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Shalom Aleichem/Salaam Aleikum to Self-Segregation
By mhpine / September 6, 2007
Controversy continues to swirl around the Arabic-language Khalil Gibran International Academy in New York and (as Michael previously noted) its bizarro cousin, the Hebrew-language Ben Gamla charter school in Hollywood, Florida. The criticism of both schools is driven by skepticism regarding the secular nature of the schools. It is easy to dismiss the critics as the usual suspects, from Daniel Pipes to the ACLU, but the schools have also drawn criticism from less ideological figures. Recently in the New York Times Magazine, Jewcy's favorite constitutional law scholar Noah Feldman took the view that the projects of isolating Islam from a Arab cultural curriculum and Judaism from Jewish cultural curriculum were ultimately futile tasks, and therefore both schools were of dubious constitutional legitimacy.
Although it cannot be known for certain before they have begun instruction, Khalil Gibran and Ben Gamla seem poised to teach religion as a set of beliefs to be embraced rather than as a set of ideas susceptible to secular, critical examination. What, after all, is the point of a Jewish cultural school if not to bring the students to appreciation and acceptance of Jewish values? And what are those values if not the outgrowth of Judaism's millenniums of religious faith and practice? Not that Judaism without God is impossible. Secular Zionism sought to redirect yearning for God's redemption toward a national homeland. Likewise, Arab nationalism was born from the effort to supplant Islamic religious membership with a secular, cultural identity. But in both cases, the surgery designed to excise God was only partly successful, and there is ample reason to anticipate a recurrence in the classroom as there has been in the rest of the world.
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is a bigot and has made hounding Muslims in this country his life’s work. Sad to see Jewcers defending a racist.
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Sam Rosenbloom has a seruv issued against him by the Baltimore Bet
Din. A copy of the seruv can be viewed at
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Mr. Rosenbloom owns and operates an on-line sukkah business at
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Shabbat hospitality.
If you have a question regarding this announcement, please contact
your local Orthodox rabbi for the appropriate guidance. If you do not
have an Orthodox rabbi available, you may email info@ou.org for the
name of an Orthodox rabbi in your area.
Actually anonymous I’ve found Khalil or Kahlil spelled both ways, so the writer should not be faulted if he doesn’t conform to your way of spelling. It is the sign of a weak argument when one relies on spelling as a means of attack, such as you have done.
And I might add that Daniel Pipes is a recognized historian and scholar with numerous books and scholarly articles to his credit and is far from the bigoted Jew which you erroneouly characterize him as.
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