Maybe it’s not so weird, after all

By Rob Eshman
Published on December 6, 2007

The first time I visited the Kabbalah Centre, I thought it was weird. The congregants all wore white; the man on the bimah called out letters of the Hebrew alphabet ("Alef to bet to taph!"); the letters themselves were displayed in massive typeface on posters around the sanctuary.

Jesus: The

By Jack Miles
Published on April 15, 2004

"Jesus in America: Personal Savior, Cultural Hero, National Obsession" by Richard Wightman Fox (HarperSanFrancisco, $27.95).

"American Jesus: How the Son of God Became a National Icon" by Stephen Prothero (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, $25)

One of the staples of American humor is the "three proofs that Jesus was..." joke, whose completion is always an ethnic identifier.

Thus, three proofs that Jesus was Jewish:

1. He went into his father's business.

2. He lived at home until the age of 33.

3. He was sure his mother was a virgin, and his mother was sure he was God.

Interestingly enough, this ongoing joke series includes no entry headed, "Three proofs that Jesus was American." Only in a country like Israel, where "American" names an ethnic group within the nation, could such a joke be told. If such has been told, I hope somebody will be kind enough to send me the three proofs.