Joshua Stanton

On May 2, President Barack Obama declared: "...by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim May 2012 as Jewish American Heritage Month. I call upon all Americans to visit www.JewishHeritageMonth.gov to learn more about the...

Religious communities are never the same once they reach America. In my view, they often become even more remarkable.

As a third-generation American Jew, it is at times even challenging for me to think of Judaism apart from the American experience. In spite of hardships early on for our...

After the joyful Seders and family gatherings have ended and we have entered more deeply into the Passover holiday, I often feel jarred by the Counting of the Omer.

Traditional Jews mark this time before Shavuot through abstinence: foregoing weddings, cutting one's hair and even listening to music. Instead, they...

In a classic rabbinic tale about human ingenuity and Divine mystery (Menachot 29b in the Babylonian Talmud), God transports Moses forward in time to the study house of the renowned second-century sage, Rabbi Akiva.

Moses sits at the back of the classroom and...

Purim's cathartic effect is remarkable, providing an opportunity for Jewish communities to parody themselves and their own hierarchies and imbue often-serious religious practices with music and merriment (and traditionally, copious amounts of alcohol and silly costumes).

It is in many respects a self-conscious parody of the ancient Persian culture...

As a Jewish student, I found the Jewish student organization, Hillel, to be a place where I could go each Shabbat to reflect on the week, laugh off the tough moments and relax with beloved friends. I loved not only our close-knit group, but also the sense of...

The history of Hanukkah squeezes us between two competing narratives: one of idealization and one of consternation.

The former encourages us to view Hanukkah as a holiday of liberation, when the Maccabees overthrew their Hellenistic occupiers in pursuit of faith and freedom. The Jews wanted a homeland free of outside...

For many Jews, the Torah seems inaccessible. It is distant historically, culturally and linguistically. The Biblical figures seem far removed and unapproachable and the scenes and vignettes do not seem applicable to everyday life.

Yet this sense of distance from the Torah may be as much a function of religious...

A surprising amount of press leading up to the 10th anniversary commemoration of September 11 has been negative. Among the starker headlines, the Religion News Service released an article suggesting that "Interfaith Understanding Remains Elusive 10 Years After 9/11."

To be sure, last summer's

Contrary to common assumptions, many Jewish and Muslim Americans enjoy warm relations. Yet we are only beginning to understand how and why this is so. A Gallup report released last week goes a long way to explaining this unexpected trend and shows that the two communities have more in common...

Hinduism is hardly new to the United States. Swami Vivekenanda is thought to have first introduced it when he visited as part of the World's Parliament of Religions at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893. He received a standing ovation from the 7,000 people in audience, whom he...

The mass-murder in Oslo last Friday was tragic. At least 90 innocents -- many of them youth -- are already dead, and authorities fear that the death toll may continue rising.

Evidence is mounting that a right-wing extremist, Anders Behring Breivik, carried out the attack at least in part...

It was a moment of crisis for Yeminite Jews. They were being persecuted by extremists of the Zaidi branch of Shiite Islam and forced to convert -- with the explicit threat of death if they refused. Moses Maimonides, a widely respected rabbi in what is now Egypt, responded in the...

Critics of circumcision regularly hurl insults at the ancient practice. Calling circumcision "male genital mutilation" has become trendy, while calling it a "sacred ritual" or citing its likely health benefits has gone out of vogue.

Yet most American Jews and Muslims are circumcised for religious...

New York's interfaith leaders have termed last summer the "Summer of Intolerance." Negative bloggers sparked a heated national debate about a Muslim-run community center in Lower Manhattan that went far beyond laws regarding private property and religious institutions and invoked two intolerable questions: can Muslims truly be American -- and...

In "The Death of Ivan Ilyich," Leo Tolstoy scathingly wrote of a protagonist whose life was "most ordinary and therefore most terrible." Such may also be said of the ruling put forth by Tennessee judge Robert Corlew, who made the unremarkable determination that "Islam is a religion," thereby...

The tenth anniversary of September 11 is in just four months. Plans for commemorative ceremonies, gatherings, and memorial services are underway. But how we understand 9/11 is still far from certain ten years later.

Fears and pain remain; two (or, arguably three) wars are still underway; misconceptions and generalizations about...

Everyone tells me that you can find your "calling" -- the guiding force and vocation that will define your life -- when you sit quietly and really figure out what makes you passionate about life each and every day. But sitting quietly has never been my forte, and introspection is...

A college chaplain once candidly described the process for him, as a Protestant, as one of simultaneous celebration and mourning when he recognized that Protestantism was no longer a universal norm on American university campuses. He celebrated the presence of Jewish, Catholic, Muslim, Hindu and humanist chaplains working together so...

I always felt so badly for my Southern and American Baptist friends. They always looked so sheepish when we talked about the Westboro Baptist Church. Could it truly be that "Baptists" started a church which claimed "God Hates Fags" and protested at the funerals of American...