Yom Ashura

Here’s a link from the New York Review of Books on current books trying to frame the current debates in the Muslim (mostly Arab) world. I give credit to the author for attempting to make sense of such a broad topic. For such a short piece, I think he does a good job. However, the piece is too short for a real understanding of the issue for non-specialists. Still, a read worth noting. Update: Found another good summary of some of the issues involved in Islamism.

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!

This article is a nice discussion of what’s at stake in the education process in Pakistan, particularly for women. I particularly like the closing paragraph, cliché as it is: we cannot afford to allow a minority to hold a majority at ransom. We just cannot afford to allow any individuals or any groups to derail the present efforts in the education sector or give foreign agencies working in this field any reason to pull out.