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How the Jews Saved Islam

I was hoping that title would get someone’s attention. More specifically: I was reading The Hundred Thousand Fools of God: Musical Travels in Central Asia (And Queens, New York) and learned quite about the relationship between Bukharan Jews and Muslims in Transoxiana (modern day Uzbekistan and Tajikistan). In brief, Muslims started giving up aspects of their musical heritage and the Bukharan (here, basically meaning Central Asian) Jews took up the craft and helped preserve Islamicate music, especially the shash maqām. It’s a good read, and I highly recommend it. While it’s also a bit late for Diaspora Month, the last…

Twittering Across the Faith Line

I am fascinated by the role of new media in the world of multifaith relations. Take the events of yesterday morning… Rabbi Ira Stone At 9 a.m. I received an email from my colleague Rabbi Shai Gluskin that informed me that my teacher, Rabbi Ira Stone, was now posting about the Mishnah on Twitter. Not yet Twitter literate myself, I repaired to Facebook where I posted a “status update” announcing this news. An hour later, I received an email from Hussein Rashid, a scholar of Islam in New York City, who will be teaching for RRC next spring. He indicated…

PFBC – Breakout – Blogging Text

[can’t talk and type at the same time, so my comments are not here. see other blogs for a run down of what I said.] Moderated by Rabbi Jill (JSpot, Radical Torah) Judaism has a rich textual tradition, not all of it text. Jill: Blog about Torah with a social justice idea. Infuse Jewish perspective on other texts (NYT) Tim (Christian Alliance for Progress): Trying to bring Christian texts to bear on public policy. Mik (JSpot): Most of my blogging doesn’t involve posting on text. Try to balance posting. Rachel (Velveteen Rabbi, Radical Torah): Blogs Torah portion of the week.…