Category: Social Issues
I Accept the Other, But I Fight with My Brother: why intra-faith relations can be the biggest challenge of all
When I am invited to attend Muslim salaat (one of the five daily prayer sessions) I sit in the back with the other women. I comply with gender customs as a guest. I cover my hair under hijab without h... Read More
An Atheist and William Connolly
William E. Connolly’s Why I Am Not a Secularist (1999) has been hailed a landmark contribution to the study of secularism and modern society. In it Connolly argues for a “refashioning” of secu... Read More
Bury the Bloody Hatchet: Secularism, Islam, and Reconciliation in Afghanistan
When the US negotiated peace with American Indians just a few years after the American Revolution, they used religiously-inspired, culturally relevant symbols to “bury the hatchet.” However, the... Read More
Tea with Hezbollah
Last Thursday, the New York Times reported that the Shi'i military and political movement Hezbollah, which many would classify as terrorist, toppled the Lebanese government just six months after the d... Read More
How the VA Resurrected My Uncle
My Uncle Willie, the fourth and youngest boy of my grandma’s litter, has always struck me as a touch “off.” Compared to his brothers—my clever and scholarly father, my robust and street smart ... Read More
Tyler Clementi and Proximate Justice
I went on a run one evening in early October. It was a blustery night, and I ran hard against a misty and diligent headwind along New York City’s Hudson River. Under the bumpy plum-colored cloud... Read More
Putting Islam on the Stand is Wrong and Misguided
Socially and professionally, American Jews have often felt that they were being ‘put on the stand’ for their beliefs. Sometimes their beliefs even seemed to be on trial nationally – notably duri... Read More
What Basis For Equality?
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.” The true meaning... Read More