The New Americans


Here, in other words, was Occupy Wall Street in action, but maybe a hundred times more effective: ordinary people protesting against the financialization of the U.S. economy by taking collective action to squeeze the short-sellers, saving companies they cared about and saving thousands of jobs belonging to the people who work at those companies, while forcing the suits to disgorge some part of the money they were making by treating the market like a giant video game and squeezing the life out of companies for profit. Give the money back to the people! And hats off to them boyz and girlz willing to show their faith in collective action by putting their measly day-trading accounts on the line. What a perfectly American act. What a demonstration of collective solidarity in action at a time of increasing social atomization and economic suffering, in the dead of winter, in the middle of a pandemic—why, I could just go on and on and on. …

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David Samuels — Tablet Magazine

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My Jewish Encounter With Hinduism


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My encounter with individuals like Swami Chidananda, in Hinduism and in other faiths – certainly within Judaism as well, has informed my view of what religion is. It has led me to consider how to present what I consider the finest aspects of the religious life, as these come to expression in the lives of great individuals, and how to make these speak to the world at large, even beyond the boundaries of their native tradition. This has led to the thinking expressed in my recently published Religious Genius: Appreciating Exemplary Individuals Across Religious Traditions. Individuals such as Swami Chidananda have the capacity to touch others because they themselves have touched a plane of existence that gives meaning to their religion, while also transcending it and making something of it available to others. It is such individuals who not only represent the spirit of a religion; they also have the capacity to awaken the power of spirit in those who are in contact with them and are exposed to their person and teachings.

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Alon Goshen-Gottstein — Tablet

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Portman, in All Her Glory, Transforms Into Kennedy, in All Her Pain


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Natalie Portman plays Jackie Kennedy in the movie “Jackie”. This is more of a preview. The movie and Natalie Portman look good.

Well, I didn’t have the right comeback at the time, which was, obviously: “Don’t be ridiculous, Natalie Portman is the Jewish Jackie Kennedy.” Because at last, here we are, on the cusp of release of the new biopic, Jackie, starring Queen Natalie as the most iconic first lady of all time, living through the aftermath of her husband’s assassination. The first trailer just came out, and let me tell you: It’s got everything. The pink suit. The widow’s black veil. The blood running off her back in the shower. And intoning over it all, Richard Burton’s funereal lament from the end of the Broadway show Camelot, to which the Kennedy administration was famously compared.

The complete article

Rachel Shukert — Tablet

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