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Rabbi Steven Gotlib's avatar

Something I didn't write here, but am curious about: I wonder to what degree Penslar's ability to so clearly see the emotional side of Zionist identity stems from his being Canadian and specifically spending much of his academic career in Toronto...

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Mia Ella Hirchberg's avatar

hmm that's intriguing to consider (also Toronto/Canadian). I've never seen the emotional side of zionism presented and it was interesting to see my own approach/lens articulated more clearly in his zionisms than in others like religious or political. Definitely a missing part of the conversation and I'm glad I came across it - thank you for writing and sharing this piece

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Bruce B Seltzer's avatar

Thank you for your thoughtful response to Penslar, Cosgrove, and Magid. I have shared Penslar's book with college students and regularly read Magid (who I have known since I was in college). I will have to read Cosgrove's book. think Hauer's formulation is overly narrow and might preclude Olmert based on his recent warnings about Gaza.

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Steven Brizel's avatar

Did you share J Accuse or Hertzl’s writings or any of the standard commentaries on the Torah with your students ?

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Steven Brizel's avatar

Penslar ‘s list of what he thinks Zionism is about strikes this reader as pedantic at best snd sneeringly supercilious Magid is someone who Chazal would call a Shoneh UParush and who leverages his walking away from Orthodoxy into a license to criticize any aspects of Jewish life Orthodox and or Zionist that do not satisfy his predetermined conclusions about Jewish life https://www.commentary.org/articles/daniel-kane/jewish-diaspora-exile-shaul-magid/

Magid also as in the case of many members of the left does not respond to criticism but rather belittles the critic as here https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/social-justice-and-the-future-of-judaism where he engages in intellectual rope a dope in denying that there is such a thing as traditional Jewish thought and engages in wholesale apologetics for the founders of Reform Judaism and for practitioners of Tikun Olam who have substituted Tikun Olam for any sense of adherence to both traditional Jewish values and who conflate Torah Talmud Midrash Kabbalah and Zohar to support the woke agenda .Dr Y Twersky ZL ZYA and Harry Wolfson must both be rolling over in their graves as to Magid being appointed to a professorship at HDS.

For more on how Tikun Olam has become a substitute for any sense of awareness of traditional Jewish values take a look at https://books.google.com/books/about/The_New_American_Judaism.html?id=1DthDwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&gboemv=1 and the sermons of Ammiel Hirsch who criticizes Reform Judaism for becoming so woke and universal in its stances that it was not a shock that some of its products marched for Hamas

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Edward Nathan Schwarz's avatar

In Torah Law you have zero claim to the Holy Land.

https://edwardnathanschwarz.substack.com/p/who-is-a-jew?r=5e930t

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Edward Nathan Schwarz's avatar

In Torah Law you have ZERO claim to the Holy Land.

https://edwardnathanschwarz.substack.com/p/who-is-a-jew?r=5e930t

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