September 27, 2009

Broadcast Date: 
Sep 27 2009

The antigay, anti-Jewish Westboro Baptist Church targets Brooklyn synagogues; Obama's failed effort to secure a settlement freeze; rabid responses to the UN Human Rights Council's Goldstone Report; plus the moment when cantors moved out of the synagogue and into popular culture.

Episode segments
  • Bigots Target Jewish Synagogues
    National Politics, Christian Right, Global, Anti-Semitism
    Reported by Emily Seife. Produced by Josh Nathan-Kazis.

    For decades the notoriously homophobic Westboro Baptist Church has demonstrated at the funerals of AIDS victims and members of the military (objecting to the military's support of homosexuality through its don't ask, don't tell policy).  More recently, they've brought their anti-Gay and anti-Semitic messages  to synagogues.  When Westboro demonstrated at Brooklyn synagogues this past Yom Kippur weekend, Beyond the Pale was there.

  • Obama vs. Netanyahu: Round One
    Foreign Policy, International Politics, Middle East, Israel/Palestine, Occupation
    Phyllis Bennis is a Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies.  Her most recent book is Understanding the US-Iran Crisis: A Primer.
    Esther Kaplan and Marilyn Kleinberg Neimark

    The Obama administration appears to have backed away from its demand, this past spring, for a freeze on all Israeli settlement activity--with no exceptions. And now there is talk that the administration will use its Security Council veto to prevent implemention of the recommendations of the Goldstone Report (the UN Human Rights Council report on Israeli, and Hamas, activities in Gaza this past year).  We talk with Phyllis Bennis about what these apparent steps back mean for the prospect for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

  • Religion and Media in America
    Religion, Theater, Music, Film, Arts & Culture, Jewish Life
    Jeffrey Shandler is Professor of Jewish Studies at Rutgers University.  His most recent book is Jews, God and Videotape: Religion and Media in America.
    Alisa Solomon

    Jeffrey Shandler talks with Alisa Solomon about the ways Jewish religious music--particularly the Kol Nidre prayer--and the cantors who sing it, have grappled with, and engaged, popular culture and new media technologies in America.  For various examples of Kol Nidre, click here.