This New Year celebration of trees, observed on the 15th day of the Hebrew month Shevat, has grown in popularity because of its connection to the environment. We spoke last year with Eldridge Street Synagogue educator Mattie Ettenheim at a Tu B’Shevat observance.
Author Archives: Fred Yi
Jews and Humor
Comedy has played an important role in Jewish culture through centuries of persecution. “Some people call it laughter through tears. I would suggest you could call it laughter through fears,” says Harvard University Yiddish literature professor Ruth Wisse.
Look Ahead 2014
What’s likely to make headlines in the new year? From watching what Pope Francis will do as he finishes his first year to major court cases on religious liberty to immigration reform, it’s our annual look ahead to the top religion and ethics stories we expect to be covering in 2014. On our panel: managing editor Kim Lawton, E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post, and Kevin Eckstrom of Religion News Service.
Look Back 2013
We take our annual look back at the top religion and ethics news of the year—Pope Francis and his priorities, such as helping the poor, and also churches divided over homosexuality and same-sex marriage. On our panel: managing editor Kim Lawton, E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post, and Kevin Eckstrom of Religion News Service.
Christmas Peace, Fifty Years after Gideon, Christmas at St. Olaf
What “peace on earth” means; the representation of indigent defendants 50 years after Gideon; and the centennial of St. Olaf College’s musical Christmas festival.
Christmas Peace
According to the Christmas story in the Bible, angels proclaimed “peace on earth” when they announced the birth of Jesus. In 1967, in a Christmas Eve sermon, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. said that “we neither have peace within nor peace without.” How do contemporary Christians understand Christmas as a season of peace in today’s often chaotic world? Managing editor Kim Lawton talks with evangelical teacher and writer Nancy Guthrie in Nashville and with UCC pastor Otis Moss III in Chicago about what peace on earth means to them and what it requires of twenty-first-century Christian communities.
Nancy Guthrie Extended Interview
“At Christmas I often tell grieving people that this may be the year you break with what everyone else expects of you to do what you and your family need to do that will bring you comfort.” Watch more of our interview with Nancy Guthrie, an author and speaker who has edited a book on Christmas peace.
Fifty Years after Gideon
The Supreme Court’s unanimous 1963 decision in Gideon v. Wainwright required that everyone accused of a serious crime, rich or poor, is entitled to a defense lawyer. The decision spawned a nationwide public defender system aimed at insuring that poor people get adequate legal representation at taxpayer expense, if necessary. But 50 years later, are indigent defendants getting the representation they deserve?
St. Olaf Christmas Festival and Choir
The elite St. Olaf Choir is considered a pioneer in America’s a capella choral tradition, and for more than 100 years St. Olaf College, a small Lutheran college in Northfield, Minnesota, has held a Christmas musical festival that is known and loved around the world.
Dr. Anton Armstrong Extended Interview
Listen to more of our conversation with the conductor of the St. Olaf Choir, who suggests that music “will somehow seep into the bodies of those performing and certainly those who are hearing, and if it makes them reflect and they think differently about themselves and the people with whom they live day in and day out and how they lead their lives, then I think we’ve done our job.”
