Sightings Articles
The Cartoon and the Rabbi
Last Thursday, the international print edition of The New York Times published a cartoon depicting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a dog, with a human head and an unusually large nose, being walked by—or, perhaps, walking—President Donal...
May 2, 2019
Tree of Life
A man may not go out with a sword [on Shabbat], nor with a bow, nor with a shield, nor with a round shield, nor with a spear. If he has gone out [with any of these] he is liable for a sin offering. Rabbi Eliezer says: They are ornaments for him. Bu...
November 1, 2018
On Academic Time
Addressing new students at the Divinity School during orientation this year, Dean David Nirenberg talked about the university as a place in which it is possible, even necessary, to live in a different kind of time. Academe is fueled by the exploratio...
October 4, 2018
Look for the Jews
Various news outlets have addressed the fact that the U.S. president’s published statement on International Holocaust Remembrance Day intentionally omits specific reference either to Jews or to anti-Semitism. It does honor “the victims, survivors...
March 9, 2017
Many Sightings of Hope
For more than a year I engaged in the visual and oral analog to “fasting.” Fasters discipline themselves not to eat. I chose not to comment on the election campaigns. A digital word-search will find no mention in 50 Monday Sightings of any presidenti...
January 2, 2017
The Figure of the Spiv
On October 20th, the House of Commons of the United Kingdom voted to strip Sir Philip Green of his knighthood. The vote is not binding, as the Honours Forfeiture Committee has final say in these matters, but the debate regarding the motion was an occ...
December 8, 2016
Jewish Millennials and Co.
Unaffiliated, unreachable, unmoved, unfazeable younger Americans, aged 18-23 in some cases, or “millennials” in others, have been in our sights this season as we observe religious trends. ...