David Brooks Marries His Former Researcher Today

Posted on April 30, 2017 by Luke Ford

Has he formally converted to Christianity yet?

Source Source Registry

Washington Post:

New York Times columnist David Brooks weds his former researcher Anne Snyder

Knot, tied: New York Times columnist David Brooks wed Anne Snyder, his former research assistant, on Sunday.

The couple’s relationship sort-of went public in an inauspicious way — Politico noted in a wink-wink 2015 piece that the conservative columnist had devoted an outsized amount of verbiage in the acknowledgements of his book “The Road to Character” to Snyder, who is 23 years his junior. But all’s well that ends with bells, and Atlantic Media owner David Bradley and his wife, Katherine Bradley, threw a rehearsal luncheon for the couple on Saturday, we’re told (that poolside tent saw a lot of activity this weekend), followed by a Sunday ceremony.

It’s the first marriage for Snyder, 32, now a freelance writer and director of a Houston, Tex., non-profit initiative. Brooks, 55, acknowledged his split from first wife, Sarah Brooks, in early 2015. They have three children.

Even though David may now be a Christian, I am glad to see he hasn’t lost his chutzpah.

The Hyde Park Institute presents:

Speaking of Character (with Anne Snyder, David Brooks, and Candace Vogler)

Program Description:

Many different cultures treat developing good character as one of the central challenges in human life. Your character draws together strengths that help you to pursue and promote good reasonably, avoid bad responsibly, and participate in the collective movements toward common good that shape the social world in which you find yourself. Good character is, as one says, a proof against rewards–a good person does not, for instance, betray her friends or her firm for the sake of personal advantage. Good character is supposed to help people set their priorities, to think well about good courses of action they might pursue here and now, experience sorrow over genuine losses, joy over real triumphs, and more generally to live wisely and well.
With background reading by two philosophers, we will gather to think and talk about character in a one-day seminar. Questions that will orient our discussion include:

How has your own character been shaped?
In what ways do you expect that support for character development might be hard to come by in the next decade?
What rhythms, practices, or institutions might you engage and rely upon to help you move forward on a path to strong character?
David Brooks, Anne Snyder, and Candace Vogler hope that you will join a conversation about character.

Program Details:

Seminar Date: Saturday May 27th
Seminar Time: 10 a.m. – 3:30 p.m.
Schedule: 10 a.m. – 11 a.m. Coffee
11 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. Session I
12:30 p.m. – 2 p.m. Lunch
2 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. Session II
Location: Cobb Hall 402
Participation: To take part in the seminar, please complete the application below by April 24th.

Our Speakers:

David Brooks

David Brooks became an Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times in September 2003. He is currently a commentator on “The PBS Newshour,” NPR’s “All Things Considered” and NBC’s “Meet the Press.” He is the author of “Bobos In Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There” and “The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement.” In April of 2015 he came out with his fourth book, The Road to Character, which was a #1 New York Times bestseller. Mr. Brooks also teaches at Yale University, and is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.

Anne Snyder

Anne Snyder is the Director of The Character Initiative at The Philanthropy Roundtable, a pilot program that seeks to help foundations and wealth creators around the country advance character formation through their giving. She is also a Fellow at the Center for Opportunity Urbanism, a Houston-based think tank that explores how cities can drive opportunity and social mobility for the bulk of their citizens. Prior to jumping to the Lonestar state she worked at The New York Times in Washington, as well as World Affairs Journal and the Ethics and Public Policy Center. She holds a Master’s degree in journalism from Georgetown University and a B.A. in philosophy and international relations from Wheaton College (IL). Anne has published in National Journal, The Washington Post, The Atlantic Monthly, Philanthropy Magazine, Orange County Register, Center for Opportunity Urbanism, The Institute for Family Studies, FaithStreet, Comment Magazine, Verily, Humane Pursuits, and FareForward.

I can’t wait to learn some amazing insights on building character from David and Anne.

Posted in Christianity, Conversion, David Brooks | Comments Off on David Brooks Marries His Former Researcher Today

The Market for Gedolim: A Tale of Supply and Demand

Posted on April 28, 2017 by Luke Ford

Chaim Saiman writes:

Gadolhood is less about the individual erudition of a given rabbi and more about a social fact, reflecting the experience of a community bound by a concrete conception of Torah, halakha, and rabbinic authority. This sense of authority cannot be manufactured by simply turning to a rabbi to ask a few questions here and there, no matter how great the rabbi or how significant the individual question. Thus, even should the market supply many potential gedolim, a community will not find a gadol unless it truly demands one.

