Jews: 'Voting as if our lives depend upon it'

Michael Spitzer-Rubenstein had barely slept in days.

A senior at Beverly Hills High School, he'd spent long hours rallying support for Barack Obama, and as the results from the Iowa caucuses poured in, as fellow Obama supporters packed the presidential candidate's California campaign office in Koreatown, Spitzer-Rubenstein turned jubilant, his enthusiasm mashing together with exhaustion into euphoria.

"Yeah!" he shouted, jumping up and down in a corner where he was hawking T-shirts, bumper stickers and buttons for the Illinois senator. "Obama! Obama! Obama!" he chanted with the crowd. "Fired up! Ready to go! Fired up! Ready to go! Let's go change the world!"

Then his cell phone rang. It was one of the many high school volunteers he oversees as the L.A. teen director.

"Hi, Amy," Spitzer-Rubenstein, 17, said. "So it looks like we did it. It's awesome. You helped make this happen. Yeah, every little bit matters."

One down, 49 to go, which means many more hours of lost sleep for Spitzer-Rubenstein. Far from alone in volunteering for the candidate he thinks holds the key to a better America, Jews are planted throughout most of the presidential front-runners' campaigns, from top advisory levels to grassroots street teams.

So much excitement hasn't surrounded a presidential primary season in 40 years, not since Bobby Kennedy was in the race. And for the first time in at least as long, California's primary will matter. Until now, only six states have cast their votes for party nominations, with Florida's vote Tuesday terminating the campaigns of former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards. Maine's residents will vote Friday and then on Feb. 5, 22 states, including California, Illinois and New York, will go to the polls on what has been dubbed "Super-Duper Tuesday" and "Tsunami Tuesday." Meanwhile, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, an Independent and a Jew, continues to play presidential footsie, presumably waiting to see how the field thins.

With the contest still up for grabs -- three Republicans and two Democrats still with a realistic chance of getting their party's nod -- Tuesday's race is expected to determine the ballot for the general election. And already quite a few Jews have been writing checks, working phones or simply spreading their candidate's gospel in an effort to court the deciding votes.

Julie Shapiro, a young lawyer for Universal and volunteer for Hillary Clinton, last week started an effort to get other female lawyers fired up about the New York senator. David Slomovic, a father of three, spent recent Thursday evenings opening his commercial real estate office for phone banking for Giuliani. And Dr. Joel Geiderman, co-chair of the emergency medicine department at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and vice chair of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Council, has spent his free time encouraging lifelong Democrats to switch sides.

"The two visions of America the parties offer could not be any more different," Geiderman said.

Jews in real estate and Hollywood were quick to get involved, too -- support had been strongest for Clinton and Obama, Giuliani and John McCain -- endorsing early, opening their homes for fundraisers and crisscrossing the country in support.

"We took our family holiday in Iowa this year," said Sony Pictures Chairman and CEO Michael Lynton, who hosted Obama at his home last summer and went with his wife and kids to the Jan. 3 caucuses.

Tonight, MGM chief Harry Sloan will host his second fundraiser for McCain, a Republican senator from Arizona. Obama will attend one at the Avalon. And Hillary Clinton will be at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel for a fundraiser organized by the likes of Peter Lowy, Haim Saban, Barbra Streisand and Daphna and Richard Ziman.

"All of us believe this is an absolutely critical election," said Michael Berenbaum, an adjunct professor of theology at American Jewish University. "The last four years of the Bush administration have been disastrous. If we don't get ourselves squared away, it could be the end of the American Century and the end of the way the American Jewish community has been American in this era.

"We are voting as if our lives and futures depend upon it. Not because we fear someone is going to come out and kill us, but because we fear that if we don't get this right, our children and their children will not enjoy the privileges this generation has enjoyed as Americans -- the economic opportunity, the prosperity, the education, all of those elements that have characterized our existence and our flourishing. After Florida in 2000, everybody knows that every vote absolutely counts."

That is the opening section of my story for this week's Jewish Journal, which is a bit stale in print but was updated online. I'll blog more about Jews and the '08 election later.

Feline fuhrer

What do you see in the above photo? What you should see is an ad by Germany's Green Party attacking xenophobic right wingers. What does it say? "You can't always recognize Nazis at first glance."

The poster has, not surprisingly, unleashed some sort of public debate, though over what I'm not sure. Haaretz has the story. What I find most amusing is the identity of one of the aggrieved parties: CatsThatLookLikeHitler.com.

