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Jewish Journal

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Picture of David N. Myers

David N. Myers

L.A. Jewry Needs More Exploring

November 10, 2005

Since arriving, I\’ve also shed another stereotype that I had brought with me as a historian of the Jewish experience. Trained as a Europeanist, I had been inculcated to believe that Los Angeles was to New York as America was to Europe — a pale imitation of the real McCoy, a \”parvenu\” in a world in which antiquity and social stratification bestow merit. This view, unfortunately, is all too common among East Coast or Eurocentric academics.

Show Gaza Sympathies to the Other

August 25, 2005

The disengagement from Gaza has exposed raw emotions and wrenching scenes of families being uprooted from their homes of decades.

One Historian’s Look at How Jews Shaped the Modern Age

December 30, 2004

\”The Jewish Century,\” by Yuri Slezkine. (Princeton University Press, $29.95).

Yuri Slezkine opens this major new book by declaring: \”The modern age is the Jewish age, and the 20th century, in particular, is the Jewish century.\” This assertion may ring bells.

Apparent Allies Might Not Be Our Friends

October 14, 2004

This week\’s Israel Christian Nexus gathering at Stephen S. Wise Temple was intended to rally support for Israel. Its advertised list of speakers included John Fishel, president of The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, and a fair number of prominent local rabbis.

Open Debate Preferable to Blind Support

July 17, 2003

A recent report in The New York Times captured almost perfectly the thorny questions that stand at the center of relations between the American Jewish community and Israel. Should one be permitted to criticize the government of a foreign country with which one feels a deep affinity, or is it a moral and political imperative to support the policies of that government, right or wrong?

The Return of Big Brother?

October 17, 2002

Like America at large, the American university is a teeming marketplace of ideas. Its greatness lies in its unrestrained commitment to open debate. Conversely, its darkest moments have come when the gateways of debate were closed.

A Code of Civility in Jewish Public Discourse

June 6, 2002

One of the most distressing aspects of the recent Middle East conflagration has been the retreat of both sides — Israelis and Palestinians, as well as their supporters — behind towering rhetorical walls.

This retreat evokes the verbal wars of the 1970s, when Israel meant racist and Arab connoted terrorist. When trapped beyond such rhetorical walls, we can only imagine, not see, what the other side looks like. And the imagination often runs wild, depicting the enemy in absolute and demonic terms.

Rally Later

July 26, 2001

In the midst of the speeches at Sunday\’s solidarity rally for Israel, I felt a growing swell of ambivalence and even discomfort over the event.

Can We Find the Golden Mean?

May 17, 2001

In the opening book of his monumental code of Jewish law, Maimonides declared, \”We are bidden to walk in the middle paths which are the right and proper ways….\” The great medieval sage was articulating the golden mean, the principle that we should avoid extreme behavior, ethical or physical, at all times. The person who succeeds — indeed, who navigates between indulgence and self-denial — is, by Maimonides\’ standards, the wise one.

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