Allow me to offer another example. When viewed from the supply side, there is a good argument to be made that my close friend, R. Ethan Tucker, head of Mechon Hadar, is qualified to be a halakhic decisor and, in time, perhaps a gadol of the community he is building. On occasion, Ethan and I have discussed how his views on a given halakha, or on Halakha as a whole, might penetrate the Orthodox discourse. My own view is that the Orthodox community will be forced to take him seriously when there are identifiable communities committed to living their Jewish lives in accord with his halakhic worldview. However, as long as the halakhic vision of Mechon Hadar remains a niche project, limited to those in the yeshiva’s direct orbit, the broader rabbinic world will feel little need to take it into account. As the Sages put it, “ein melekh belo am.” There is no king without a people.

Posted in Orthodoxy | Comments Off on The Market for Gedolim: A Tale of Supply and Demand

Jerome Yehuda Gellman: This Was From God: A Contemporary Theology of Torah and History

Posted on April 28, 2017 by Luke Ford

Opening graphs:

Increasingly, well-informed traditional Jews may find themselves distrustful of the reliability of Torah as history because of the conclusions of scholarly research from natural science, history, linguistics, Bible criticism and archaeology. And, they may not be swayed by attempts to restore their trust. If they do not have a fitting theology for their new predicament, they may well give up on Judaism altogether or else give up on their traditional Judaism. Or, they may simply repress their difficulty because they see no way of dealing with it that will allow them to retain their traditional religious loyalty. They will carry on as if they believed in the historical veracity of the Torah, when in fact they do not.

As one who has lived with this problem, I want to now propose that a person with prior emunah, belief and faith/loyalty in God and in the holiness of the Torah remain faithful to keeping God and the holiness of the Torah at the center of his or her life. What is needed is a theology that appreciates the force of the challenge to Torah as history and preserves one’s traditional religious loyalty. That is the task of the present book.

Marc Shapiro writes: “I mentioned Gellman’s book to someone and expressed the opinion that even if another ten theologians were to write similar books, I don’t see this as having any real impact on the ground – although it will be appealing for certain intellectuals – because at the end of the day traditional Judaism is a religion of halakhah and its leaders are talmudists and halakhic authorities. If a new theological approach does not have the imprimatur of even one outstanding religious authority – gadol for lack of a better term – I don’t see how it can gain traction in the community at large. In previous years I have made the same point about changes in women’s roles and so-called partnership minyanim. These phenomena are also having trouble making headway because they too are lacking the necessary imprimatur. Interestingly, years ago someone responded to me that my point was not valid because I was operating under an outdated “paradigm” in assuming that changes in religious life, and now we can say in theology as well, needed the imprimatur of a gadol. Yet I would like to see one example of a significant change in theology or religious life that reached wide acceptance without such an imprimatur.”

Posted in Bible, Orthodoxy | Comments Off on Jerome Yehuda Gellman: This Was From God: A Contemporary Theology of Torah and History

Can A Jew Enter A Church?

Posted on April 28, 2017 by Luke Ford

R. Shlomo Riskin wrote:

Question:
Am I allowed to attend my friend’s wedding in a church? Are Jews allowed to enter churches at all?
Answer:
Evangelical churches do not have icons or statues and it is certainly permissible to enter Evangelical churches.[11] Catholic and most Protestant churches do have icons as well as paintings and sculptures. If you enter the church in order to appreciate the art with an eye towards understanding Christianity and the differences between Judaism and Christianity so that you can hold your own in discussions with Christians, then it is permissible.[12] Participating[13] in a church religious service is forbidden unless it is for learning purposes or unless it would be a desecration of God’s name if you don’t attend, as in the case of Chief Rabbi Sacks’ attendance at Prince William’s wedding.

MARC SHAPIRO WRITES: I think that one can make a good case that donating to a church can be a sanctification of God’s name if, as happened in Israel, the church was set on fire by a radical Jew (or Jews). We cannot have the spectacle of Jews burning down churches in Israel, and the damage this can do to Jews worldwide is immense. Would it be out of line to argue that if Jews burn down a church, that at least to prevent enmity Jews should also help rebuild it? It is easy to see how such an action can be regarded as a kiddush ha-shem, even if most poskim would see it as technically forbidden. (I wonder, can something be both a kiddush ha-shem and a violation of halakhah?) In fact, after the church was burnt in Israel, a number of rabbis, including the great R. Nachum Rabinovitch, helped raise money to repair it.

