Under Roman occupation, Jewry was riven into six sects, or what Jewish historian Flavius Josephus referred to as “philosophies”: Sadducees, priestly aristocrats based in the Temple who adhered solely to Scripture (Tanakh); Pharisees, the successors of the Hasideans, who were the popular group led by sages..…

The alternative, to these patriots, was disaster — the division of the nation into hostile confederacies, into clients of European powers. ..…

I do not agree with those views nor did eminent leaders of that time but this did not make Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore (any) less an Indian, less a patriot than any of his contemporaries. . Merely because a person does not agree with the government in power or is virulently critical of the government..…

The mass shootings last month in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, remind me of I would rather forget. ..…