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Op-Ed Columnist – Is This America? – NYTimes.com

If this is a testing time, then some have passed with flying colors. Hats off to a rabbinical student in Massachusetts, Rachel Barenblat, who raised money to replace prayer rugs that a drunken intruder had urinated on at a mosque. She told me that she quickly raised more than $1,100 from Jews and Christians alike. via www.nytimes.com Yay Rachel!

We need to do something.

The Sydney Morning Herald is reporting the imam of a local mosque, the largest from what I understand, has commended the 9-11 hijackers in a khutba in Lebanon. The defense is that the comments were taken out of context, but the text is not made available. Give us the context. More telling is the final line: “”When you make a speech in an Arabic environment, the translation will be different in an English environment.”” How will it be different to recommend murder in one language than in another? I agree we shouldn’t rush to judgment, but the Muslim community of…

Following the Bread Crumbs

While visiting unmedia, I saw a link on deconstructing Daniel Pipes’ latest peace writings. This particular rambling was on identifying oneself as a moderate Muslim. From unmedia, I got to Zack’s detailed criticism of Pipes, and I don’t want to reinvent the wheel. Zack in-turn lead me to a beliefnet quiz on what type of Muslim I am. Good fun. I came in as a “spiritual seeker,” but I found so many of the questions hard to answer because they pre-supposed a particular understanding of Islam, which is not mine. I’m still working on that Shi’ism post.