Conservative Judaism

This is what I hold to MrG. But with all things prophecy related, there are differences of opinion. I've given this some thought before, and I think there are three things that distinguish us from prior generations, and signal we are nearing the end of this age. Israel becoming a nation is one of them. There are so many end-time prophesies that require Israel to be back in the land, and for 1800 that just wasn't the case, and seemed inconceivable. There were those who scoffed at the idea in the…

In 722 B.C.E. Israel was taken over by the Assyrians, a group of people greatly influenced by the Mesopotamian culture of Babylon, but there were about forty thousand survivors. These survivors were sent into exile in Babylonia, which is a time commonly known as the Babylonian Captivity. After the Persians defeated the Babylonians, in 538 B.C.E., King Cyrus the Great allowed the exiled people to return to Jerusalem. At this time, the exiles started redefining their beliefs and practices. This…

Serious Laughter by Emily Belz was published in World magazine’s October 29, 2016 issue. The article discusses The Babylon Bee, a recently launched site, filled with satire posts from an evangelical Christian, Adam Ford’s perspective. As the title of Emily Belz’s piece implies, the website’s articles are filled with witty and sometimes gritty humor aimed at all from democrats to republicans to the pope to a property gospel preacher. Although some of The Babylon Bee’s posts are written merely to…

Amir’s relationship with Isaac is defined by the anti-Jewish prejudice on Amir’s side and anti-Muslim prejudice on Isaac's. Both of these characters are hated and feared, or expect to be hated and feared, because of their skin pigmentation and beliefs about their faith/religion. The way both of these characters were brought up reveals the formation of their prejudices which leads to their conflicts. Amir and Isaac present their arguments on religion and race throughout the play to pinpoint their…

believe nor accept that they had worshipped an imposter. Everyone had opened their hearts to the Messiah and invested all their beliefs into him, only to have him betray them all. Given the choice between death and conversion, Shabbetai Zevi left Judaism to become a Muslim (Mohammedan) (Jewish History 2). Shabbetai Zevi’s apostasy is one of the most dark and tragic moments of Jewish history, as well as confusing to many Jews. Many men sold all their belongings to go to Palestine with him in…

Oskar Schindler wasn’t always the altruistic man that many people picture him as. Many people described him as a greedy, selfish man who’s only desire was to earn money. Schindler, who began the business purely for the purpose of personal gain, was like any other entrepreneur at the time, an industrialist who used the war as an opportunity to make money, but somewhere along the way something in him changed. After this sudden change of heart, he began to help shield his Jewish workers from all…

The Book Thief and The Boy in Striped Pyjamas both symbolise and represent the aspects of conformity. Between both of these texts the common factor is that in each of these films there are always a certain group of people that are able to stand out from the rest of the crowd and resist to conform. In both texts the Nazi regime puts exponential pressure on the society and youth to conform with the rest of the crowd. This is done by representing propaganda to the youth in both films to try to…

Normally, the beliefs and ideas of political and social fringe groups are brushed aside as “crazy talk,” or belittled as an entity that will merely go away as time passes. Occasionally, these fringe groups attempt to insert themselves into the mainstream and regularly resort to deceptive measures to increase their legitimacy. The book, Denying History: Who Says the Holocaust Never Happened and Why Do They Say It?, written by Michael Shermer and Alex Grobman, discusses and analyzes the Holocaust…

Jewish Religion Today around 13-14 million people admit to believing in Judaism, 80% of those people live in Israel and the United States. Judaism has many different beliefs and values, but the traditions vary between families, between synagogues, and between towns. Judaism relates to the short story “The Son from America” because of the way that the family celebrates the Sabbath and the way they practice praying each day. The Jewish faith consists of many different elements, beliefs, and…

Anti-Semitism I knew when writing this series of essays, I was going to write about anti-semitism on film and TV. I figured it’d be the easiest essay by far to write. A quick Google search and I’d find dozens of different examples and BAM, essay completed. Wrong. I was so surprised. I had trouble finding examples of anti-semitism in film and TV. A joke here or there, and tons in Nazi propaganda films, but anti-semitism isn’t something that occurs in mainstream film and television. I was a…