Author Archives: bananabrain

free speech: we all scream for murder – at the oxford union

as you may know by now, the israeli deputy foreign minister, danny ayalon, was heckled pretty comprehensively at his speech at the oxford union on monday night. the high (or low) point came when, rather like the accusations of murder levelled at the israeli ambassador to the us, michael oren, at the university of california, [...]
Posted in Activism, Freedom of Expression, International Affairs, Islamism, Israel/Palestine, Racism | 4 Comments

“well, they’re a bit extreme, but they do such good work bringing people back to judaism!”

david t from harry’s place forwarded me this cartoon by eli valley, whose satirical strips appear monthly in the leading us jewish magazine “the forward”. on reading it, i didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. on one hand, it’s a caricature of the position of the kiruv (“outreach”) organisations, but on the other hand, once you [...]
Posted in Entryism, Freedom of Expression, Identity Politics, Interfaith, Jewish Extremism, Obscurantism, Politics, Sectarianism | 57 Comments

a few good rabbis?

for those of you who aren’t aware of it, this has not been a good couple of years for the orthodox, “strictly-”orthodox and ultra-orthodox communities. corruption around kosher slaughterhouses and conversions, sex scandals, money-laundering, drug smuggling, you name it. all the usual justifications are made, of course, all the usual people accept them and all [...]
Posted in Activism, Education, Ethics, Interfaith, Politics | 3 Comments

ray hanania on the stupidity of pro-hamas leftie activists

well, no surprises here – ray hanania, writing in the jerusalem post, finds plenty to criticise about the sort of activist that is perpetuating the sad situation in the gaza strip, in the now-established tradition of leftie imbeciles sucking up to clerical fascists as an act of anti-imperialist egotism. and, of course there’s none more egotistical [...]
Posted in Activism, Farce, Islamism, Israel/Palestine, Terrorism, The Far Left | 3 Comments

a modest proposal for wootton bassett: islamists love underpants!

although the mainstream media has already picked up the story, we’re sure that the good folk of wootton bassett would nonetheless appreciate a message of support. it appears that they are the latest stop on the publicity circuit for everyone’s favourite islamist nutjobs, the al-muhajigoon squad. predictably, the edl have vowed to picket the mosques [...]
Posted in Activism, Anti Fascism, Farce, Identity Politics, Media, Obscurantism, PVE, Politics | 23 Comments

beard-pulling update: are lubavitch a bunch of messianic heretics, or what?

it appears that the mainstream orthodox rabbinical council of america has picked a fight with the powerful chabad / lubavitch movement over the perennial problem about whether the last lubavitcher rebbe is dead, or the messiah, or both, or what. obviously, there is a slight problem with jews who start believing that the messiah has [...]
Posted in Exegesis, Farce, Freedom of Expression, Obscurantism | Tagged | 3 Comments

Chiefy Fails to Address the Case in Point

generally speaking, i am a great admirer of jonathan sacks, or to give him his complete title: chief rabbi of the united hebrew congregations of the commonwealth lord sacks of aldgate (he’s a “sir” too, but i think it gets trumped by the “lord” bit) as a visionary thinker and one of the great voices [...]
Posted in Uncategorized | 7 Comments

Are we really ready to start being reasonable?

This is a cross-post from interfaith.org, where I moderate on the Judaism board. I know we don’t normally talk about israel/palestine here at The Spittoon, but maybe this is one case where we might make an exception? Ray Hanania, the Palestinian-American journalist, is proposing to run for president of the Palestinian Authority on a very interesting [...]
Posted in International Affairs, Israel/Palestine, Politics | 2 Comments

why it is wrong to talk about “banning shari’a law”

it has been brought to my attention by my esteemed colleagues here at the spittoon that one of the aims of the “one law for all” campaign, who are organising a rally on saturday 21 november, to “expose the discriminatory nature of religious law” and “put a stop to shari’a once and for all” because [...]
Posted in Activism, Anti Muslim bigotry, Antisemitism, Democracy, Freedom of Expression, Human Rights, Islamism, Obscurantism, Politics, Secularism, Sharia, UK Politics | 12 Comments

what is it with these maniacs?

oh, this is just too feckin’ much. i’ve long been aware of the ideological excesses of rabbi yitzhak ginsburgh, but his disciple rabbi yitzhak shapiro of the west bank settlement of yitzhar has really done it this time. according to the left-leaning israeli daily ha-aretz: Rabbi Yitzhak Shapiro, who heads the Od Yosef Chai Yeshiva in [...]
Posted in Interfaith, Obscurantism | 13 Comments