When I first started out as a journalist, fresh from graduate school, I thought of my profession as that of the perennial outsider, a stranger who would pack up and leave the next day.
In a historic address to the Board of Rabbis of Southern California last week, Cardinal Roger Mahony, archbishop of Los Angeles, called for the elimination of centuries of Catholic and Christian anti-Semitic teaching and a new era of Catholic-Jewish understanding and cooperation.
An unusual Buddhist-Jewish dialogue took place inSeptember 1989, when the Tibetan Buddhist leader, the Dalai Lama, metwith a group of six Jewish leaders. The Dalai Lama requested themeeting, not because of an academic interest but, rather, because ofa practical need. He wanted to learn the Jewish \”secret technique\”for survival. \”We always talk of Jewish people scattered in so manycountries, speaking so many languages, yet the Jews keep theirtraditions. It\’s something remarkable,\” he said.
Like the priest in her latest movie, director Lesli Linka Glatter is finding her own faith.
Set in aristocratic 1930s Boston, \”The Proposition\” stars William Hurt and Madeleine Stowe as Arthur and Eleanor Barrett, an infertile couple who go to extreme measures to conceive. They employ the services of Neil Patrick Harris (yes,\”Doogie Howser\” himself), who falls in love with Eleanor. The situation leads to murder as the Barretts try to avoid a humiliating scandal, and Eleanor seeks comfort in the arms of Father McKinnon(Kenneth Branagh), a young priest new to the local parish.
It was my third funeral of the week, and I was tired of death. I thought this one would be easier than the others,since it was an elderly woman who suffered terribly and truly wanted to die. Her name was Sarah; her only relatives left were her nephew, Harry, and his son, Joel.
Who needs Halloween or Mardi Gras? On Purim, the masquerade of characters is lively and intriguing: Spangled Vashtis, bearded Mordechais, snarling Hamans, bejeweled Esthers, silk-robed Ahasueruses.
In truth, though, many other Orthodox Jews — including most of Agudath Israel\’s constituency — do not consider Yom Ha Shoah to be the appropriate time for focusing on the destruction of Jewish Europe.
Strains of somber organ music resonated in the large sanctuary as the eight Holocaust survivors told their stories. As each spoke about horrors endured, loved ones lost and, ultimately, faith reclaimed, the congregation punctuated their speeches with murmurs of \”Thank You, Jesus.\”
Like most converts, the Hardins take the precepts of their adopted faith more seriously than many born to it, and they display an intense hunger for knowledge, as if to make up for what they missed during their childhoods.\n
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