Happy New Year to everyone (belatedly). And in today's news, get this, the German Green Party have elected to use Kitlers in their latest electoral literature. (Click the picture for bigification!) It's a shame they had to use a Photoshopped Kitler - there are lots of resident furry Furhers on here who would have loved, I'm sure, to be a model for the Greens!

(Hat tip: Bintel Blog)

Correction of the year

This correction ran Tuesday in the San Antonio News-Express:

Nell and Wallace Crain, a couple who were featured in an Express-News Page 1A story and photo on "the secret to a happy marriage," died between the writing of the story last summer and its publication in the San Antonio Express-News on Monday. The deaths were not mentioned in the report.

The Express-News apologizes to family and friends of the couple, and to our readers, for the egregious omission.

J. Michael Parker, who wrote the story after spotting and interviewing the Crains at North Star Mall last June, said he learned of their deaths Monday via an e-mail from a Crain family friend. The friend put Parker in touch with Cheryl Crain Sanders, the couple's daughter, who was gracious in an e-mail to the reporter:

"Thank you for including my parents as an example of 'love until death.' The article was thoughtful and well written. ... Your article, while bittersweet to me, will be a great reminder to our family of their love and commitment."

The couple's daughter said Wallace Crain died the day before Thanksgiving last year and Nell Crain died Dec. 9. They had been married for 67 years.

Parker explained that he turned in his story to Express-News religion editor Arthur Santana late last summer. Santana said he edited the story, but essentially put it on hold until after the holidays. Two weeks ago, he gave the story back to Parker for updating. However, while he re-interviewed two other couples featured in the story, Parker did not seek new input from the Crains.

"I didn't feel like Mr. Crain's comments needed updating," Parker said. "... They were such a sweet couple. They were what really made the story a story."

It's fitting I would see this today because, due to production deadlines, I had a story published today that included some very old news. Most journalists know the frustration of watching an editor hold onto your story so long that you feel the reason for writing the article has passed and worry your subjects have too. But to have that actually occur ... Here's Parker's story, with grace and peace to Crain family.

'Politics sort of is the Jewish religion'

Flashback 14 months:

Blaming Judaism for his father's peculiarities, the first Jewish member of Congress converted to Christianity to hide his heritage and preserve his political career.

But with a name like David Levy Yulee, he was only fooling himself.

Times have changed since Yulee became Florida's junior senator in 1845 - more than a century before the southern state became a favorite destination for Jewish retirees from the northeast.

After a handful of victories in Tuesday's election, Jews are poised to have their largest congressional representation ever. This U.S. community of roughly 6 million people - about 2 percent of the nation's population - will contribute 30 members to the House. With 13 Jewish members of the Senate, the proportion in the upper chamber will be 6 1/2 times greater than that in the general population.

"Jews are just political animals," said Steven Windmueller, dean of the Los Angeles campus of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.

"Politics sort of is the Jewish religion," he added. "There is just such a passion for being in the game, in the process. Jewish life thrives in societies where democracies work, and that is why there is such a heavy buy-in into the American political process."

I decided to resurrect this story, which I wrote in November 2006 for the LA Daily News, in light of my story for this week's Jewish Journal, which I will blog about later this afternoon when it goes online. You can read the rest of the above story here. You'll notice the same cheesy Roosevelt joke.

(The pictured book, one every person involved with or interested in American Jewry should read, can be found at Google Books and, obviously, Amazon.)

Romney says Mormons not Christians?

From the Unlikely About Face Department:

"Mitt Romney has acknowledged that Mormonism is not a Christian faith."

That comment was made by a policy expert from Focus on the Family. But if you recall from his faith in America speech, Romney said:

I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of mankind. My church’s beliefs about Christ may not all be the same as those of other faiths. Each religion has its own unique doctrines and history.

In other words: We're as Christian as Lutherans and Catholics. Romney's campaign has rebutted the Focus on the Family claim.

GetReligion has the backstory and a bit more explanation:

There’s quite a bit of buzz out there right now in evangelical circles about a series of informational videos that are up and running at CitizenLink.org — which is part of the wider kingdom linked to an activist by the name of James Dobson. The videos feature clips of recent webcasts with Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council.

Right now, everyone is asking — will Dobson endorse either (gasp) Mitt Romney or (gasp!) John McCain? It is in that context that the following blog item by Michael Scherer appears at Time, with the pushy headline: “A stealth Mitt Romney endorsement from the religious right’s powerbrokers?”

