May 26
Jeanette Friedmanbook review, education, Holocaust, people
Anne Phyllis Pinzow
David Gold, co-author of “Why Should I Care?”
“Ethnic cleansing has been used throughout history as an excuse to preserve or create a cleaner, healthier, safer, stronger or purer way of life.
Good people must get rid of those who are not really people and using derogatory names is the first step in dehumanizing others. It’s the first step on a horrific road that makes extermination okay, because “they” are different, and the rules and rights attributed to “human beings” don’t need to apply to them.”
Jeanette Friedman and David Gold, in their new book “Why Should I Care?: Lessons From The Holocaust” (The Wordsmithy, LLC 2009) discuss how this type of thinking dehumanizes everyone and how this thought process can and often leads to the final step, because killing the “other” is not murder, it’s the right thing to do.
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May 26
Jeanette Friedmanbook review, people
MNN.COM Tue, May 17 2011 at 7:16 AM EST
By Jeanette Friedman
Jane Velez-Mitchell is happiest in the service of humanity and the animal kingdom. Right now it means warning Americans that we are addicted to stuff, porn, violence, crime, celebrity, putting people in jail, junk food, all kinds of drugs, alcohol and the Internet — even cleanliness — reminding us that extremes are not good for individuals or the planet as a whole.
Velez-Mitchell hosts the advocacy show “Issues with Jane Velez-Mitchell” on CNN’s HLN. A crime reporter and “issues” person since her youth, she covered the Michael Jackson trial like a blanket.
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Feb 27
Jeanette Friedmanlocal stories/community, new jersey news, people, social action
by Jeanette Friedman
Newark – A dialogue on Black-Jewish relations by the leaders of The Foundation for Ethnic Understanding — Rabbi Marc Schneier of the Hamptons Synagogue and hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons — expanded its focus with the unplanned arrival of Imam Feisal Rauf of the controversial Cordoba House planned for Lower Manhattan.
The event, which also featured Newark Mayor Cory Booker, was held at the Newark Art Museum and was attended by members of the Newark Municipal Council, local activists, and a handful of concerned Jews.
Rauf entered the museum hall as Schneier, rabbi at the Hamptons Synagogue, was describing the media storm surrounding “the mosque at Ground Zero.” Schneier made the point that media can be used to almost instantaneously change the public perception of a group. “Overnight you could see how credibility could be shattered. There are so many examples of how the media can influence people to turn,” he said.
Simmons echoed those concerns. “The level of tolerance has dropped dramatically in the last twelve months. Things that were unacceptable twenty years ago are now allowed,” he said.
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Dec 10
Jeanette Friedmanbook review, commentary, Internet, Jews, judaism, people
DOUGLAS RUSHKOFF: Can We Talk?
By Kenneth Applebaum with an intro by Jeanette Friedman
THIS WAS WRITTEN IN 2003
The Jerusalem Report called him an atheist because he is an iconoclast, but then, the writer who was so supremely critical of this young, 42-year old deep thinker, Douglas Rushkoff, obviously doesn’t understand the second of the Ten Commandments. Jews are the original iconoclasts. That’s why everyone else hates them—for that and providing the world with the rest of the Ten Commandments. But people don’t get it. Douglas Rushkoff, author of Nothing Sacred, does get Judaism, very, very well. And because he does, more and more institutional Jews and Jewish institutions see him as a threat to their well-being.
Why? Because he asks good, hard questions and understands that we might not like what happens when we get the answers. And as anyone who ever read or saw Yentl knows, you are judged by the questions you ask. Many of us know from our own Hebrew School and Yeshiva experiences that we really aren’t supposed to ask questions, because a: our teachers (rabbis) might not have the answers or b: they don’t want you to know the answers, c: they are afraid of the answers. It seems they want to be the exclusive holders of the supreme knowledge and interpretation of the Torah.
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