Two reader responses to the angry rant from a utility customer who objected to receiving generic holiday greetings at Christmastime. Jeffrey Shallit writes: This guy represents everything that is bad about Christian North America. He doesn't understand freedom of religion; he feels so threatened by non-Christians he wants to resort to violence; and he assumes everyone who is Canadian is necessarily Christian (forget about all those damned, Jews, I suppose, not to mention native Canadians who might follow traditional native religions). Although not Jewish myself, I grew up in a suburb of Philadelphia that was predominantly Jewish. Many lost members of their family...

29 December, 2012

Do not miss Jeffrey Goldberg's continuing posts about his surprise command audience with Fidel Castro last week. First instalment here; second here. Goldberg is a perplexing figure, a former member of the IDF, quick to call anti-semitism against anyone who balks at his lockstep advocacy of troubling Israeli policies. He caused a stir recently with an Atlantic cover story speculating about an impending Israeli nuclear strike against Iran. Many regarded the article as thinly disguised tub-thumping for such an attack (see here and here), while others demurred. In the end, the Atlantic held an extensive, online print debate about the issue — which...

08 September, 2010