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If you caught your son burning ants with a magnifying glass, would it bother you less than if you found him torturing a mouse with a soldering iron? How about a snake? How about his sister? Does Khalid Shaikh Mohammed — the Guantánamo detainee who claims he personally beheaded the reporter Daniel Pearl — deserve the rights he denied Mr. Pearl? Which ones? A painless execution? Exemption from capital punishment? Decent prison conditions? Habeas corpus?

A conversation with Mia Farrow and Bernard-Henri Lévy, moderated by Dinaw Mengestu | June 2008 Part 1: French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy on how 3 great ideas of the political left have backfired on the people of Darfur The following Guernica program took place at PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature, on April 29, 2008, at Flourence Gould Hall in New York City. This is the first of three parts. To listen to the program in its entirety, please go here. Runs about 90 minutes. Dinaw Mengestu: The title of this conversation is Crisis Darfur, and I can’t quite give...

Please click on the link and then on the "play video" to hear President Bush's speech at the annual White House Chanukah Party. Afterward, Daniel Pearl's parents, Ruth and Judea light the chanukiah. (No offense to anyone, but I'd turn it off after "Maoz Tzur".) Text of speech: 5:27 P.M. EST THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Good evening. Laura and I welcome you to the White House. Mr. Attorney General, thank you for being here. Secretary Chertoff, and family. Hanukkah is a time of joy and festivity in the Jewish religion. We're honored to gather with members of the Jewish community...

Calculating the Risks in Pakistan A small group of U.S. military experts and intelligence officials convened in Washington for a classified war game last year, exploring strategies for securing Pakistan's nuclear arsenal if the country's political institutions and military safeguards began to fall apart. The secret exercise — conducted without official sponsorship from any government agency, apparently due to the sensitivity of its subject — was one of several such games the U.S. government has conducted in recent years examining various options and scenarios for Pakistan's nuclear weapons: How many troops might be required for a military intervention in...

A long-sought suspect in the slaying of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was secretly detained and interrogated by U.S. and Pakistani intelligence agencies before he died earlier this year, say U.S. and Pakistani law-enforcement officials. The revelation about the suspect, Saud Memon, suggests that the interrogation may have played a role in his death, say lawyers and human-rights advocates who have accused the Bush administration of colluding with Islamabad in illegally arresting and detaining scores of suspected terrorists since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Memon was questioned both for his alleged involvement in Pearl's murder as well as his...

Excerpt - Washington - A Pakistani businessman suspected of playing a role in the 2002 brutal killing of American journalist Daniel Pearl died earlier this year, shortly after being interrogated by US and Pakistani intelligence, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. Pearl, a Karachi-based correspondent for the Journal, was kidnapped on January 23 2002, and killed execution-style shortly after. The newspaper said Karachi businessman Saud Memon became a key suspect in the case because he owned a nursery where Pearl had been held captive. Citing an unnamed senior US law enforcement official, the report said Memon was interrogated by...

Breaking NewsDaniel Pearl's widow sues terrorists By TOM HAYS THE ASSOCIATED PRESSWednesday, July 18th 2007, 2:36 PM A lawsuit filed in Brooklyn federal court today by Marianne Pearl (above) seeks unspecified damages for acts it alleges were meant to 'emotionally destroy the Pearl family.' The widow of Daniel Pearl has sued more than a dozen reputed terrorists and Pakistan's largest bank, blaming them for the torture and murder of the Wall Street Journal reporter in 2002.A complaint filed Wednesday in Brooklyn federal court by Mariane Pearl and her husband's estate alleges Habib Bank Limited of Karachi knowingly provided financial...

video at link

Opening weekend numbers: JUNE 2007 Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday 17  18  19  20  21 Rank  Daily Gross Change Y/L* Theaters / Average Gross-to-date  22 10  $1,207,775 - / - 1,355 / $891 $1,207,775 / 1 23 10  $1,641,759 35.9% / - 1,355 / $1,212 $2,849,534 / 2 24 10  $1,099,329 -33% / - 1,355 / $811 $3,948,863 / 3 25 10  $397,391 -63.9% / - 1,355 / $293

