Cuba and Judaism

By 9.30 this fine sunny morning two wonderful things have happened:

1. In the NY Times, I found an article "Cyber-Rebels in Cuba Defy State’s Limits" that electrified me. A YouTube video of Ricardo Alarcón arguing with students (adored how they use their hands) fascinated me for two reasons, or maybe the same one expressed two ways: there's a video on the Tube about Cuba, and, better said by someone quoted in the article, "“It passes from flash drive to flash drive,” said Ariel, 33, a computer programmer, who, like almost everyone else interviewed for this article, asked that his last name not be used for fear of political persecution. “This is going to get out of the government’s hands because the technology is moving so rapidly.”."

2. A patron called looking for a book by Daniel Boyarin, Border Lines. Didn't find it, so I conducted a FirstSearch for it, and found it. Thereafter, I looked up Boyarin in Aliscat, and found two books by him: "A radical Jew : Paul and the politics of identity," and "Unheroic conduct: the rise of heterosexuality and the invention of the Jewish man." Reserved them both. Review of first one includes this: "A markedly contemporary study that navigates the New Testament scholar past the perils of Pauline theology. Boyarin attempts to ``reclaim Paul as an important Jewish thinker.'' He goes on to establish this primary apostle as a Hellenized Jew whose Platonic sensibility calls for a universal sameness that negates the divisions separating Jew from Gentile and man from woman." (Kirkus Reviews)

Review of second one includes this: "Boyarin argues that modern Jewish culture has assimilated the macho male ethos of Western civilization. The result is the creation of the "muscle Jew," which divorces Jewish men from their emphasis on study, prayer, and gentleness. Ironically, in an effort to counter the anti-Semetic image of the so-called "Jewish wimp..."" (Library Journal Reviews)

Whew! and it's not even 10am.