Lance Strate, at The Blogs

Apply for a Blog

Sep 1, 2020, 12:03 AM

Extravagant expectations

Americans suffer from extravagant expectations. So argued Daniel J. Boorstin in his book The Image, first published in 1961. A history professor at the University of Chicago at the time, Boorstin went on to be appointed by President Gerald...

Mar 8, 2020, 11:52 PM

Democracy and Rule of Law: A Delicate Equilibrium

Genesis tells the story of a family, from Adam and Eve to Noah, from Noah to Shem, and so on down the line to Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, and Jacob, Leah and Rachel. Exodus tells the story of...

Oct 11, 2019, 10:55 AM

The drama-comedy synthesis of impeachments past

If Nixon and Clinton bear out the truth that history repeats its tragedies with farces, what will Trump's impeachment yield?

Sep 9, 2019, 11:51 PM

Dual Loyalties Don’t Have to Be Divided Loyalties

The topic of loyalty as it relates to the Jewish people has come up recently in the news, on account of statements made by the current occupant of the White House. Any questioning of Jewish loyalty raises red flags,...

Jul 23, 2019, 5:32 AM

Going Golem… Or Moving the Letters Around

The recent controversy over the final season of the HBO series Game of Thrones brings to mind the essay by Michael Weingrad published in the Spring 2010 issue of the Jewish Review of Books: “Why There is No Jewish...

Mar 10, 2018, 12:45 AM

Seven Reasons Why Albert Einstein is a Prophet

Albert Einstein. (Public domain)

The father of modern physics was in line with the Jewish prophetic tradition -- and he matters more than ever

Jan 16, 2018, 4:51 AM

Jew vs. Jedi: “May the Schwartz Be With You”

The Last Jedi is one of the best, if not the best, of the Star Wars cinematic series that first exploded onto theater screens in 1977. The film franchise, originated by George Lucas, was sold to the Walt Disney...

Oct 17, 2017, 12:04 AM

A Call to Disarm

Let me begin with a thought that might sound like heresy to some citizens of the United States: The Second Amendment to our Constitution is not scripture. Indeed, neither the Bill of Rights nor the US Constitution itself were handed down to...

Sep 1, 2017, 2:22 AM

The Shameless and the Shamed

Let’s play a game of word association. I’ll say a word and you say the first thing that comes into your mind. Ready? The word is shameless. If you answered Trump, then please feel free to continue reading. If not, then...

Jul 1, 2017, 10:50 PM

Fear and Mostly Hope on the Fourth of July

It was the summer of 1974, I had just graduated high school and was looking forward to starting my first year of college in the fall, and I had been accepted into a special summer program called Torah Corps,...

Load more

About Me

Lance Strate is a past president of Congregation Adas Emuno of Leonia, New Jersey and Professor of Communication and Media Studies at Fordham University in New York City. He is the author of Media Ecology: An Approach to Understanding the Human Condition; Amazing Ourselves to Death: Neil Postman's Brave New World Revisited; On the Binding Biases of Time and Other Essays on General Semantics and Media Ecology; Echoes and Reflections: On Media Ecology as a Field of Study; and Thunder at Darwin Station.