Friday, December 18, 2009

Articles of Interest


The New York Times features an excellent obituary for the late Dr. Yosef Yerushalmi. Yerushalmi was one of the leading scholars of early modern Jewish history. His passing marks the end of an era. See also Menachem Butler, who posts his own blog obituary.

John Elder Robison wonders why neutrotypicals, with their self proclaimed empathy, would casually dump someone they are dating without being able to offer a coherent reason. At least neurotypicals have enough empathy to know not to rob a convenience store. This has certainly been my experience. I understand not wanting to marry someone and therefore breaking up with them. That being said if someone is good enough to spend time and money on you, you owe it to that person to not simply abandon them and refuse to talk to them simply to make yourself feel better.

Thomas Friedman writes about Islamic fundamentalists using the internet. I have a suggestion; we should get radical Muslims to agree to swap leaders with Haredim, who will then ban Muslims from using the internet.

Aliza Hausman (aka. Jewminicana) has an article on the OU website defending her culinary preferences against Ashkenazi imperialism. I am guilty of being Ashkenazi, but as a Maimonidean, I really wish I could be Sephardi. Kind of like the little white girl in Secret Life of Bees who gets to live out her fantasy of living black.
My friend Mordechai Shinefield laments in Jewcy about the lack of Jewish emo music. Well at least we have emo sparkly fairy princess vampires.

2 comments:

Miss S. said...

Do you see the movie "Secret Life of Bees" or did you just read the book. Either way, I raised an eyebrow...

Izgad said...

I read the book. It was quite good. The cynic in me, though, saw it as a white liberal fantasy to be “made black” and be redeemed from the sin of racism.