WASHINGTON (JTA) — President George W. Bush’s first act as president, on Jan. 29, 2001, was to open an office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. Church-state separations that had hindered such partnerships, he said in a statement, were “inherently unfair.” Jewish groups, civil libertarians and Democrats immediately raised concerns, and the Bush administration soon dispatched…
An 800-pound granite slab engraved with the Ten Commandments placed in a mall outside Dallas is being mostly left alone by protesters, the Religion News Service reported. In fact, it’s a big hit with the mall’s loyal customers. Music City Mall, a privately owned shopping center in Lewisville, Texas, has two granite slaves with biblical…
Ever since the Seattle Hebrew Academy was damaged by an earthquake in 2001, Jewish and non-Jewish religious groups have been trying to get the Federal Emergency Management Agency to grant repair funds to houses of worship hit by natural disaster. But internal rules put in place to ensure federal dollars don’t go to religious causes…
Dear Editor, I am delighted that an eminent legal scholar has responded to my piece, but I am baffled by most of his criticisms. Mr. Dane seems to think that I am arguing against the idea of the Christian Bible as a crucial text in the history of the American experiment. But I didn’t write…
Armed with a presidential tweet, a bill moving forward in Congress and a pending lawsuit, Jewish and Christian advocates believe they are on the verge of overturning a long-standing policy that has prohibited federal emergency funds from reaching houses of worship hit by natural disasters. The public face of this campaign is Christian. A short…
Since his early days on the bench in Alabama, Roy Moore has been on the radar screens of Jewish organizations that followed, protested, and fought against his positions on issues relating to the role of religion in the public sphere and the separation of church and state. Now, with a victory Tuesday night in the…
A debate over some string and plastic strips has laid bare festering anti-Semitism in Mahwah, New Jersey. A recent controversy over an eruv was compounded when Mahwah’s mayor responded to his constituents’ invocations of ancient anti-Semitic tropes like the dirty Jew. The mayor backtracked on the township’s commitment to allow the Jewish community to build…
On Monday, the Supreme Court struck down a Missouri law that prohibited any state government funding to religious institutions. The decision, in effect, prevents the government from singling out religious institutions for worse treatment based upon their religious status. And, maybe more importantly, it reaffirms the right of every religious institution to receive funds for…
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