Jews in Christian America: The Pursuit of Religious Equality by naomi w. cohen oxford university press, 300 pages, $39.95 In her meticulously researched new study, Professor Naomi W. Cohen of the Jewish Theological Seminary provides a comprehensive historical analysis of the Jewish quest for . . . . Continue Reading »
Piety and Power: The World of Jewish Fundamentalism by david landau hill & wang/fsg, 334 pages, $27.50 In 1988, when the ultra-Orthodox parties won a telling percentage of the vote in the Israeli election, many secular Jews found themselves forced for the first time to reckon with an Orthodoxy that . . . . Continue Reading »
Christine Busalacchi, a Missouri woman suffering from serious brain damage, died on the 8th of March, 1993. The cause of death was starvation. Her case was not a nationally famous one, but it does serve to raise certain disturbing questions—questions that must confront the families of anyone . . . . Continue Reading »
Religious litigants claimed victories in all four cases involving religious freedom to reach the Supreme Court this past term. Far from clear, however, is whether any of these hard-fought legal wins represents significant progress for citizens resisting the cultural forces bent on constricting the . . . . Continue Reading »
Those who once spoke, or who speak, the language of the rights of man make up a most varied group: Jefferson and Mounier, Robespierre and Saint Just; Roosevelt but also Vyshinsky; John Paul II and Ronald Dworkin. Which is to say, this language has been used in a whole assortment of ways. Thus if the . . . . Continue Reading »
The most surprising thing about The Janus Report on Human Sexuality (John Wiley & Sons) is that its findings don’t really surprise. I had hoped to come across some Kinsey-like revelations as to how huge percentages of Americans are pursuing new and innovative perversions. Alas, there are no such . . . . Continue Reading »
One can learn from unfortunate experiences. This truism applies in spades to the World Conference on Human Rights sponsored by the UN and held in Vienna in late June. Unhappily, there is no corresponding truism that guarantees the learning experience will occur. One can only hope that in this case . . . . Continue Reading »
The Public Square Receiving no attention that we noticed in the general press, and slight attention in the church press, was a statement issued in June that is titled “The Common Good: Old Idea, New Urgency.” It deserves some attention. It was issued by the general secretaries of three . . . . Continue Reading »
The Great Melody: A Thematic Biography and Commented Anthology of Edmund Burke by conor cruise o’brien university of chicago press, 602 pages, $34.95 At the corner of Massachusetts Avenue and 11th Street in Washington, D.C., a wandering tourist will find himself standing beneath the gaze of a . . . . Continue Reading »
The Moral Sense by james q. wilson free press, 300 pages, $22.95 We read books and recommend them for many different reasons. Some are tightly constructed, theoretically persuasive works; others may be conceptually more confusing, yet very rich in their individual parts. James Wilson has, it seems . . . . Continue Reading »
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