stephen schecterJul 219 minZimbabwe at the Park BoardThe City of Vancouver’s Park Board held consultations recently on a proposed by-law to permit people to camp overnight in public parks. V...
stephen schecterJun 1513 minAmerican orgyAmerican orgy Out of the Hebrew history books came my mother and her family, from the plains of Cossack carnage where horse and rider foa...
stephen schecterMay 227 minWatching FaudaI had been reluctant to watch Fauda when I read that the series depicted the relationship between an Israeli security officer and his Pal...
stephen schecterApr 307 minWhat to do about China?“O the striped and vigorous tiger can move with style through the borough of murder.” Thus wrote Auden in 1939. “Secret ruses can hide in...
stephen schecterApr 206 minBlind spots and other mattersModern societies are inclusive societies. They need to be in order to function. No functional area of social life can work if the people ...
stephen schecterApr 146 minObservations on the Pandemic (III)Yesterday a friend phoned to wake me up and ask how I was. He wanted to talk because we have not seen each other for at least ten days now...
stephen schecterApr 87 minObservations on the Pandemic (II)Statistics. We keep reading about statistics, but not being epidemiologists, we are at a disadvantage trying to make sense of them. Even ...
stephen schecterApr 49 minObservations on the Pandemic (I)A former student of mine wrote me recently on Facebook. So, Professor, he ironically asked, what does a sociologist have to say about thi...
ShabbtaiDec 21, 20173 minThe Peace ProcessThree days of rage Muslims proclaimed When Mr. Trump his statement made: Israel's capital, he told them, Is sure and true Jerusalem. Were...
ShabbtaiJun 1, 20174 minHar Habayit: The open abscess of Israeli sovereigntyBig surprise. On this second day of Shavuot in the galut, 2017, as the soon to be extinct Christians reckon time, President Donald Trump,...
ShabbtaiFeb 19, 20179 minFrom Sinai to the two-state solution: the long reach of Jewish traumaPeople forget that the two-state solution was a Jewish idea. Precisely for that reason it has never worked and never will work. If the Pa...
ShabbtaiJan 26, 20176 minGanging up on Israel: how to kill not only the people of the book, but the book itselfThe nations of the world continue to gang up on Israel. They prefer, for some deluded reasons of their own, to reward Palestinian intrans...
ShabbtaiJan 25, 20177 minThe idiot’s question: can Israel be Jewish and democratic?In justifying the United States’ refusal to veto the recent UN Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements in Judea and Sa...
ShabbtaiJan 10, 20176 minEzekiel’s stick (2): the meaning of national unityThe Torah portion Vayigash, for which Ezekiel’s parable of the two sticks become one is the haftorah, narrates Judah’s magnificent and mo...
ShabbtaiJan 9, 20175 minEzekiel’s stick: putting an end to the Jewish odysseyIn the haftorah last Shabbat, the biblical narrative read in correspondence with the Torah text of Vayigash, God’s word came to Ezekiel m...
ShabbtaiNov 22, 20167 minThe nation state and why the Palestinians never should and never will have oneThe nation state is a modern invention. Swaths of territory form a country which belongs not to the king but to the people. The bond tyin...
ShabbtaiNov 15, 20166 minA brief history of sociologyIn the old days, when Aristotle was around, philosophy embraced science; and the gods, as Homer put it, though gods, were conspicuous. Wi...
ShabbtaiNov 8, 201610 minDoes Israel have any allies?The answer to that question is no. But then, did not Balaam thus prophesize when he said the Israelites are a people that shall dwell alo...
ShabbtaiOct 7, 201619 minThe end of liberalism?It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, wrote Dickens. He may as well have been writing about today. How far have we travele...
ShabbtaiAug 31, 20166 minFreeloading off the global welfare stateSyrian doctors from Aleppo recently called on US President Obama to stop Russian air strikes on the city. It was not so long ago that ano...