{"id":240,"date":"2009-04-06T11:17:50","date_gmt":"2009-04-06T11:17:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/windowsanddoors\/2009\/04\/what-is-a-jew-ask-the-king-of.html"},"modified":"2009-04-06T11:17:50","modified_gmt":"2009-04-06T11:17:50","slug":"what-is-a-jew-ask-the-king-of","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/2009\/04\/what-is-a-jew-ask-the-king-of.html","title":{"rendered":"What is a Jew?  Ask the King of Bahrain"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Today&#8217;s NY Times features a fascinating article, entitled <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2009\/04\/06\/world\/middleeast\/06bahrain.html\">Manama Journal<\/a>, on the Jews of Bahrain.  It tells of King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa and his relationship with his 36 Jewish subjects.  At the core of the article stands the unspoken question, what is a Jew, at least according to Bahrainis?<br \/>\nAre we a small cabal with undue influence over global markets and media, who must be mollified?  Are we good Arabians who happen to follow another religion?  Are we a sophisticated minority that serves the royal family and are rewarded for doing so?  Are we pawns in a larger game of Sunni v. Shia?<br \/>\nThis article portrays a long-ago world in which Jews have not functioned for generations, if not centuries.  It begs us to pay attention to both the real possibilities of working with even the most traditional elements in the Islamic world today, and the genuine challenges of any relationship which is based on preserving deep imbalances in the power and autonomy of any party to the relationship.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today&#8217;s NY Times features a fascinating article, entitled Manama Journal, on the Jews of Bahrain. It tells of King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa and his relationship with his 36 Jewish subjects. At the core of the article stands the unspoken question, what is a Jew, at least according to Bahrainis? Are we a small cabal&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,2,1,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-judaism","category-news","category-politics","category-religion"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>What is a Jew? Ask the King of Bahrain - Windows and Doors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/2009\/04\/what-is-a-jew-ask-the-king-of.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What is a Jew? Ask the King of Bahrain - Windows and Doors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Today&#8217;s NY Times features a fascinating article, entitled Manama Journal, on the Jews of Bahrain. It tells of King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa and his relationship with his 36 Jewish subjects. At the core of the article stands the unspoken question, what is a Jew, at least according to Bahrainis? Are we a small cabal&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/2009\/04\/what-is-a-jew-ask-the-king-of.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Windows and Doors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-04-06T11:17:50+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Brad Hirschfield\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"What is a Jew? Ask the King of Bahrain - Windows and Doors","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/2009\/04\/what-is-a-jew-ask-the-king-of.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"What is a Jew? 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