SPME Research

Remembering Manfred Gerstenfeld: Truth against myth

Manfred Gerstenfeld. Source: YouTube. There is an acerbic joke that you sometimes hear in the Netherlands to the effect that most Dutch people were part of the anti-Nazi resistance, but that they joined “after the war.” Like all the best…

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Identity Cancels Reality

Our current monomaniacal obsession with identity was midwifed by postmodern theory. In the past, students of society and culture emulated science in theory and methodology, striving to offer objective, disinterested, and impartial knowledge about human life. Postmodernism attacked science and…

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Remembering Manfred Gerstenfeld – Jewish renaissance man

Manfred Gerstenfeld. (photo credit: Courtesy) Manfred Gerstenfeld was a Jewish renaissance man and a prodigious writer who leaves a rich legacy in many different realms. Born in Vienna in 1937, he and his family were forced to flee, and survived…

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Moving Jerusalem from Heaven to Earth

Heaven and earth are said to meet on Jerusalem’s sacred esplanade where the city’s most famous resident is called God. But theological principles travel well beyond the splendor of these precincts turning ordinary struggles for power into battles between good…

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Peter Beinart: State Employee

Once celebrated as a “wunderkind” in the publishing world, Peter Beinart became the senior editor of the New Republic at the tender age of 27.  After that, he went on to moderate success in the rarefied world of think tanks,…

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Germany’s Neglected Security and Culture Challenge

The following thoughts (1) were presented as a first response to the refugee crisis of September and October 2015 in a meeting of Israel Allies in November 2015 and (including minor changes) published in January 2016 by the journal FIKRA…

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Standing Up for Israel in the Health Sciences: A Matter of Integrity

When academics at the Modern Language Association rejected a resolution supporting Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions early this year, they essentially aligned themselves with the pro-Israel camp.  By rejecting an academic boycott of Israeli institutions, voters at the MLA conference upheld…

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November 29: The Jewish Thanksgiving Day

Dear Friends and Colleagues, Emboldened by UNESCO’s vote last week, the BDS propagandists have decided to take another bite at Jewish history and divert it to further their aims. News reaches us that they plan campus activities against the two historical events that…

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