The clip on Rudy Giuliani is harsh (note that reference to dancing in drag). No surprise. The McCain video says voters have no way of knowing what the senator will do next. No surprise. Then the video on Mike Huckabee is surprisingly critical. No surprise?

After praising Huckabee’s social views, both Perkins and Tom Minnery, a policy expert at Focus on the Family, hammer the former Arkansas governor for his foreign policy views. Minnery suggests that Huckabee does not understand the cause for which American troops are dying in Iraq. Then Perkins suggests that Huckabee lacks the fiscal and national security credentials needed for a conservative presidential candidate. “The conservatives have been successful in electing candidates, and presidents in particular, when they have had a candidate that can address not only the social issues, [but] the fiscal issues and the defense issues,” says Perkins. “[Huckabee] has got to reach out to the fiscal conservatives and the security conservatives.” Ouch.

Now hang on, here comes the buried lede.

So what about Romney? He comes up roses. “He has staked out positions on all three of the areas that we have discussed,” says Perkins. “I think he continues to be solidly conservative.” Then Minnery defends Romney from criticism that he is too polished and smooth. “Mitt Romney has acknowledged that Mormonism is not a Christian faith,” Minnery adds. “But on the social issues we are so similar.”

So what's the reality here?

Fighting anti-Semitism online

Here's a boring story from the Jerusalem Post that includes a novel proposal from the Israeli president.

President Shimon Peres urged young students at Yad Vashem on Tuesday to use the social networking site Facebook to fight anti-Semitism. "You can make a collective effort," he told a student from Guatemala.

Peres was at Yad Vashem to address the 116 students from 62 countries who are participating in an international Youth Congress on the Holocaust. According to a Yad Vashem spokesperson, the group comprised more non-Jews than Jews.

In fact, a search on Facebook for "anti-Semitism" finds 313 groups, including this one. Hat tip to Bloggish, who e-mailed this story to me, saying, "I agree with Peres in theory, but I prefer YouTube in practice."

(Technorati Profile)

Lieberman riding McCain's coattails

Such hyperbole should not be a surprise; in November he compared John Hagee to Moses. And, yeah, Joe Lieberman is a fan of Republican leading man John McCain. But does he really think the Arizona senator is "part Maccabean?"

Lieberman is certainly a good judge, given his own history with unexpected success - including his decision to endorse McCain last December, before McCain’s campaign had fully rebounded from a near-collapse last summer.

Since then, Lieberman has been one of McCain’s most prominent promoters, lending help by soliciting donations from Connecticut contacts and actively stumping on the campaign trail. Now, after a stretch that has seen wins in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida, McCain seems to have bounded to the top of the Republican field and, in the process, catapulted one of America’s most famous Jewish politicians back onto the national stage.

According to observers, Lieberman’s support has been unusually helpful to McCain, giving him a boost with independent voters who contributed to his wins in South Carolina and New Hampshire. In Florida, Lieberman helped give the Arizona senator an edge by turning out Jews, as well as Cuban Americans, in the southern part of the state.

But the real surprise may be yet to come. According to a Lieberman aide who spoke on the condition of anonymity, if McCain wins the nomination, Lieberman is also likely to play a growing role in shoring up what at first blush would not seem to be one of his core constituencies: Christian evangelicals.

“He’s one of those unique campaign surrogates who can travel both in the Jewish community and the Christian community, as well,” the aide said. “I would suspect that as the campaign goes further, Senator Lieberman will probably be active on that front, as well.”

So active, in fact, that speculation has already begun that Lieberman, possibly uninterested in running for a fifth Senate term in 2012, might be rewarded for his support with another shot at the vice presidency, or a Cabinet post in a future McCain administration.

In an interview with the Forward, Lieberman said his decision to support McCain was based on their longstanding relationship and on their history of cooperation on a range of issues, including intervention in Bosnia, action on global warming, the creation of the 9/11 Commission and continued military involvement in Iraq.

“Look, we have been drawn together because we have similar worldviews,” Lieberman told the Forward, adding that they both have the “feeling America has a unique role in the world, of taking the Declaration of Independence seriously. It’s a universal declaration of human rights, and our foreign policy is always better when it’s based on democratic values.”

With Rudy Giuliani planning on dropping out of the race and endorsing McCain, I expect Lieberman's man will consolidate the Republican Jewish vote, which, until now had been strongest for Giuliani. I don't, however, anticipate Lieberman being rewarded with this.

