then ran Brian Deneke down. The date was December 12th, 1997. The place was Amarillo, Texas. The driver of the car, who would be convicted for the murder, was Dustin Camp. Dustin was an athlete, a high school football player and a "clean cut" kid. His lawyer kept on stressing how clean cut he was at his trial. It must have worked, because Dustin got...

On November 22nd, 1963 at 12:30 PM CST in Dallas, Texas, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States of America, was shot and killed. There are moments and events that define generations. December 7th, 1941, the day that Pearl Harbor was attacked was one. September 11th, 2001 was another. If you were alive on those days, days which may have begun as ordinary days, you will remember the moment when you heard the news. Life would go on for most of us, but in retrosp...

The Jewish Cultural Society of Ann Arbor, Michigan is associated with the Congress of Secular Jewish Organizations and functions as the Secular Humanistic Jewish congregation in Ann Arbor. We offer a Sunday Cultural School for children grades Pre-K through sixth grade, and a B’nai Mitzvah program. Adult education includes monthly Schmoozes featuring speakers, our Book Club and assorted special programs. The JCS comes together for regular Shabbat and holiday observances as well as life cycle e...

The question of how many Jews there are begs the definition of "What is a Jew?" and also "Who is a Jew?" Questions that have been asked many a time.....mostly by other Jews. Being a Secular Jew myself, I like the most liberal, inclusive definition that includes....well ME. The biggest number that you will see is about 18 million Jews. This works out to something like 1/4 of one per cent of the world's population. So you would expect that our impact on the Internet would be proportional to our...

I am going to ask an open question: What is victory in Iraq? (Or the opposite, what is defeat?) Answer as you will. I am not going to try to sway anyone except to offer this observation. In 2003, if you had said to the American people that Saddam would be removed from power, a democratic government elected, a constitution ratified and Saddam tried in an Iraqi court, convicted and then executed, that would generally have met most people's definition of victory. On the other hand, if ...

I had a "Homer Simpson" moment yesterday. I actually thought my beloved Michigan (pronounced "Meeeeeechigan" during college football season) was leading the nation in an important category only to find, upon further investigation, that we were actually only number 6. The category in question is obesity. Click the link below to see an animated map. Link But all my hopes and dreams were dashed when I read the following from the Trust For America's Health site: "Michigan ranked 6t...

I was debating with a neighbor of mine about prayer in American schools and I suggested that we would probably live to see it become an issue again....just not the way that we thought. The prayer book may well be the Quran. Islam is the fastest growing religion in America. Muslims are now the largest minority religion (counting all forms of Christianity as the majority) and have a high birth-rate. In some European countries, the birth-rate of the Muslim minority is often cited as bein...

Family values oriented Republican Sen. David Vitter of New Orleans, accompanied by his wife, has refuted charges that he had relationships with New Orleans prostitutes. He did not deny that he may have relations with prostitutes in Washington D.C., where his name appears in the telephone records of the "D.C. Madams" escort service. We aren't sure about New York or Los Angeles or Vegas. But never in New Orleans. At least not while he was sober. I mean Sen. Vitter is a family guy. ...

If your religion does not recognize the Pope as the supreme interpreter of religious doctrine on Earth....always correct and infallible...if you think that you somehow might have the capacity to think for yourself about what G-d might want, then your religion is "wounded." Thus sayeth the Pope Benedict XVI and since he can never be wrong (when speaking Ex Officio) your religion MUST be wounded. As a disclaimer, I should comment that I am pretty much against the Catholic Church. I have a li...

Let me start off by saying that Kuperman's Fire by John J. Clayton moved my more than any other book that I have read in a long time. Only 304 pages in length, it took me longer to read than I would have thought. There were parts that I read over several times to savor; other times I had to stop after only a few pages because a passage left me emotionally drained. It is hard to put Kuperman's Fire into a category. Is it suspense? There are certainly suspenseful portions. Is it phi...