I have to confess that, as an atheist the subject of Judaism, or any other religion, holds no interest beyond a curiosity I have in all superstitions.
This subject does does raise one important point in my mind - to what extent should we be prepared to censor any creative art for fear of giving offence.
I have in mind particularly the fad of some time ago for either altering, or omitting completely, songs that were considered derogatory to women, which was, in my opinion, responsible for removing some very fine and important songs from the repertoire.
It seems to me that, unless the songs were designed to give offence, or that their contents were so strong so as to enable them to be deliberately used to give offence, there is no case whatever for alteration or omission. Certainly in the case of 'anti-women' songs, there are plenty of 'anti-men' songs to counterbalance them - or are these to be banned too?
It's back to the old question really "what are we going to do about The Merchant of Venice?"
Jim Carroll