I occasionally pick up The Jerusalem Post at the famous out-of-town newspaper kiosk on Harvard Square (for ongoing news about the Middle East I rely on its very informative sister publication The Jerusalem Report). In the current international edition my attention was immediately grabbed by a big advertisement on the very first page of the […]

The world is just dipping its toes, so to speak, in the new year, and 2011 is already shaping up as a dangerous time.  Europe hasn’t solved its financial crisis; the US is vulnerable to state and local financial crises that could erupt without warning; China’s export-oriented growth model is unlikely to yield a second […]

As a kid I always had some trouble understanding the business about the three wise men. Gold always comes in handy so I could see why you would bring gold to a baby — but what on earth were frankincense and myrrh and why would anybody give them to a child? I figured myrrh might […]

Barely nine months have passed since Hungary’s new Parliament met—and since then the words and deeds of the party and new government have turned the political life and the workings of the state and the economy upside down. We are constantly perplexed; we have not even recovered from our astonishment at yesterday’s political measure when […]

As the Christmas season draws to a close and the return of regular blogging looms, I’m looking back over my short life as a writer on religious matters and thinking about how writing on religion is and is not like writing on other controversial topics.There’s no doubt in my mind that it’s important to write […]

It helps if one knows what one’s mission is in life. I am beginning to think that my mission, at least in my new life as a blogger, is to take two separate stories in The New York Times and comment on them together. In the issue of December 18, 2010 there are two stories […]

Connections between the adult Jesus and the baby in the manger aren’t easy to make. At first glance, the gospels don’t help much; whatever the gospel writers had in mind, producing complete biographies of Jesus wasn’t it. Mark omits Christmas altogether, and starts with Jesus getting baptized and launching his career. John has a short […]

By now, the Three Kings are well on their way to Bethlehem, and the Christmas season is drawing to a close. But the Three Kings (actually, ‘wise men’ according to Matthew’s gospel) aren’t just bringing their famous three gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. They bring with them another set of questions that we have […]

Back in the beginning of the Christmas season, I wrote about the way the gospel Christmas narratives “roll the credits” by giving genealogical tables that link Jesus to Jewish history. In contemplating Christmas, we should never forget that the first Christmas was first and foremost a Jewish event. Mary, Joseph, the innkeeper, the shepherds, the […]

Back in the beginning of the Christmas season, I wrote about the way the gospel Christmas narratives “roll the credits” by giving genealogical tables that link Jesus to Jewish history. In contemplating Christmas, we should never forget that the first Christmas was first and foremost a Jewish event. Mary, Joseph, the innkeeper, the shepherds, the […]