Angelina Jolie's "Understanding" @ pro-HAMAS Arab Children's Conference Hate-Fest in Jordan, 2004 I went to the screening of "A Mighty Heart"--activists Brad Pitt's and Angelina Jolie's movie on the Al-Qaeda murder of Daniel Pearl--expecting a movie with an agenda. And that is exactly what I got. That, plus a Lifetime Channel weepy-damsel-in-distress movie of the week. Muslims are the heroes--NOT the perpetrators--in this "Can't we all just get along?" kumbaya film ostensibly about terrorism. As one would expect from the Jolie-Pitts, "A Mighty Heart" is mostly NOT about the Al-Qaeda murder of Daniel Pearl, killed in cold blood specifically because...

O n Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2002, I stood at the gate of my rented house in Karachi, watching my friend Danny Pearl juggle a notebook, cellphone and earpiece as he bounded over to a taxicab idling in the street. He was off to try to find the alleged al-Qaeda handler of "shoe bomber" Richard Reid in Pakistan. "Good luck, dude," I called, waving cheerfully as he strode off, a lopsided grin on his face. His pregnant wife, Mariane, stood smiling and waving beside me as the taxi pulled away. A gaggle of parrots swooped through the trees above, squawking in...

I just found this on youtube and thought it was very moving.I wanted to share it with you.

"A Mighty Heart" begins with shots of the teeming streets of Karachi, Pakistan, a city with a population that seems jammed in, shoulder to shoulder. Terrorists will emerge from this sea of humanity, kidnap the American journalist Daniel Pearl and disappear. The film is about the desperate search for Pearl (Dan Futterman) before the release of the appalling video showing him being beheaded. It is told largely through the eyes of and based on a memoir by his widow, Mariane. We know how the story is going to end. The real drama is played out with the natures of the...

KASHMORE, Pakistan, June 6 (UPI) -- Two more suspects have been arrested in Pakistan in the 2002 kidnapping and beheading of American reporter Daniel Pearl. The two Islamist militants, identified as Aa-ur-Rehman, also known as Naeem Bokhari, and Faisal Bhatti, the British network ITV reported Tuesday. They were arested while traveling in a taxi in Kashmore and were being interrogated, according to Waseem Akhtar, the Sindh provincial government adviser on home affairs. Pearl worked for The Wall Street Journal. He was abducted in Karachi while researching a story on Islamist militants. A British Islamist militant, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, also...

Excerpt - ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Police said Tuesday they have arrested two men suspected of involvement in the 2002 kidnapping and murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. Attaur Rehman and Faisal Bhatti were arrested Monday in Kashmor, a town some 300 miles northeast of Karachi, said Saghir Mugheri, an area police officer. Mugheri said both men were alleged members of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a militant organization linked to al-Qaida. A senior detective among the team investigating Pearl's case said Rehman was suspected of leading the gang that kidnapped Pearl in Karachi on Jan. 23, 2002. Rehman, also known as Naim...

A U.S. defense analyst and author says Americans should be very concerned about some radical Muslim paramilitary compounds that have sprung up around the country and that are surrounded with "No Trespassing" signs. Hear This Report Greg Copley, president of the International Strategic Studies Association (ISSA), says the compounds are often populated with former U.S. convicts who were converted to Islam in prison. These convicts, he contends, are connected to a Pakistani organization. "Islamberg in New York, Ahmedabad in Virginia, and Holy Islamville in South Carolina, and so on are places which have been formed largely by Jamaat ul-Fuqra," Copley...

From The Washington Post comes this story: Probe of Al-Qaeda Leader's Handling Sought Two senators who observed last week's closed military proceedings against al-Qaeda leader Khalid Sheik Mohammed called for an investigation into allegations that the accused planner of the Sept. 11 attacks was physically abused while in CIA custody. "Allegations of prisoner mistreatment must be taken seriously and properly investigated. To do otherwise would reflect poorly on our nation," Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), a committee member, said in a statement issued yesterday. You have...

