Yom Kippur 2009—It’s On!

Yom Kippur for 2009 has begun.

It began at sundown on Sunday, September 27 and ends at nightfall on Monday, September 28.

(Above—Sinagoga Beth El in Sao Paulo, Brazil.)

What is Yom Kippur?

It is when Jewish folks atone to God for misdeeds they may have committed. Many Jews fast on Yom Kippur and attend services.

Here is how Yom Kippur is described at Chabad.org.

Chabad.org has many facts about observing Yom Kippur.

Here are more facts on Yom Kippur from Judaism 101.   There is a lot of information here about Judaism written from a more conservative Orthodox position. The owner of this site is up-front about this fact. The owner of the site, Tracey Rich, seems to have put work and thought into the project.

(Here is a link to a Texas Liberal post with facts about Jews in Texas.)

My wife is Jewish. She is fasting and will attend services.

What must she atone for?

It is none of my business. 

We are all allowed a private awareness or viewpoint on our shortcomings. We are all allowed to communicate this awareness with our Maker or in any other private fashion consistent with our beliefs and good conscious.

Military Option Must Exist For Iran Nuclear Program—Israel And Iraq War Are Separate Questions

A military option must be on the table as President Obama considers how to respond to Iran’s secret nuclear program. 

I say this as someone on the political left who opposed the Iraq War and who is always for diplomacy over war.  

When you have a country with a president who denies the Holocaust, fixes elections, represses his own people and conducts a secret nuclear program, that’s a problem.

It is even more of a problem when that country is run by religious crazies and is close enough to a nation full of Jewish people to launch missiles and bombs at them. 

Those of us on the left need to view Iran as a separate question from objections we have to various Israeli policies and our longstanding opposition to the War in Iraq.

President Obama will first use diplomacy to address this question. Diplomacy is always the best path and President Obama was elected with the hope that we would now begin to find a path other than war to solve our problems. 

If diplomacy does not prevail, I support in this case whatever actions must be taken to prevent Iran from obtaining and possibly using nuclear weapons. History tells us that when nations make threats about wiping out Jewish folks that these threats must be taken at face value.     

Here are some basic facts about Iran from the BBC.