Spectacular Statue of Hercules Found in Israel

As reported by http://www.ynetnews.com, a marble statue of Hercules from the second century CE has been uncovered in Israel in excavations the Israel Antiquities Authority is conducting at Horvat Tarbenet, within the framework of the Jezreel Valley Railway project, directed by the Israel National Roads Company. According to Dr. Walid Atrash of the Israel Antiquities Authority, this is a rare discovery. The statue, which probably stood in a niche, was part of the decoration of a bathhouse pool that was exposed during the course of the excavations. It is c. 0.5 m tall, is made of smoothed white marble and is of exceptional artistic quality. Hercules is depicted in three dimension, as a naked figure standing on a base.

A Day of Kindness at the JCC of Mid-Westchester

On Sunday, September 11, A Day of Chesed (Kindness), Service, and Remembrance will take place at the JCC of Mid-Westchester in New Rochelle, NY.  It will include the following activities:

• Blood Drive (White Plains Hospital)
• Join the Gift of Life Bone Marrow Registry (Gift of Life Bone Marrow Foundation)
• Rosh Hashanah Package Delivery (DOROT Westchester; advance registration required)
• Collection for Overseas Troops/Card Making (Operation Support Our Troops)
• Children's Clothing Collection (Kids' Kloset of WJCS)
• Cereal Collection (Hope Community Services)
• Hair Donations for Children with Medical Hair Loss (Locks of Love)
• Home Care/Medical Supplies Collection (Friends of Yad Sarah)
• Pet Adoption/Animal Toys Collection (PetRescue)
• Honey Collection (Met Council on Jewish Poverty)

For more information, call (914)472-3300 or email info@jccmw.org.

Project Heart - Restitution for Victims of the Holocaust

Project HEART is a nonprofit initiative of the Jewish Agency for Israel (JAFI), funded by and in cooperation with the Government of Israel. Its primary focus at this stage is identifying individuals who may have potential claims regarding property. To be eligible, the claimed property must meet ALL of the following criteria:

• The property was located in countries that were controlled by the Nazi forces or Axis powers at any time during the Holocaust era.
• The property belonged to Jewish persons as defined by Nazi or Axis racial laws.
• The property was confiscated, looted, or forcibly sold by the Nazi forces or Axis powers during the Holocaust era.
• No restitution was received for that property after the Holocaust era.

A generous donor, a member of Machar, the Washington, DC congregation for Secular Humanistic Judaism, and the Society for Humanistic Judaism, has underwritten an advertising campaign for both SHJ and Machar on National Public Radio’s, Interfaith Voices. SHJ and its Washington, DC-area affiliate Machar will be promoted starting this past weekend for five weeks. The promo mentions both organizations, briefly describes the mission of Humanistic Judaism and mentions the website for both groups.

Interfaith Voices is an hour-long weekly show about faith and spirituality, with an emphasis on current issues. The website is http://interfaithradio.org/. It can be heard in about 66 cities in the United States and Canada, generally Sunday evenings, but other days as well. The promos can be heard on the podcast as well as the live show.

Manny Margolis, the Late Lion of the Bar

My sincere condolences go out to the family and friends of Manny Margolis, who died on August 17. I was informed of his passing by a friend who lives in Manny‘s home state, Connecticut. He was called “one of the lions of the bar” by a member of the Editorial Board of the Law Tribune, which honored him early in 2011.

Here is a two minute clip of Manny speaking from the audience at the 2002 Forum sponsored by the Congregation for Humanistic Judaism on the words “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRWArBpHacc.

What Does It Mean to Be Jewish Without God?

(OMG, I spelled “God” with a capital “G”. That‘s not a respect—I am simply capitalizing the words in the title.)

Moment magazine, which says it is the largest independent Jewish magazine in North America, recently announced a contest for the best essay to enter the question of the year, What does it mean to be Jewish without belief in God? They chose to entitle this contest “The Elephant in the Room”. This reminded me of a story I read on the Internet, which illustrated that belief in god cannot be shaken. I googled it, and it seems an invisible pink unicorn is used more often nowadays to illustrate the same idea. Both borrow, or at least mirror, Bertrand Russell's invisible teapot allegory.

Basically, you cannot disprove that there is an invisible pink elephant (or unicorn, or whatever) in the room, because it can be magical, invisible, unwilling to be seen, etc.  Kind of like Yahweh.

Yet Another Attempt to Ban Circumcision Ban

In San Francisco, a certain retired hospitality worker Lloyd Schofield managed to place a ban on circumcision for infants on the election ballot this November.  Apparently, all he had to do to accomplish this was collect 12,000+ signatures on a petition.  The bill would make it illegal (a misdemeanor only--phew!) to circumcise persons under 18.

