According to another article in the Forward by Benjamin Ivry - Dr. Cyclops Is Back - George Szell just had a very nasty personality from an early age.

I heard a rabbi deliver a sermon once on holy silence. I don't agree with most of what he says but I thought this one was very good. He asked: how did Isaac and Ishmael manage to bury Abraham together when they didn't like eachother? The answer was: they didn't speak. He said sometimes for the sake of peace the best thing is not to talk.

I admire your honesty in saying that you don't feel a close attachment to the United States which has been a great place for you to live. At the same time, I was surprised to see that. And I don't think it's because you're Jewish as anti-semites will want to say. I suspect it's because your father is from another place. Mine is too but it's someplace he wanted to leave.

Vanessa Redgrave as Fania Fenelon in Playing For Time. There was a big outcry about this when it came out.

I appreciate the idea of making lemonade out of lemons but Dementia is not a gift and it's foolish to say so. There's better ways to get a vacation. I hope it's not too bad.

I also found this fascinating and honest: "We also have to be realistic. The people that I know who practice and practice eventually all realize somewhere down the line that wherever they thought it would take us, it didn’t. I used to go around the Western world and ask: Do you know anyone who’s enlightened? The answer was always zero."

Rogovoy should have quoted the books to make his point - or make it obvious when it isn't true. This way, if you are not familiar with the actual novels, you just have to take his word for it. Fleming talks about race and ethnicity a lot. And before I read this opening line I never thought about how non-Jewish or "goyish" James Bond was. It caught my attention and made me think about it but it just makes Rogo seem, shall we say, Flemingesque. (Mordechai Richler wrote an essay about this topic and I suspect Rogo read it but I can't find it online).

"Instead, for some, interacting with meat is closer to an art form, a means of connecting, a way of life"

"A way of connecting" is too vague. It sounds airy-fairy. If you mean they have found a job they enjoy, that is rewarding, that is more concrete and meaningful.

"I don’t know how and don’t feel like it is my place to lecture these women about oppression."

They are oppressed so it's alright for them to oppress you, right? A woman with a victim personality is teaching others how to stand up for themselves. I'm sure she's a nice person but it's kind of funny isn't it? You don't seem to be anti-semitic yourself so have some pride in who you are.

This is a good article and a great topic but your comment about "the Jewish ability to negotiate" irked me. How many Jewish people are not good negotiators? I know more clueless negotiators than good ones.

And the reason why people found eastern religions attractive is not that mysterious. Modern Jews are deracinated. They are educated but they pray in a language they don't understand and there doesn't seem to be any payoff in Jewish practice especially because they have no Jewish spiritual education.

The eastern religions as they are presented here on the other hand are all about spiritual development through meditation and chanting etc.

So there is very little education about spiritual growth in mainstream Judaism. There is little information about how to become a better person and a stronger person. But that's what the western versions of Buddhism and Hinduism offer. So does 3HO, the western version of Sikhism.

A few years ago, Alan Morinis wrote a book about Mussar that addresses this very issue. His parents were Communists and his introduction to Judaism came through a path of spiritual development rather than through rituals one is forced to participate in during childhood. It's called Jacob's Ladder and I suspect that this kind of thing, Judaism as a spiritual path, is probably the only version that can compete in the world today.
http://amzn.to/11fV4no --- http://amzn.to/124N8gv

I notice that you said that the Rosenbergs were accused rather than convicted.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/sobell-con...
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/21/nyregion/21rose...

I read the 1997 article by Bumiller. She makes them seem talented and energetic but awful. Together with Bumiller, your article seems to suggest that it's the mother's fault. Bumiller mentions a time she and her father had such a bitter political argument that he kicked her out of the house.