Here is Rudolf Höss, Kommandant of Auschwitz. His daughter, Brigitte Höss, 80 years old, lives in northern Virginia and has never talked about her father’s role in the Holocaust. In a remarkable story in the Washington Post Magazine section, we learn that “it was Rudolf Höss who designed and built Auschwitz from an old army barracks in Poland to a killing machine capable of murdering 2,000 people an hour.” Now, diagnosed with cancer, Brigitte Höss, begins to talk about the... Read more
Here is Michelle Bachman, Steve King and Louie Gohmert, in Egypt supporting the overthrow of Morsi as a radical Muslim. “Together, our country, the United States and Egypt have dealt with the same enemy. It’s a common enemy,” notes Bachman.” Max Fisher of the Washington Post put the video on his blog and notes that “Bachmann’s remarks appeared deeply consistent with Egyptian state propaganda that has portrayed the Muslim Brotherhood as a secret terrorist organization and an internal enemy.” Read more
American Jews, like Christians, struggle with membership and youth engagement. In an attempt to reverse this trend, members of the liberal branch of Judaism called Reform, want to change the nature of the Bar or Bat Mitzvah, which has sometimes become ostentatious. (see blog post on Sam Horowitz, and another called Bar Mitzvah Boy Goes Viral) According to this story in the New York Times, leaders of the Reform branch believe that Bar Mitzvahs do not produce a good understanding... Read more
Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New year festival, begins on September 4th and lasts two days. And ten days after that, Yom Kippur begins. Those ten days are called the High Holy days. The first video offers an easy to watch overview of the holiday and the second comes from students of Aish Jerusalem. Read more about Rosh Hashanah here at the BBC and here here at Chabad. Sources for Yom Kippur also include the BBC and Chabad. Read more
Statutes of Buddhas are among the tallest in the world. The Wall Street Journal recently published a slideshow of the five tallest statutes in the U.S. and the five tallest in the world. Four of the five tallest in the world are Buddhas. Two are in China, one is in Myanmar, and one is in Japan. The one above is the tallest at 420 feet. It’s called the Spring Temple Buddhaand is in China. This is the Laykyun Setkyar Buddha... Read more
Policymic has an excellent story about Sweden’s reaction to the attack of a pregnant Muslim woman in a Stockholm suburb a week ago. Two thousand Swedish women donned hijabs in support of the woman, took to the social media with pictures of themselves, and demanded politicians deal with “structural discrimination that affects Muslim women.” According to Policymic, the French reaction was “nowhere near as sympathetic.” When Argenteuil Muslims were attacked in early June, the French press sided with the police.... Read more
Here is an ward winning video focused on the removal of 12,000 Navajo from their ancestral homes in Arizona. Navajos, like other native Americans, saw themselves as caretakers of the Earth which is why the effort to remove them from their land in 1977 was particularly offensive. Martin Sheen narrates the documentary. It’s all on line in 7 parts here and is very interesting and engaging. I use parts of it for our unit on indigenous religions in North America. And here... Read more
NPR has a great story about the Shahnameh, or “Epic of the Persian Kings.” It is a foundational Iranian myth and legend written all in verse over a thousand years ago. A Persian poet, Abolqasem Ferdowsi, wrote the epic which is longer than the Iliad and the Odyssey. In an interview with NPR, Azar Nafisi, a contemporary Iranian writer, says that the Shahnameh is at the heart of makes her Iranian. An Iranian film maker and graphic artist in New... Read more
Here is an interesting glimpse into India’s world of superstition from the New York Times. Superstition is so entrenched in India that it is almost a part of its very fabric. Gurus, babas, astrologers, godmen, and even mystical soothsayers make a living with their miracles and magic. One critic, Narendra Dabhokar, spent his life challenging the entrenched beliefs in superstition. Everywhere he saw magic, he showed the audience why it wasn’t magic. He even took up a bill, the anti-black... Read more
Fazeela Siddiqui, program manager for Women’s Islamic Initiative in Spirituality and Equality (WISE), put together a list of ten of the most important Muslim women from the 7th century to the present for the Huffington Post. “Contrary to popular belief,” she notes, “Muslim women have served as revolutionary and heroic leaders.” Some, she says, “have been jailed, ridiculed and harangued for their activism; yet, their strength and faith always persevered.”You can see a slideshow with pictures and a brief biography... Read more
World Religions
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In