A few people have asked me about this quote - I can provide sources (it is not just there) just to add a few words. My comment is based on a modern scholarly reading of the relevant sources which relate to rabbinic understandings of the verse in Isaiah 40:17 "All the nations are as nothing before Him; they are accounted by Him as things of nought, and vanity." I'd see this as representing a psychological truth - it is all too easy to simply wish away the other. An example which struck me when I watched Joseph Cedar's HaHesder (A Time of Favour) where there are no Palestinians to be seen even though the film is set mostly on the West Bank, I imagine this was deliberate. This article is arguing that we need to do our best, even where this seems extremely difficult, to see and acknowledge each other and build dialogue wherever we can. Otherwise the extremists can readily set the agenda and create the world in their own image. I appreciate that people may well see that as naive and unrealistic (and worse!) - perhaps so, but the alternative is surely worse. NB: the term Palestinian Talmud is common in scholarly literature, whilst this work is also called the Talmud Yerushalmi it was of course not written in Jerusalem.

The arguement of the similarities of monotheistic religions is and old one, but superficial. The main monotheistic religions derive from Judaism so similarities should be expected. The differences lay in deeper analysis. Judaism calls Jews to return to Zion, an ingathering, does not actively proselytize and even slows down conversion as Gentiles can access heaven without conversion. Islam calls Muslims to take over other nations and socieites - an out gathering if your will, actively advocates conversion and even forces conversions or offer death in its place. Judaism inherently supports a dual convenant theory, pluralistic in concept. Islam accepts no pluralism. Gentiles can flourish in Jewish societies, but Jews cannot flourish in an Arabic society. Judaism allows for democracy, accepts a separation of power, Islam rejects such ideas. I am sorry, but the author appears naive or self-deluding.

SInce King David purchased the Temple Mount, it is land titled to the Jewish People. Not shameful that we are forced to pray in the shadow of our land while invaders have built illegal structures on Har HaBayit, not to mention the planting of trees and burial of some miscreant---that the author is not bothered demonstrates his failure to have the least bit of honor.

1)"Haram al-Sharif is the Arabic reference to Har ha-Bait in Hebrew. Temple Mount is not a Hebrew phrase. So why not use the Hebrew one? 2) Islam is a civilization which consists primarily of faith and religion. So is Judaism, a civilization at the center of which, historically, has been the religious and faith of a people, of the Hebrew/Israeli/Jewish people. So, why exclude those who are not believers from the Jewish civilization, perhaps most Jews these days? 3) Right wing Rabbis is used here, as well as in other articles by the same author without actually explaining what he means by "right wing" vs. "left wing" Viewing these semantical symptom make one think that perhaps the author should clarify to himself who he is in terms of identity and the identity of the collective to which he claims to belong before pursuing tasks such as he sets out to achieve.

who must bow down to others, muslims in this case, use their terminology while neglecting the perfectly good hebrew name of the site most sacred to us jews. and he by the way claims to be an orthodox jew, a left wing at that, whatever that means.

to me that Dan Rickman and a few other non-Israelis view life here from an unreal perspective; they attempt to see things in a theoretical way while we here have to physically protect our children and the elderly from Muslim thugs whose clear and declared intent is to "cleanse" this country of its Jewish population and decimate anything that is Jewish. This is the reality with which we have been living for many decades, since long before the "occupation" and even the establishment of Israel. These theoreticians appear to lack the ability to relate to it, having been influenced by what they call progressive circles of Britain, Europe and North America.