'I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the Jew' Michael Gawenda Herald Correspondent in Washington March 17, 2007 THE Pentagon has released a previously withheld portion of Khalid Sheik Mohammed's statement to a tribunal at Guantanamo Bay in which he describes how he killed the American journalist Daniel Pearl. This part of the statement was withheld so that Pearl's family could be prepared for the admission by Mohammed that he had killed Pearl in Karachi, Pakistan in 2002 after the Wall Street Journal reporter had been taken to what he thought was to be an interview with...

WASHINGTON -- Khalid Sheikh Mohammed confessed to cutting off the head of American journalist Daniel Pearl, as well as the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, according to a revised transcript of a statement released by the U.S. military. "I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew, Daniel Pearl, in the city of Karachi, Pakistan," Mohammed is quoted as saying in a transcript of a military hearing at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, that was released Thursday by the Pentagon. In addition to the terrorist attacks and Pearl's death, Muhammed claimed responsibility for at least 30 other al-Qaida...

It is somewhat pathetic that even after 9/11, and even after a nearly four-year trial at the Hague disproving “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing” of Albanians in Kosovo (something the late reporter Daniel Pearl uncovered as early as 1999), the Jewish community still insists on being used to promote the agenda of the Albanian lobby that allied us with the al Qaeda-trained Kosovo Liberation Army in 1999. As part of his PR push to see the West seal its 1999 blunder that resulted in the ethnic cleansing of Serbs, Jews, Roma and other non-Albanians from Kosovo--which is a hair away from...

U.S. Muslims outraged after imams kicked off plane By Michael Conlon 27 minutes ago Muslim leaders expressed outrage on Tuesday after six imams were removed from a commercial airline flight in Minnesota for what they said was nothing more than trying to say evening prayers. "They were treated like terrorists ... humiliated," said Abu Hannoud, civil rights director for the Arizona chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, who said the men were taken off the US Airways flight in handcuffs. He said the men were still trying to find a flight back to Phoenix where most are affiliated with...

They killed Daniel Pearl. Now they threaten the lives of those who dare to tell the tale. From the Daily Mail, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm: Hollywood golden couple Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have stepped up security after becoming potential terrorist targets. The movie stars - who are currently in India - have been receiving death threats from terror group al-Qaeda. Pitt, 42, and Jolie, 31, are thought to have been targeted because of the political nature of Jolie's new movie A Mighty Heart. The film is based on the life of Daniel Pearl - a Wall Street Journal...

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have received threats on their lives from members of terrorist group al-Qaida, reports sfgate.com. The couple are currently in India shooting the film A Mighty Heart, based on the life of Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter who was killed at the hands of al-Qaida militants in Pakistan in 2002. According to The Financial Times, British security experts were flown into Pune, India, earlier this week, after being alerted by authorities in neighbouring Pakistan that the couple might be a target because of the political nature of the film The terror fear is also...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Angelina Jolie says she and Brad Pitt are disappointed they are not shooting "A Mighty Heart," a film about U.S. journalist Daniel Pearl, in Pakistan where he was abducted and murdered in 2002. Security concerns there caused officials to suggest they work elsewhere. So with the exception of a few background scenes shot in Pakistan, "A Mighty Heart" will be made in the western Indian city of Pune. The Oscar-winning actress plays the slain reporter's wife, Mariane. Pitt, Jolie's partner, is the movie's producer. "I am disappointed that we could not shoot the film in Pakistan,...

IN JANUARY 2002 the world’s media received e-mails saying that the journalist Daniel Pearl had been kidnapped. Pearl, a citizen of both the United States and Israel, was the South Asia bureau chief of The Wall Street Journal. The ransom demands included the release and return to Pakistan of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay.The e-mails also stated: “We assure Americans that they shall never be safe on the Muslim Land of Pakistan. And if our demands are not met this scene shall be repeated again and again.” I was incensed when I learnt of this, disgusted that these criminals were distorting...

