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Arrival Day 2005

Jonathan of Head Heeb fame is convening the third annual blogburst for Arrival Day. Arrival Day commemorates the arrival of Jews to old New Amsterdam, and each year, the burst has a theme. According to Jonathan, “this year, the focus is on American Jews as part – or, more accurately, parts – of a larger whole.” After last year’s Arrival Day I read Philip Roth’s Operation Shylock – no causal relationship. In it, Roth’s protagonist, Philip Roth #2 (you really need to read the book) preaches an idea he calls “diasporism,” as a counter to Zionism. Now, regardless of what…

Hussein Rashid: A Gay Mosque?

Hussein Rashid: A Gay Mosque?. The recent story of a gay mosque in Paris raises conflicted feelings in me. On one hand, I recognize the need for safe spaces of worship, where people are not constantly being threatened for who they are. However, I also fear that creating a separate mosque perpetuates stigma by allowing other Muslims to avoid having discussions about what a truly devotional space could look like.

Terrorists hate Muslims

As has been pointed out in several places (1, 2, 3), one of the London bombs went off in a predominately Muslim area. There is a war occurring within the Muslim community; there are those who would throw out 1400 hundred years of intellectual history and development and who would bomb the ummah back to the time before the Prophet (PBUH) verse those who believe Islam is a religion that matures by the grace of God, and struggles with His majesty and revelation every day. I’ve commented before (1, 2, 3) on Muslim-on-Muslim violence. In this instance, I think it’s…