Recently in Judaism Category

After a neo-Nazi group adopted a section of highway in Springfield, Mo., to pick up trash, state lawmakers plan to rename that section of road after a Jewish theologian who marched with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

But the daughter of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel objects to naming the half mile cleaned by the National Socialists Movement after her father, calling the plan "highly inappropriate and vulgar," the AP reports.

"I don't want Nazis stomping on a highway named for my father. What are they going to do then if they don't pick up the litter? The whole thing is disgusting," said Susannah Heschel, professor of Jewish history at Dartmouth College.

In his latest Sightings column, religion scholar Martin Marty discusses recent controversial comments made by a popular Chabad rabbi on the treatment of Arabs.

A synagogue once used by Jewish inmates at a historic Philadelphia prison has been refurbished (pictured above) and will open to the public this weekend.

Heads up: PBS is airing the documentary Jerusalem: Center of the World 9 p.m. tonight on WITF-TV, looking at the founding of the city and the birth and convergence of the three major monotheistic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam). (The next viewer-friendly time is 1 p.m. Sunday.)

Directed by Andrew Goldberg and Oregon Public Television and hosted by Ray Suarez of "The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer," PBS says it's "the first documentary to delve into the historical facts and religious beliefs that have led so many thousands to live and die for this city."

It also leaves the city to follow the paths taken by Abraham, David, Jesus and Mohammed, among others.

Religion scholar Martin Marty's most recent Sightings column looks at the recent flap over the pope's decision to remit the excommunications of four ultra-traditionalist bishops.

Is Benedict XVI, such a learned and informed and open-intentioned scholar, too much the German with his historian-fed memories of Martin Luther and other 16th-century "schismatics" and an inordinate fear of repetition? We'll wait and see.

Read the whole column at the jump.

The Chabad Jewish Enrichment Center in Lancaster and York has organized a memorial service for 8 p.m tonight (Nov. 30) for the victims of the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India.

Among the dead was a Chabad-Lubavitch rabbi, Gavriel Noach Holtzberg, 29, and his wife, Rivkah, 28, formerly of the Crown Heights section of New York, along with three other hostages held at the ultra-Orthodox Jewish center in Mumbai. According to news reports, the Holtzbergs moved to Mumbai in 2003 to open a religious center there for Chabad-Lubavitch, a growing branch of Hasidic Judaism that emphasizes outreach to Jews.

From the LA Times: "Amid the wave of attacks that targeted Americans, Britons and Jews in Mumbai, the Chabad-Lubavitch center there was taken over late Wednesday (Nov. 26), and the Holtzbergs were among the hostages. Indian commandos stormed the building Friday morning and found the bodies of five people," including the Holtzbergs.

Rabbi David Wolpe, author of the new book "Why Faith Matters," will take on atheist Christopher Hitchens in a debate later this month.

Wolpe will answer questions from author Jonathan Safran Foer and members of the Live from the 92nd Street Y audience, including those at the York Jewish Community Center, at 8:15 p.m. Nov. 25. Tickets to the York Township discussion, "The Existence of God and the Role of Faith in Society," (broadcast live via satellite) are $5 and available by phone at 843-0918.

You can listen to the last Wolpe-Hitchens debate here.