I’ve recently been occupying my spare time with careful study of the ADL’s “Anti-Bias Lesson Plans and Resources for K-12 Educators.” On the ADL’s website, it is said that these lesson plans, which target children in grades three through twelve, have been designed to help “educators” “integrate multicultural, anti-bias, and social justice themes into their […]
In the aftermath of their indictment, one of the earliest strategies that Rich, Green, and their lawyers attempted to employ was that of claiming anti-Semitism was behind the legal measures brought against them: both claimed that they had been singled out because they were Jews. And so we find ourselves finding truth behind another ‘canard’ […]
‘When someone does you wrong, do not judge things as he interprets them or would like you to interpret them. Just see them as they are, in plain truth.’ Emperor Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book Four: Verse Eleven. In my humble opinion, one of the most intriguing features of the posturing of the Anti-Defamation League, and […]
Go to Part 1. It’s interesting that the emphasis on Jewish identity and origins in the case of Spinoza is quite the opposite of that found among the intellectual movements discussed in The Culture of Critique, doubtless because the theories were promoted within a scientific framework in which ethnic interests and identifications would be seen as illegitimate.— […]
Go to Part 1. The Apotheosis of Baruch Spinoza Influenced by the sentiments of their own people, the majority of Jewish academics have long held and advanced a view of Spinoza strikingly at odds with that held by non-Jewish academics. Over time, however, the internal intellectual consistency and dedication of a core of Jewish academics […]
Go to Part 1. The Jewish Reclamation of Spinoza To understand the shift in Jewish attitudes to Spinoza, one must take into account the birth of the concept of the ‘secular Jew,’ and the corresponding development of surrogate intellectual and cultural movements in which ‘Jewishness’ was divorced from Judaism and yet survived and thrived post […]
