Last week, Anti-Defamation League national director Abraham Foxman spoke at the St. Louis Jewish Book Festival and spent 75 minutes with the Jewish Light's editorial group. During that wide-ranging discussion, he lamented the loss of civility and respectful...

For while this year it may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed, in other years it has been, and may someday be again, a Jew- or a Quaker or a Unitarian or a Baptist. It was Virginia's harassment of Baptist preachers, for example,...

There's an inherent dichotomy in responding to terrorist activity. On the one hand, in the wake of an attack that results in senseless death and destruction we must go on with our lives without cowering in the corner. On the other, the seriousness of...

Oh, the Protestants hate the Catholics,And the Catholics hate the Protestants,And the Hindus hate the Muslims,And everybody hates the Jews.- From Tom Lehrer's "National Brotherhood Week" Have you listened to the rhetoric spewing forth from and about the...

Two ballot measures in November ask us to dig deep as we search for what our Jewish value of compassion means in a contemporary democratic society.One, Proposition B, puts additional limits on the size and operating conditions of dog breeding facilities....

Most Americans who recognize the headline expression recall it as the first statement that Samuel Morse sent along the telegraph wire in 1844. It was intended (some might say sacreligiously) as an homage to the new technology of the day. Those of a more...

No matter whether you're leftist or rightist, whether you support Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his ruling coalition, whether you think a peaceful solution is viable or sustainable, here's something that is very, very difficult to deny:...

When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced a 10-month moratorium on Jewish settlement building in the West Bank, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton praised him for an "unprecedented action," especially in view of the high political...

Let's play "one of these things is not like the other."Here are five statements.  Try to guess which one does not constitute a religious belief: 1. A serpent talks to people and unleashes evil on the world.2. When you die, you get your own planet.3....

The recent brouhaha over the grossly offensive threat by a Florida pastor to burn copies of the Koran points to one of the essentials of living in a free society that seems to be sorely lacking these days, namely, self-restraint.Not every idea is a good...

As Jews welcome the Jewish New Year of 5771, the news that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has stepped up to the plate to take the principal role in the renewed direct Palestinian-Israeli peace talks, has given High Hopes to the High Holidays.In...

[N]o man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer, on account of his religious opinions or...