Luckily, a judge did the right thing and banned the ban, citing freedom of religion (of course).  I find it interesting that the placement of the bill on the ballot was picked up by all the major media, while its blocking was only reported by bloggers and Huffington Post.  I guess this is because the fact that 12,000 anti-semites can potentially outlaw a thousands-year-old practice is news, while the obviousness of the decision made it too mundane to report (it would be like reporting a dog biting a man).

While apparently there is a humanistic alternative to the circumcision ritual, b'rit milah, called b'rit shalom, until it becomes commonplace, this is what makes a person Jewish in the eyes of most Jews.  Our ancestors fought for this right against Antiochus Epiphanes or Epimanes and the Roman emperor Hadrian.  While I couldn't believe less in the covenant between Yahweh and the circumcised Jews, I think it is between the parents and the pediatrician to decide on whether circumcising a child is a good idea.

Freedom for Ellenbeth Wachs

According to Reuters, EllenbethWachs, a Florida atheist, is being persecuted by the local sheriff for protesting the latter's violation of the separation of church and state.  A non-practicing lawyer, she is being accused of impersonating an attorney because she added "Esq." to her name when signing it.

I received an email asking me to help spread the request to sign the petition "Tell Christian Sheriff to Stop Persecuting Atheist" that John Kieffer, President of Atheists of Florida, started. You can read more and sign the petition here:
http://www.change.org/petitions/tell-christian-sheriff-to-stop-persecuting-atheist

The Real Origins of Christianity

The Center for Inquiry has announced a one-month (September 1 - 30), four-module online course that examines the historical origins of Christianity from a secular and skeptical perspective.  The course is taught by Richard Carrier, PhD and John Shook, PhD, and covers the following topics:

• The origins and composition of the New Testament
• Sociological, cultural, and religious context and how they caused early Christian beliefs
• Discerning the historical, mythical and theological Jesus
• Explaining early belief in his resurrection

You can read the details and register for the course here.

SHJ Condemns the“No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act”

The Society for Humanistic Judaism issues a strong condemnation to the act (why do they always have such nice names?):

Although existing law prohibits Federal funds being used for abortion, this has been deemed insufficient by those who seek to prevent all abortions.  The “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act” would limit access to abortion by altering the tax code to prohibit the deductibility of expenditures for health insurance that provides payment for abortion services.  Women would not be able to use their own funds to purchase complete health services and the decision by private businesses to provide comprehensive health care that includes complete reproductive services would be threatened. The premium assistance promised in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act would be eliminated for anyone choosing private health insurance that provides for abortion coverage.

To me, this act of Congress looks like another attempt to mask the desire to impose theocracy on the American public in the sheepskin of fiscal responsibility.  How about “No Taxpayer Funding for the War in Iraq”?

While I am all for saving money, not every scientist agrees that reducing the number of abortions provides a financial benefit to the society (e.g., see this Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freakonomics#Effects_of_abortion_ban).

Freedom of Expression - A Fundamental Human Right

It's now almost official.  The UN Human Rights Committee issued a document that strongly condemns blasphemy laws:

it would be impermissible for any such laws [blasphemy laws] to discriminate in favour of or against one or certain religions or belief systems, or their adherents over another, or religious believers over non-believers.

 Kudos to Center for Inquiry for helping the committee, as an NGO consultant to UN, come up with this, the committee's first since 1983, document on the issue of freedom of expression.  You can read more about this on their blog.

A Yiddishe Kop, or, How Come Jews Are So Smart

I recently read an interesting article in the Jewish Magazine, whose author, Arthur Rosen, expresses his personal opinion that the reason Jews are so smart is that they have been going yeshivas for centuries.  He even tells a couple of anecdotes to back up this opinion.  I have for a long time considered myself too old to read people's personal opinions (as opposed to science-backed theories and hypotheses), unless they are wrapped in beautiful poetic language.  However, I was interested in the topic, so I made an exception in this case.  As I read the article, I remembered that about a year ago I read a paper on this subject, so I looked it up.  This article is actually a scientific study and not just someone's personal opinion.  In fact, a cursory Google search can find a dozen similar sources that basically explain that (1) it's not all Jews, but specifically the Ashkenazi Jews that have IQ above average and (2) that it is most likely due to 500 years of discrimination, which restricted them from engaging in manual labor.  The Sephardim were not so restricted, and therefore did not develop the IQ of 105-117 on the average (nor did they develop the many genetic diseases that seem to go hand-in-hand with higher intelligence).