Solomon Ibn Gabirol (1021–1058) was the first Jewish philosopher in Spain, but medieval Christians knew him only by his Latinized name, Avicebron, and they assumed that he was either a Christian or a Muslim. Most scholastics also thought he was a deeply misguided thinker. Gabirol was identified with the doctrine of universal hylomorphism—the idea that everything God creates is composed of form and matter—and treated as a precursor of the nominalist emphasis on the absolute freedom (and thus inscrutability) of God’s will. Some of his poetry remains in liturgical use in Judaism to this day, but his philosophy was all but forgotten. Even experts in medieval theology typically treat him as little more than a footnote to scholastic debates about how angels can be individuated without being embodied. Continue Reading »
Last May, the Anti-Defamation League made the startling pronouncement that one-quarter of the world’s population is anti-Semitic. The source for that charge was the ADL Global 100: An Index of Anti-Semitism, a comprehensive survey of international populations sponsored by the ADL and . . . . Continue Reading »
Will you uncover your hair?” they ask when they hear I’m divorcing. I am taken aback each time; it’s such a private matter. The morning after my wedding, I tied on a scarf and walked to synagogue. My mother didn’t do it, nor did hers, but my father’s mother, who lived . . . . Continue Reading »
It’s a rainy day here in the Carolina foothills, and I have been out in the driveway washing the dog. What possesses a person to wash a dog in the rain? Well, I think “possesses” is the key word here, because having just finished washing a dog in the rain, I can’t really . . . . Continue Reading »
My friend John Podhoretz wrote to point out that, in posting on the Moose Menorah, I’d forgotten a key moment in the history of Jews and Moose—Woody Allen on the how the Moose went to a party and . . . . Continue Reading »
. . . did not go to the beach. Instead, I googled the phrase religious beach, and here are some of the things the search turned up: Dollar-Stretching Luau Deals like this inflatable beach ball. They didn’t have a picture of the un-inflatable kind. Information regarding religious beaches in Tel . . . . Continue Reading »
Since my Esteemed Colleague mentions that we are an equal-opportunity religious-goods . . . uh, discussion forum? . . . this seems like a good time to unveil something I ran across recently: kosher makeup, from ShainDee.I can’t actually remember how I ran across this. Makeup is not the kind of . . . . Continue Reading »
It would be named Oy Toys, wouldn’t it? Lest anyone think we seek out only Christian tastelessness here at Icons and Curiosities, behold, I bring you:The Basketball Menorah Wood Craft! Sports fans will love will love it, Oy Toys tells us. “Watch as the children transform nine raw wood . . . . Continue Reading »
