President Obama is speaking today at the Union for Reform Judaism Biennial. You can watch live online here, or watch recaps that will be posted on the URJ site later.

You know how Godwin’s law says that every internet argument eventually breaks down into someone calling someone else Hitler or a Nazi? This is one of my greatest pet peeves in life, because it’s not just online arguments that devolve into Holocaust finger-pointing…you can find this stuff all over our culture. Want to paint someone [...]

Gloria Spielman‘s most recent book, Marcel Marceau: Master of Mime, is now available. She will be blogging here all week for the Jewish Book Council and MyJewishLearning‘s Author Blog. When I’m back in London there’s a building I like to visit.  If you’re an art lover and you’ve been to London you may know the place.  It’s the Whitechapel [...]

Earlier this week, Ned Beauman wrote about Oscar Panizza and Henry Ford. His debut novel, Boxer, Beetle (Bloomsbury), is now available. Can an anti-Semite reach correct conclusions about Jews? Here is Jeffrey Herf in his book Reactionary Modernism on the work of Werner Sombart, a leading German sociologist of the early twentieth century: “Sombart stressed four aspects [...]

On Monday, Ned Beauman wrote about Oscar Panizza. His debut novel, Boxer, Beetle (Bloomsbury), is now available. Henry Ford might be the most famous American anti-Semite, but it’s not widely known that the industrialist only narrowly escaped having to answer for his vitriol in court. In 1927, the heroic Jewish lawyer Aaaron Sapiro sued Ford [...]

“And I want to say something to you on this day, the Ninth of Av: Those who will succeed in escaping this catastrophe will live to experience a festive moment of great Jewish joy: the rebirth and establishment of the Jewish state. I do not know whether I myself will live to see it–but my [...]

“When our love was strong, we could have made our bed on the blade of a sword. Now that our love is no longer strong, a bed sixty cubits wide is not large enough” –Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 7a Find more Wise Fridays wisdom on MJL.  

“Money is fire. Like fire it can destroy and annihilate, or illuminate and warm, depending on how it is used.” –Rabbi Elimelech of Lizhensk Find more Wise Fridays wisdom on MJL.  

“The man who seeks to wipe out his own past is thrown into a state of constant hatred of himself….The old cannot be cut out clean. There ensues a sort of spiritual gangrene.” –Shmarya Levin, Youth in Revolt Find more Wise Fridays wisdom on MJL.  

Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai said that the most difficult to observe of all the 613 commandments is “Honor your father and mother.” –Tanhuma, Ekev 2 Find more Wise Fridays wisdom on MJL.