Hollywood star couple Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are due to arrive in western India next month for filming of a movie based on the murder of Wall Street Journal correspondent Daniel Pearl. The movie, "A Mighty Heart," is an adaptation of the book of the same name by Pearl's widow Mariane. Pearl, a US citizen, was beheaded by Islamic militants in the Pakistani city of Karachi in 2002. Jolie and Pitt had booked rooms in Aundh, about 200 kilometres (125 miles) southeast of India's financial capital Mumbai, to shoot part of the film there, industry sources said. Daniel and...

PARIS, Sept 22, 2006 (AFP) - Paris will hold a charity concert in aid of a foundation set up after the murder of US journalist Daniel Pearl as part of world-wide events described by his French wife as "very touching". Three singers have already confirmed their participation in the French concert, to be held at Paris Casino on November 6, the chairman of the Music Days Daniel Pearl France association, Thierry Lachkar said. Created by the parents of the Wall Street Journal journalist, the Daniel Pearl Foundation has instigated a network of annual concerts throughout the world called the World...

We now have confirmation that Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl is dead. Terrorists - who are sympathizers and compatriots to prisoners of the kind we have in Guantanamo Bay - murdered him in cold blood. Terrorists who are one with the Taliban and with the very Al-Qaeda people we're told we must "understand" and not call "terrorists," reportedly slit Mr. Pearl's throat after making him declare his Jewish heritage before a video camera. The media's reaction to this murder has been wall-to-wall coverage, sadness and outrage that one of their own has been killed. They're even talking about the ...

There in my Canadian newspaper was a photograph of an ordinary house in an ordinary street in ordinary working-class Walthamstow in northeast London. But the bland veneer was shattered by the presence of armed police officers. For this was the home of an alleged terrorist who, it is claimed, wanted to murder thousands of innocent people by blowing up airliners over the Atlantic and give his life in international jihad. No longer ordinary, particularly for me. Because Walthamstow is where I was born, just yards away from where this terror suspect lived. He too was born in Britain, just as...

The Meaning of 'Islamofascism' The MEMRI Report By STEVEN STALINSKY May 24, 2006 Since the war on terrorism began many new Arabic and Islamic terms including "Fatwa" and "Jihad" have been introduced to Western vernacular. To the displeasure of some Islamists other terms such as "homicide bomber" and "Islamofascism" have also been introduced. An article titled "How the Right Played the Fascism Card Against Islam" on the Web site of the Council on American-Islamic Relations is highly critical of using the term "Islamofascism":

How [radical] Islam makes one into a fascist, whether you are Arab, black, etc. The broader view of the deep & wide reality of Islamofascism What do the Arab Muslim massacre in NYC WTC, The Pakistani Muslim bombing in London, the Arab Muslim bombing in Madrid, an Indonesian attack on Australians in Bali, an Arab Muslim racist attack on an ordinary Jew in Paris, Arabs' onslaught in the genocide campaign in Sudan, WW2's Bosnian Muslims attacking Christian Serbs, Jordanian Arab murderer: Zarqawi that seperated (Nazi style) between Shiite & Sunni kids on a bus, Arab slave masters in Mauritania, a...

What a buddy you have, Mr Bush! March 01, 2006 Dear President Bush, As you embark on your courageous visit to Pakistan, the adopted homeland of Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Mullah Mohammed Omar and other brutal killers of hundreds of your fellow citizens, may I request you to spare a thought for your fellow citizens and for the nationals of other countries who continue to die at the hands of international jihadi terrorists given sanctuary in Pakistan? May I, in particular, request you to spare a thought for a young American man called Daniel Pearl, who was kidnapped and...

Welcome to the page for "It's In The Koran." To watch the video, currently hosted (I'm not proud of this) by China's Favorite Internet Company®, click here.

Every year, as we enter a New Year, my mind goes back to Daniel Pearl, the Mumbai-based American correspondent of Wall Street Journal, who met with a brutal end to his young life during a visit to Karachi in January 2002 to enquire, inter alia, into the suspected Pakistani links of international jihadi terrorists. In his keenness to find out the truth, Pearl fell into a treacherous trap laid by a mixed group of Pakistani terrorists belonging to different organisations and orchestrated by Omar Sheikh, a British resident of Pakistani origin, who had participated in the so-called jihad against the...

Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has survived at least four al Qaeda assassination attempts. But such attacks have so far seemed to solidify his post-9/11 resolve to side with civilization against terror. He has taken considerable political risks by deploying the Pakistani military against al Qaeda in the lawless tribal areas along the Afghan border. And he's been taking risks of a different kind with his recent outreach to world Jewry. Earlier this month Pakistan's foreign minister met publicly with his Israeli counterpart, a very significant statement given that Pakistan has long been more rejectionist even than most Arab countries. And...

Daniel Pearl, murdered WSJ reporter A prime suspect in the kidnapping and killing of Daniel Pearl was arrested Wednesday by Pakistani intelligence agents... The suspect, Mohammad Hashim Qadeer, is accused of arranging a first meeting between Mr. Pearl and Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh at a hotel in Rawalpindi, a city near the capital of Islamabad. Mr. Pearl, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, was later lured by Mr. Sheikh to a January 2002 meeting in the southern port city of Karachi, where he was abducted and, eventually, beheaded. Mr. Sheikh and three defendants were convicted of the murder, although...

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistani security forces have arrested an Islamic militant thought to have set up a meeting between murdered U.S. reporter Daniel Pearl and his kidnappers, police and intelligence officials said on Thursday. Mohammad Hashim Qadir, alias Arif, was arrested three or four days ago in the city of Gujranwala in the central province of Punjab, the city's police chief Zafar Abbas told Reuters. "He has gone through court procedures and right now he is in jail," he said. Intelligence officials said Qadir was one of seven Islamic militants still being sought in connection with Pearl's murder and is...

LAHORE, Pakistan - Police and intelligence agents Wednesday arrested a suspected militant who was wanted for a role in the killing of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, officials said. The man, identified as Hashim Qadeer, was captured from a bus at a terminal in the eastern Pakistan city of Gujranwala, police and intelligence officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Both requested anonymity because they are not authorized to make media statements. Pearl was kidnapped and later beheaded in the southern Pakistan city of Karachi in 2002 after being abducted while he was researching a story on Islamic militancy....

Omar Saeed Sheikh, a hijacker of Indian Airlines flight IC-814 and killer of Daniel Pearl, is officially on the death row in Pakistan. This is the man who epitomises the links between Osama bin Laden, Pakistan's military establishment, the 9/11 hijackers, British jihadis and Kashmiri terrorists. Putting him on the death row, and holding him in an 'isolation' cell helps Musharraf keep a key witness out of American, British and Indian hands. But that 'isolation' seems to be one-sided, as Omar Saeed has been rather effective in turning his prison guards.

Sheikh rejected the “pillars of Western civilisation”, pledged allegiance to the one-eyed fugitive Taliban leader Mulla Omar and declared that jihad would never cease, even if Bin Laden and Omar were killed. “Islamic resurgence will continue even if all the better-known leaders are martyred or captured,” he said. His uncompromising pronouncements came as Mr Pearl’s parents, Judea and Ruth, noted with “sadness and disappointment” the failure of Pakistan to carry out Sheikh’s death sentence, imposed three years ago after he was tried for their son’s kidnap, and suggested that he could be implicated in planning bombings in London and elsewhere....

As I watched on the TV an announcement by the BBC that the British Police have identified Jamaican-born Lindsey Germaine, who lived in Buckinghamshire, as one of the bombers responsible for the terrorist strikes in London on July 7,2005, I could not help thinking of Daniel Pearl, the American journalist working for the "Wall Street Journal", who was kidnapped and brutally killed by a group of jihadi terrorists belonging to the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM---previously known as the Harkat-ul-Ansar HUA ) and the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI) in January-February, 2002. Pearl 's kidnapping and murder was orchestrated by Omar Sheikh, a British citizen of...

Documents don't feel pain By: RICK REISS - For the Californian "Spreading rumors and writing statements that instigate people against the enemy." "Complain (to the court) of mistreatment while in prison." ---- From al-Qaida training manual seized by the Manchester, England, Police Department.

