Free Republic

The Trauma Of Exile: A Meditation On Tisha B'av By: Avi Davis Among my many travels in the 1980s, I found myself in Istanbul, Turkey on Tisha B'Av eve in August, 1988. Fortunate to have the address of some Jewish friends, I was guided by them to a synagogue in the enclave of Nishantaj on the west bank of the Bosphorus. Access to the synagogue at that time proved difficult. Without my passport ( which I didn't think to bring to a synagogue) or any other form of identification, the guards, barricaded behind double-paned bullet proof glass, at least three...

'Honor-Gang Rape' By: Ardeshir CowasjeeAs legend has it, once upon a time in the Year of Grace 1057 there lived an Earl of Chester, Lord of the City of Coventry. He decided to raise a new tax to finance his army (we, of course, in 2002 being no strangers to such action). Chester's young wife, moved by the poverty of the people, implored him to spare them this heavy burden (we are experts on such burdens). Knowing his wife to be extremely prudish, the Earl set her a challenge to which he was convinced she would never respond. He vowed...