James Rudin
James Rudin is an author at Religion News Service.
All Stories by James Rudin
COMMENTARY: Tough times for the armed forces: A photo of Rabbi Rudin is available via www.religionne
By James Rudin — May 9, 2008
c. 2008 Religion News Service (UNDATED) It’s bad enough that America’s armed forces are sloughing through two unconventional wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with no satisfactory end in sight. To compound the problem, recent reports have exposed disgraceful physical conditions at Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington and at Fort Bragg, N.C. Sadly, financial, physical […]
The fun part’s over; now the real work begins
By James Rudin — April 25, 2008
c. 2008 Religion News Service (UNDATED) Even though three-quarters of the U.S. population is not Catholic, a pope’s arrival on U.S. soil always generates extraordinary media coverage because of our intense fascination with one of the world’s few working monarchies. I should also mention most devout Catholics whom I have met consider Benedict XVI the […]
COMMENTARY: Passovers come and go, but the memories remain
By James Rudin — April 11, 2008
c. 2008 Religion News Service (UNDATED) Pesach _ or Passover _ is the eight-day festival commemorating the ancient Israelites’ exodus from Egyptian slavery. The holiday begins at sundown on April 19, when Jewish family members participate in one of the world’s oldest religious traditions, the Seder, or Passover meal. The Hebrew bible relates how the […]
COMMENTARY: Anti-Semitism, all too alive and well
By James Rudin — March 28, 2008
c. 2008 Religion News Service (UNDATED) The late Rev. Edward Flannery, appointed in 1967 as the U.S. Bishops’ first director of Catholic-Jewish relations, wrote that anti-Semitism, the hatred of Jews and Judaism, was history’s “oldest pathology.” Anti-Semitism, he said, must be constantly exposed and vigorously opposed lest it become a global peril that threatens not […]
Some ask if prayer problems are limited to Catholics
By James Rudin — March 14, 2008
c. 2008 Religion News Service (UNDATED) Next Friday (March 21) marks a special moment for both Jews and Christians. Because of the lunar calendar, the Jewish festival of Purim occurs on the same day as the Christian Good Friday. Purim celebrates the Persian Jews’ deliverance 2,600 years ago from Haman, the evil prime minister who […]
COMMENTARY: The unsung heroes of Israeli independence
By James Rudin — February 29, 2008
c. 2008 Religion News Service (UNDATED) On May 14, Israel will mark its 60th anniversary as an independent nation. President Bush and other world leaders plan to attend the festivities in Jerusalem later this spring. An important new book, “Israel at Sixty: An Oral History of a Nation Reborn” (Wiley) by Deborah Hart Strober and […]
COMMENTARY: The papal compromise that fell short
By James Rudin — February 15, 2008
c. 2008 Religion News Service (UNDATED) Last week on Ash Wednesday, L’Osservatore Romano, the official Vatican newspaper, published the revised text of a 1962 prayer used in the Latin Mass on Good Friday. Normally, such an article would attract little attention despite its placement in the Vatican paper. But this is no “ordinary” prayer, and […]
Clinton, Obama make pitches to black Baptist meeting
By James Rudin — February 1, 2008
c. 2008 Religion News Service (UNDATED) Adolf Hitler and Franklin D. Roosevelt were bitter foes. Seventy-five years ago, in an ironic twist of history, both gained political power a few weeks apart and changed the world forever. Hitler became German chancellor on Jan. 30, 1933, not by violent revolution as some mistakenly believe but, as […]
Sikhs say new TSA rules still allow profiling
By James Rudin — January 18, 2008
c. 2008 Religion News Service (UNDATED) Growing up, I always pitied the “minor” holiday of Tu B’Shevat, the 15th day of the Hebrew month of Shevat, which starts this year at sundown on Monday (Jan. 21) and lasts through sundown on Tuesday. “Tu” is the combination of the ninth and sixth letters of the Hebrew […]
COMMENTARY: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it
By James Rudin — January 4, 2008
c. 2008 Religion News Service (UNDATED) Following a recent Sunday service at a Des Moines evangelical church, 38-year-old Ron Heins told a Washington Post reporter he would like the United States to rid itself of the separation of church and state. “That is not in the Constitution anywhere,” he said. “Our country was founded on […]
COMMENTARY: My top 10 religion stories of the year
By James Rudin — December 21, 2007
c. 2007 Religion News Service (UNDATED) My choices for the top 10 religion stories in 2007 are: 1. Even as Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, investigated possible wrongdoing within six prominent evangelical megachurches, the mixture of religion and politics in the United States intensified. Mike Huckabee’s surge in the polls, Mitt Romney’s need to speak about […]
COMMENTARY: Eastern European Jewry, Past, Present and Future
By James Rudin — December 7, 2007
c. 2007 Religion News Service (UNDATED) Between the end of World War II and the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991, the 14 nations of Eastern Europe were simply lumped together as Kremlin satellites. Few Americans visited Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia or Romania, even though nearly 70 percent of U.S. Jews and many Christians trace their family […]
COMMENTARY: The ghosts of Hanukkah Past, Present and Future
By James Rudin — November 22, 2007
c. 2007 Religion News Service (UNDATED) I had the craziest dream the other night. Three wraiths appeared speaking perfect English. Each one claimed to be the “true” spirit of Hanukkah, the eight-day Jewish Festival of Lights that begins at sunset Dec. 4. The first wraith was “The Spirit of Hanukkah Past,” who recounted the historical […]
COMMENTARY: They haven’t forgotten Kristallnacht; neither can we
By James Rudin — November 9, 2007
c. 2007 Religion News Service (UNDATED) It was a gorgeous Sunday afternoon in Naples, Fla.; the type of “Chamber of Commerce” day perfect for golf, tennis, swimming, jogging or vegging out on the beach. But more than 500 Christians and Jews set aside those activities and filled the sanctuary of Temple Shalom to commemorate a […]
COMMENTARY: `Who shall be confronted by fire and who by water …’
By James Rudin — October 26, 2007
c. 2007 Religion News Service (UNDATED) Last month on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the haunting, insightful prayer “Oonatanah Tokef” was recited in synagogues. That ancient prayer includes these words: “… who among us in the New Year shall live and who shall die … who shall be confronted by fire and who by water […]