The making of a terrorist By Syed Saleem Shahzad KARACHI - Two and a half years ago, Pakistan's most-wanted person, Asif Ramzi, was found dead, along with five others, following an explosion in a bombing-making factory in Korangi, a satellite district of the southern port city of Karachi. Ramzi was wanted in connection with the killing of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl and the June 2002 bombing of the US consulate in Karachi. This incident alerted the security agencies of both the US and Pakistan to the emergence of Korangi, as well as neighboring Landhi, as a new breeding...

THE BUSINESS OF TERRORISM  W.A.TUPMAN  Submitted for publication by the Centre for Strategic and Global Studies, Moscow.  Some of the argument is taken from an article previously published in the Journal of Money Laundering ControlVol 1 No 4 pp.303-311April 1998 And two short articles published in Intersec :"The Business of Terrorism"Intersec, The journal of International security Vol 12no 1 Jan 2002 pp 6-8 "The Business of Terrorism Part 2" Intersec The Journal of International Security Vol 12 no 6 June 2002 pp 186-8    This article explores such information as exists with regard to funding firstly in relation to the...

KARACHI, Pakistan (AP) - Pakistani police on Wednesday arrested a man wanted in the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl and already sentenced to death in absentia for a hotel bombing that killed 11 French engineers. The suspect, Mohammed Sohail, was among six people who fired on police from a motorcycle, sparking a shootout, said Fayyaz Khan, a Karachi police investigator. He said the shooting began when a patrol asked the men to stop at a routine checkpoint in the city, the site of frequent attacks by Islamic militants. The five other suspects fled, but Sohail fell off...

Graphic video showing evil Islamist monsters beheading innocent human beings, most of them Americans, is readily available on the Internet. My best friend won’t watch it. My wife can’t even stand to hear me describe it. I understand why they feel the way they do, but I make it a point to watch each and every one of these barbaric executions. When Daniel Pearl, the young Jewish journalist, was kidnapped and murdered, his death was accomplished with what appeared to be a razor-sharp scimitar. It was quick, and I imagine he suffered very little. That is not the modus operandi...

KARACHI, Pakistan – Paramilitary police killed a suspected top al-Qaeda operative, wanted for alleged involvement in the kidnapping of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, during a four-hour shootout Sunday at a southern Pakistan house, the information minister said. Two other men were arrested. Amjad Hussain Farooqi was wanted for his alleged role in the kidnapping and beheading of reporter Daniel Pearl in 2002 and two assassination attempts against President Gen. Pervez Musharraf in December 2003. "I as chief spokesman for the government of Pakistan confirm that our forces have killed Amjad Hussain Farooqi," Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed told...

KARACHI, Pakistan (AP) - Paramilitary police killed a suspected top al-Qaida operative Sunday in a four-hour gunbattle at a house in southern Pakistan that also led to the arrest of two other men, the information minister said. Amjad Hussain Farooqi had been wanted for his alleged role in the kidnapping and beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in 2002 and two assassination attempts against President Gen. Pervez Musharraf in December 2003. "I as chief spokesman for the government of Pakistan confirm that our forces have killed Amjad Hussain Farooqi," Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed told The Associated Press...

The most required terrorist of Pakistan killed by the forces of safety The most required terrorist of Pakistan, supposed mingled with year attempted murder with president Pervez Musharraf and accused for the murder of the American journalist Daniel Pearl, was killed Sunday by the forces of safety, announced has person in load Pakistani. Amjad Farooqi, whose head was could At price for 20 million rupees (330.000 dollars), was cut down during year exchange of shots in Nawabshah (270 km in the north of Karachi), in the province of Sind (southern), specified with the AFP this person in load for...

"Being part of this people, I am part of the unfolding mystery." I am a Jew. I was born a Jew. I have lived my life as a Jew. And I will die a Jew. This I know for certain. The rest is shrouded in mystery, doubt, and metaphor. I regard myself as fortunate to have been born a Jew, though I attach no cosmic or even religious significance to the happenstance of my birth. I do not believe in destiny or chosenness. But having been born into the Jewish tradition, I feel an enormous responsibility to help preserve it...