Comments on: When Muslim-Jewish Dialogue Fails, and Other Tales of Jewish Alienation

By: New Seattle-Area Mosque Dedicated - OpEd

New Seattle-Area Mosque Dedicated - OpEd — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 03:09:12 +0000

[...] I’ve reported here that I attempted to organize a mosque-synagogue Twinning initiative between MAPS and my own synagogue, Beth Sholom, but my rabbi, Jill Borodin, under likely pressure from congregation members affiliated with Stand With Us, retreated from her own commitment to sponsor such an initiative. Rabbi Daniel Weiner last year tried to organize a Twinning, but his record of deep animosity for Iran including support for violent regime change, which I’ve written about here, and his strong pro-Israel positions didn’t endear him to the local Muslim community either. [...]

By: The Spinning Head » Where The Head Spun: Tuesday, October 13th 2009

The Spinning Head » Where The Head Spun: Tuesday, October 13th 2009 — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 17:23:44 +0000

[...] Richard Silvetstein, author of the wonderful blog site Tikun Olam, wrote an interesting piece about his struggles to encourage a dialogue and exchange between his synagogue and local mosques. Title When Muslim-Jewish Dialogue Fails, and Other Tales of Jewish Alienation. [...]

By: Where The Head Spun: Tuesday, October 13th 2009 « The Spinning Head

Where The Head Spun: Tuesday, October 13th 2009 « The Spinning Head — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 06:02:45 +0000

By: DICKERSON3870

DICKERSON3870 — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 19:15:14 +0000

RE: “WHEN MUSLIM-JEWISH DIALOGUE FAILS, AND OTHER TALES OF JEWISH ALIENATION”

CONSIDER: “Synthetic Without Being Analytic”–Concepts As Weapons On The Rachel Maddow Show, by: Paul Rosenberg, 10/17/09

(excerpt)…three types of adult reasoning in a typology I’ve discussed repeatedly over the years. The basic outline goes like this:
> Sequential thinkers reason “by tracking the world,” recognize regularities in sequences of events, but have no abstract understanding of cause and effect. The world they perceive is a world of appearances that has very little organization to it beyond the recurrence of sequences.
> Linear thinkers understand cause and effect, limited to a one-direction, one-cause/one-effect model. The world they perceive has logical order and structure, but the structure is invariably hierarchical, causality flows top-down, and the world is divided neatly into cause and effect.
> Systematic thinkers understand multi-faceted, multi-linear cause and effect, with mutual cause-and-effect relationships between different elements. The world they perceive is primarily a world of systems and relationships, rather than objects.

I first wrote about this typology, from the 1988 book Reason, Ideology and Politics by Shawn Rosenberg in a 2005 MyDD diary, “Terri Schiavo: We’re Too Smart!” One of the most significant additional aspect of sequential reasoning that I highlighted in that diary was this:

Sequential thinking involves conceptual relations that “are synthetic without being analytic. They join events together but the union forged is not subject to any conceptual dissection.” [Direct quote from Rosenberg's book.] Because such relations are non-rational, there is nothing rational one can say or do to change them. (Sound familiar?)

As will be seen below, intentionally shaped concepts that are “synthetic without being analytic” are powerful rhetorical weapons. You pack as much of an argument as possible into them, so that the argument can’t be critically analyzed. Such concepts are not made for illumination, much less for critical inquiry, they are made for attack…

ENTIRE ARTICLE – http://www.openleft.com/diary/15576/synthetic-without-being-analyticconcepts-as-weapons-on-the-rachel-maddow-show

By: Richard Silverstein

Richard Silverstein — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 01:38:19 +0000

There is a saying in Hebrew: L’havdil elef havdalot (very roughly translated “1,000 degrees of separation”), which denotes a comparison bet. something sublime and something ridiculous.

By: David

David — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 15:14:22 +0000

Joachim, if you truly believed that you would have omitted the qualifier “for the most part.” While your concerns about Jewish organizations’ efforts to slap a veneer of tolerance on some particularly intolerant views and actions (especially in the Boston area where we both apparently live) are well-founded, it’s also true that decent people from both communities still want to try to understand each other. This is all the more crucial in a world where Islamophobia is running riot. I continue to believe that interfaith work is important, and dialog is one component of that. It’s hardly pointless.

By: Joachim Martillo

Joachim Martillo — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 12:17:19 +0000

Catholic-Muslim dialogue also has some real problems: [Sorry for linking to three blog entries, but Neusner's intervention is probably of interest.] Jewish, Zionist War Against Salvation [Followup] Jewish, Zionist War Against Salvation <[Re] [Followup] Jewish, Zionist War Against Salvation BTW, I remember Rabbi Arnold Jacob Wolf at Yale. He received much undeserved grief for his involvement in Breira.

By: Joachim Martillo

Joachim Martillo — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 12:16:46 +0000

Jewish-Muslim Interfaith activities seem for the most part to be pointless: Zionizing Muslims via Interfaith Dialogue