ISLAM
ANOTHER MIDEAST MUDDLE
With Syria’s Bashar al-Assad and the 53-year-old Assad family rule overthrown, an old adage arises in the Middle East: Be careful what you wish for. But wish we must, then take care following up. The Middle East has been a highly unstable region not just in recent decades but throughout history. For centuries, competing caliphs…
Read MoreLESSONS OF TIMBUKTU
America’s cultural divide runs deep. The far-right’s vote for Donald Trump protested the “elites.” Considerable danger lies in this. We find a prime example in a region of the world usually ignored—sub-Saharan Africa. What are elites? Trump supporters generally consider them to be inhabitants of big cities on either coast and holders of college and…
Read MoreISLAM AND 9-11
What if New York’s Twin Towers had been felled (and the Pentagon attacked and a fourth plane crashed in Pennsylvania) on December 25? We would long remember that terrible day. So would celebrating Christmas in America be halted? Recently, American Muslims feared that the festival of Eid al-Adha would fall on September 11. Could Muslims…
Read MoreMISGUIDED EXCEPTIONALISM
Who among us does not feel special? See himself or herself at the center of the universe? Think that if everyone does what I do, the world will be a better place? The answer: precious few. Which explains why not only individuals but also nations often come to grief. The belief that I or “we”…
Read MoreMUSLIM BASHING AND ANTI-SEMITISM
Does anti-Muslim rhetoric relate to anti-Semitism? Yes, according to my friend Claudia Hagadus Long, an attorney and fellow novelist. Claudia has authored a trilogy about colonial Mexico—Josefina’s Sin, The Duel for Consuelo and (late 2016 or 2017) Marcela Unchained. Given her family’s challenging Jewish history, an undercurrent of anti-Semitism runs through all. Now, Muslim bashing…
Read MoreGOING HOME—MYTH AND REALITY
Carolyn and I went to New York last week to see Yosi and Hurray for the Riff Raff at Carnegie Hall’s sold-out Zankel Hall. New York is “home.” I grew up in Queens—Rego Park. But going home goes only so far. Time travel constitutes risky business. On Friday, we took the subway to 63rd Drive…
Read MoreTERRORISM 101
Everyone talks about stopping terrorism. But to do that, we must understand what terrorism is. That will help us make rational, as opposed to emotional, decisions about what might work and what won’t. To begin, terrorism is not a lone wolf or a pair of gunmen with a grudge who shoot up a school or…
Read MoreEUROPE AND THE SLIPPERY SLOPE
American politics often seizes up atop the slippery slope. When common sense dictates compromise, Democrats and Republicans refuse to take a first small step. They reason that a tiny compromise will lead to larger compromises eroding their core principles. Europe, too, faces a slippery slope in regard to refugees fleeing the Middle East and South…
Read MoreDESTROYING HISTORY
Last weekend, Carolyn and I visited friends in Ashland, Oregon, home of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. We saw the classic musical Guys and Dolls. (I played Nathan Detroit in summer camp.) We also toured Ashland’s historic Railroad District. As we strolled, I couldn’t help thinking of the barbarians who seek not to preserve history but…
Read MoreTHE CAMPUS DISEASE
Cairo’s Al-Azhar University is the Muslim world’s preeminent Sunni religious institution. The University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) provides outstanding higher education in the United States. Both seem quite different. Yet both share something in common besides being well-known universities. It’s cause for concern. Last Sunday in Mecca, Ahmed al-Tayib, Al-Azhar’s grand imam, addressed…
Read MoreIT’S ISLAMISM
The Islamic State’s recent beheadings of two Japanese and burning of a Jordanian Air Force pilot bring reminders from Washington that we’re engaged in a “war on terror.” Nonsense. Terror is a strategy, sometimes a tactic. We face an aberrant ideology. It’s Islamism, which seeks to impose by force its version of Islam and legitimizes…
Read MoreEXODUS AND CHARLIE HEBDO
Recently, I saw a Hollywood guild screening of Ridley Scott’s Exodus: Gods and Kings. Last Wednesday, two gunmen killed 12 people at the Paris magazine Charlie Hebdo. (As I write, French security forces have just killed the terrorists.) The film and the murders tell overlapping yet different stories. If you’re thinking, “Wait. I’ve got to…
Read MoreROSH HASHANAH, CHINA AND ISIS
Wednesday evening and Thursday morning, worshippers filled Congregation Sherith Israel’s awe-inspiring sanctuary for Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year (5775). This told me a lot about what’s going on in China and the Islamic State. Let’s start with the synagogue. Most Friday-night Shabbat services draw 50–75 worshippers, Saturday mornings fewer. A guest cantor, musical group,…
Read MoreCANCER IN IRAQ
Medical science has helped many cancer patients extend their lives. Further, it’s inching towards cures. Military science has been far less effective in fighting religious cancers, such as ISIS—the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq (aka ISIL, the Islamic State of Syria and the Levant). The United States might take that into account as Iraq…
Read MoreMUSLIM IN AMERICA: PART TWO
Nine-Eleven shocked America. I remember my own disbelief and anger viewing images of smoke bellowing from the Twin Towers then the Towers collapsing, the damaged Pentagon and United Flight 93, headed for the White House, having crashed in Western Pennsylvania. The disaster proved equally eventful for Ameena Jandali. A Colorado native and resident of the East…
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