Posted in R. Shlomo Riskin | Comments Off on Can A Jew Enter A Church?

Steve Sailer: The Rise and Rise of Ethnic Turf Marking

Posted on April 26, 2017 by Luke Ford

Los Angeles Times: “But few of them are aware that the fountain was the centerpiece to a housing development with an ugly side: Midwick View Estates was meant for whites only.”

Do synagogues have an ugly side in that they are intended for Jews only?

Comments at Steve Sailer:

* Once communities got rid of that ‘ugly’ policy, their neighborhoods got uglier and uglier in every way.

Also, if preservation of whiteness is so ugly, why do non-whites abandon their own nations and make flight to white?

* Few journalists seem aware that before 1948, pretty much all upmarket property was meant for whites only–or at least, not for blacks. So it’s nothing in particular to do with Midwick View Estates.

* Related: Shea Moisture, a hair care products company heretofore known mostly for marketing to black women, brought down a vitriolic response for a marketing campaign featuring white women.

Apparently, in consumer products, once you go black, you can never go back.

* Somewhat OT, Des Moines, Iowa, has recorded its 12th homicide in 2017. Last year at this time there was just one, with a total of 13 in the whole year.

The 11th victim (#12 was just a few hours later) was a Burmese Christian minority immigrant murdered in front of his wife and three kids. Details on the four killers are wholly lacking in the news reports.

* Kim Stanley Robinson (who lives in Davis, in Northern California) wrote an alternate history novel in which 99% of Europe got wiped out by Black Death, and the Chinese end up discovering and settling California. A decade and a half after he wrote it, our timeline seems to be merging with his fictional one.

* This is redolent of the ‘Arthur Ashe’ controversy in Richmond. Here the black community wanted to put a ( very out of place and ugly) statue of hometown tennis pro Arthur Ashe on Richmond’s Monument Blvd. Here is a photo of what they built.

Compare it to the Robert E. Lee monument.

The problem is modern additions tacked onto a traditional venue seldom work. They never work if the intent of the addition is to vandalize the theme of the existing venue. You don’t ‘improve’ the Parthenon or Pantheon by putting a medieval or modern structure alongside it even if your intent is not political which, in the case of putting a tennis racket wielding black man on a avenue honoring Confederate heroes clearly was.

Not only is the ‘Ashe’ monument out of place, it is puny and cheap as compared to the other grander monuments on Monument Ave.

* A lot of these SJWs are interested in doing stuff to whites that I genuinely have no desire to do to non whites but I would be lying if I said that my ideal society wouldn’t tear down statues of and rename streets named after blacks, asians, and hispanics.

* “Chinese are aren’t dumb. Buying up Hollywood, and playing the Jew game. Destroying anyone who pipes up about them. ”

That’s pretty charged language, designed to press buttons.

But something I’ve always wanted discussed and analyzed here is the possibility of other elite groups deciding they want the niches Jews currently occupy in America.

For all it’s cultural power, Hollywood really is not a large, lucrative industry compared to other things. The Chinese surely have the cash to buy it – if it’s for sale at any price.

Thing is Jews have kind of totally left behind everything they once were, and have only one model now. Blue collar Jews are gone; now it’s Elite College/Pipeline -> Law/Government/Wall Street, with a side order of Hollywood. Heck it’s actually becoming hard to find a Jewish scientist now when you read reports of various projects and research.

Not to mention that Jewish musicians are becoming rarer, at least ones involved in music for the mass market (no idea what’s going on in the classical scene).

Basically the Chinese just love higher education. And eventually they are going to amass sufficient political power (donations, lobbying) to kick in the doors on quota systems at elite colleges.

Also Wall Street has a lot of money. China is comparable. One day they will have a lot more. I think it will become a necessity for Wall Street to become more Chinese, as well as keep them constantly in mind.

Assuming the financial epicenter doesn’t move from NY to China, which I think is the most likely outcome. Then it’s going to be even more important to have a lot of Chinese at Goldman when you talk to the people with the big money.

* Over the years, a lot of rich people from Japan or France or Germany have tried to buy up power in Hollywood, with not all that much effect in the end on who really calls the shots in the movie industry. In general, the talent seems pretty happy the old kind of leadership.

Posted in Blacks, Jews, Los Angeles, Race | Comments Off on Steve Sailer: The Rise and Rise of Ethnic Turf Marking