Brandeis Center Blog

A three-month-old baby run down and murdered in Jerusalem by a Hamasnik who also injured eight others at a light rail station. In the evening, Palestinian rioters showed solidarity—with the baby killer. The U.S. State Department response: both sides should “remain calm.” Our State Department makes Pontius Pilate seem, morally, like a stand-up guy. Hollywood […]

In an arguable judgment, Mark Twain said of Wagnerian opera that it must “be better than it sounds.” Michael Walsh’s scabrous, repulsive defense of “The Death of Klinghoffer,” being staged by the Met, elevates moral relativism into the Sermon on the Mount while at the same time denouncing critics of caricaturish anti-Semitism for the “dehumanization” […]

According to a new YouGov poll, among Americans, 18-29, 31 percent believe Islam is more more likely to encourage violence than other religions, 9 percent consider Islam less likely. The comparable percentages for Americans, 65 or over, are 65 percent and 1 percent. Apparently the Millennials have fully digested PC pablum served up by politicians, […]

Responding to reports that members of Dutch motorcycle gangs are going to Iraq to join the Peshmerga and fight ISIS/ISIL, public prosecutor spokesman Wim de Bruin has announced that “joining a foreign armed force was previously punishable, now it’s no longer forbidden. . . . You just can’t join a fight against the Netherlands.” Head […]

For a masterful, though I fear too optimistic, review essay about studies of migration, immigration, and rights debates, see Roger Waldinger, “Moving Right Along,” in the “American Interest,” at http://www.the-american-interest.com/articles/2014/10/12/moving-right-along/

According to recent polls, belief in extraterrestrials varies by religion–or the lack of it: • 55 percent of Atheists • 44 percent of Muslims • 37 percent of Jews • 36 percent of Hindus • 32 percent of Christians Of course, atheists also tend to believe in the rationality and perfectibility of homo sapiens–a supreme […]

The Hague’s Van Ostade Housing Project—once part of a traditional Jewish neighborhood—now belongs to a transformed Schilderswijk which the Dutch increasingly know as the “Sharia Triangle.” There aren’t enough Jews left to form a minyan. But Frabrice Shomberg, an artist born in England, stubbornly continues to make “kippah walks” and build a Sukkah as a […]

Last week a coalition of 14 national organizations including the Brandeis Center sent a letter to the presidents of more than 2500 four-year U.S. colleges and universities, urging them to protect Jewish students in light of the alarming rise in anti-Semitism both here and around the world. The letter, authored by the Zionist Organization of […]

According to the (London) “Guardian,” Adel al-Faqih, Saudi health minister, said measures have been put into place to bar Muslim pilgrims from Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea to enter Saudi Arabia. In contrast, the Obama Administration is doing nothing to heighten screening measures at airports. A CDC administrator on CNN could not decide whether the […]

The spate of Islamist beheadings—of hundreds of indigenous Christians and Muslims in Iraq and Syria and a handful of Westerners in those places plus London, Algeria, and now Oklahoma—has been called “do-it-yourself jihadism.” Whereas the 9/11 attacks required pilots’ licenses, these beheadings require only rudimentary butchering credentials. Of course, the impact has been electric, exceeding […]

The Muslim Brotherhood was unceremoniously booted from power by Egypt’s no sissy General Sissi. Yet its love affair with the West’s elites continues. No less than President Obama in his recent UN Speech touted cleric Sheikh Abdallah Bin Bayyah as a moderate voice for peace despite abundant evidence that Bin Bayh helps lead a Brotherhood […]

Theodore Dalrymple has aired out the recent exhumation of the body of Richard III, the English King killed at Bosworth Field in 1485 by Henry Tudor who founded the illustrious Tudor dynasty as Henry VII. Vilified by Shakespeare as the ignominious hunchback who murdered his brother, nephews, and wife to seize the throne, Richard died […]

Andrew Sullivan, the premier logger, who’s a Brit transplant, is currently suffering a disillusionment more like poor unBritish Candide as the philosophy he was weaned on—Dr. Pangloss’ “It is the best of all possible worlds”—is mugged by reality. First, he had to abandon he’s pro-Israel politics when he discovered, much to his chagrin, that Israeli […]

For more on the anti-Israel and anti-Semitic connections of Scottish Nationalism, see: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2014/09/16/why-scots-leader-compares-israel-to-isis/ http://www.jpost.com/Breaking-News/Scottish-Jewish-community-leader-Independence-would-not-be-favorable-for-policy-toward-Israel-375558

Obama’s belated anti-ISIS/ISIL Coalition is being called a “coalition of the unwilling,” compared to George W. Bush’s against Saddam Hussein which actually evoked authentic if narrow enthusiasm. It also has aspects of an arranged marriage forced upon unwilling parties. Anyway, this may be the indigenous rationale that Secretary of State Kerry is using to try […]