The Conundrum of Religious Freedom for Jews

Written By

Lewis D. Eigen

The Jewish prisoner flinched at the accusations of the police officer.  Wearing a traditional white and blue Jewish prayer shawl and publicly praying was so offensive to public morality that for the sake of order in the community, the religious authorities and the police officer had to act.  He had nothing personal against the accused, but it was his job to maintain a level of public order and decorum.  So many people had been so offended by the accused that he had to act.  People took their religion very seriously.  God himself had told man how to behave, and this misguided Jew goes out in public and offends most of the serious, fundamentalist religious believers.  It was not just the clerics stirring up hate.  So many people thought that God and they were being mocked by someone who had no respect for the word of God or man’s religious traditions.

The date was November 18, 2009.  The place most of us assume was probably Saudi Arabia or Iran.  That the fundamentalist Moslem bigots would not allow a Jew to pray in public.  That is the so called law in those countries that blatantly flaunt standards of religious tolerance and commonly violate the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  But this particular gross denial of Jewish religious rights was not in those countries.  It was not even in a Moslem nation.  Nor a Christian one for that matter.  It took place in the Jewish state of Israel.  The police officers were themselves Jewish.

Human Clones May Be Among Us Now! Who Is Ready?

There may well be human clones living among us and attending our schools. Reproductive human cloning may have aready been accomplished or may be in process at the time of this reading. Dr. Eigen’s article gives us an insight to the many religious, legal, cultural, and civil problems what will ensue unless we strart to consider, debate and make some decsiions of how we will handle human cloning when it is upon us. Eigen argues that it is hopeless to believe that we can prevent cloning and he provides some scenerios that will likely face human society in the next few years. The problems he predicts are if nothing else facinating to contempate and that is his message. We should start now, Human cloning is a matter of when and not if.

Islamic Dialogues: 1–College in America

A dramatic dialog of an American Moslem father and his son with two imams in Detroit. The boy has been at the Univeristy of Michigan and the father had visited for the first time and was somewhat shocked. He asked his old friend and imam to talk with them as he was not sure that he was being a good father exposing his son to the diverse and non-Islamic culture of a large modern university. The imams view the situation very differently and present a microcosm the range of viewpoints on secular modernism within Islam.

Islamic Dialogues: 0–Preface & Background

This is the preface to a series of dramatic dialogues expressing the diversity of Moslem political, religious, social opinion in a world where the second largest religion is percieved as the largest international socio-political problem for the world. The series of dialogues provides insights into many of the different personalities and viewpoints that go under the name of Islam.

Louisiana Interracial Marriage Incident Has a Positive Aspect

In a strange way, Keith Bardwell, the Louisiana Justice of the Peace who refused to perform an interracial marriage started a wondrous chain of events. As heinous as Bardwell’s dereliction of duty was, there is a positive aspect to this story–The reaction of the rest of the country

Ladies of the Laboratory 1: Challanging the Greats

The story of a young, scientist who was one of a very few female PhDs in Europe during the 1930′s and then found herself in a difficult dilemma as she suspected that the great Enrico Fermi had made a mistake in one of his major publications. Her fears and feelings as she developed the courage to “go public”, and the results are all described.