NOAH FELDMAN VS. HAMAS. A good place to catch up with the issue of Noah Feldman's Sunday article in the times is over at SerandEz.

I just think it's odd that when it comes to Muslims, The New York Times (along with the LA Times and the Washington Post) will give op-ed space to Muslim terrorists--as opposed to moderate Muslims, or even such things as The Secular Islam Summit. Just how often have these 3 followed the lead of The Baltimore Sun in giving space to real moderate Muslims? But when it comes to a disgruntled Jewish Harvard professor upset that not everyone accepts his marriage to a non-Jew, this is the New York Times finds a place for.

It's an obvious question, but I'll ask it anyway: Would The New York Times--which did not publish the Mohammed cartoons for fear of offending Muslims--publish a similar piece by a Muslim complaining about being ostracized for marrying a non-Muslim?

BTW, the mention of Feldman with Hamas in the subject of my post is not just for effect. In May 2003, Martin Kramer wrote about Feldman's book Jihad is Over, downplaying the Islamist threat (Maimonides apparently is the bigger threat).

Hat tip to My Obiter Dicta on this, who also links to a piece on Feldman's opposition to the Tenafly Eruv. See also Steven I. Weiss' (The Canonist) piece in The Wall Street Journal on Feldman's "puzzling compromise between religion and secularism"

'Puzzling' doesn't begin to cover it.

UPDATE: Just thinking...Feldman doesn't get it. He does not see a distinction between friends privately accepting him, while not being accepted publicly.
As for Shmuley Boteach's lament--both for Feldman and for the Jewish communities reaction--he does not seem to make a distinction either.

If Feldman was not an "intellectual superstar," would the New York Times have printed his piece?
Would Boteach have written in the same glowing terms of a stam Jewish neshamah?
The answer to the first question is obvious.

See also: Responding to Noah Feldman

Technorati Tag: Noah Feldman.