CleanFlicks founder accused of sex with minor

The co-founder of CleanFlicks, a video editing service once used by many Christians, has been arrested in Utah for allegedly paying a 14-year-old girl for sex.

Daniel Thompson, who ran CleanFlicks till the courts shut it down in 2006, had more recently operated Flix Club, a family-friendly edited-movie video business in Orem, Utah. He was arrested last Thursday on two charges of forcible sexual abuse and two charges of forcible sexual activity with a 14-year-old. Thompson is out on bail.

Thompson’s business partner at Flix Club, Isaac Lifferth, was also arrested on similar charges.

As soon as I saw the words "CleanFlicks founder arrested," my mind jumped to the story laid out above. Why? Because it's sadly unsurprising to find somebody accused of behavior that they publicly fought against. Ted Haggard and Sen. Larry Craig should sound familiar. For a little more backstory and an explanation of why CleanFlicks was put out, read the rest of this post here.

Rudy's campaign kaput

Rudy Giuliani's presidential campaign appears all but formally dead tonight after he finished third in Florida -- the state for which he had skipped campaigning in the early primaries and focused most his energy, the state that on Monday he said would pick the Republican nominee.

Perhaps he was living an illusion all along.

Rudolph W. Giuliani’s campaign for the Republican nomination for president took impressive wing last year, as the former mayor wove the pain experienced by his city on Sept. 11, 2001, and his leadership that followed into national celebrity. Like a best-selling author, he basked in praise for his narrative and issued ominous and often-repeated warnings about the terrorist strike next time.

Voters seemed to embrace a man so comfortable wielding power, and his poll numbers edged higher to where he held a broad lead over his opponents last summer. Just three months ago, Anthony V. Carbonetti, Mr. Giuliani’s affable senior policy adviser, surveyed that field and told The New York Observer: “I don’t believe this can be taken from us. Now that I have that locked up, I can go do battle elsewhere.”

In fact, Mr. Giuliani’s campaign was about to begin a free fall so precipitous as to be breathtaking. Mr. Giuliani finished third in the Florida primary on Tuesday night; only a few months earlier, he had talked about the state as his leaping-off point to winning the nomination.

As Mr. Giuliani ponders his political mortality, many advisers and political observers point to the hubris and strategic miscalculations that plagued his campaign.

(The presumed end of Giuliani for President unfortunately dates a cover story I wrote for this week's Jewish Journal. Our paper is sent to the printer on Tuesday afternoon, several hours before the Florida outcome was known, and won't hit the streets until Thursday. Still, I read back through my article, which takes a look at who Jews are excited about and how they are involved with the campaigns -- Rudy was a favorite of Republican Jews -- and it didn't seem stale. Just that it needs an explanation, which it was given in the form of an editor's note.)

Giuliani's fall from grace really is amazing. As readers of The God Blog know, I was never a fan of the former mayor, whom I met in New York two years ago. (He was giving one of those expensive 45-minute speeches on "leadership during crisis" at a bail-industry conference that I was writing about for some extra green.) But many Republicans loved Giuliani, and when he entered the race, it was clearly his to lose.

In the past month alone, Giuliani's support among California Republicans plummeted 14 percentage points from 25 percent.

I just hope he makes it another two days, though CBS News is reporting he won't.

Germany celebrates Hitler's rise -- sort of

Wednesday is the 75th anniversary of the day Hitler and the Nazi Party took power in Germany, and the occasion has prompted a new round of soul-searching.

“Where in the world has one ever seen a nation that erects memorials to immortalize its own shame?” asked Avi Primor, the former Israeli ambassador to Germany, at an event in Erfurt on Friday commemorating the Holocaust and the liberation of Auschwitz. “Only the Germans had the bravery and the humility.”

It is not just in edifices and exhibits that the effort to come to terms with this history marches on. The Federal Crime Office last year began investigating itself, trying to shine a light on the Nazi past of its founders after the end of the war. And this month Germany’s federal prosecutor overturned the guilty verdict of Marinus van der Lubbe, the Communist Dutchman executed on charges of setting the Reichstag fire; that event’s 75th anniversary is Feb. 27.

The experience of Nazism is alive in contemporary public debates over subjects as varied as German troops in Afghanistan, the nation’s low birthrate and the country’s dealings with foreigners.
Why Germany seems unendingly obsessed with Nazism is itself a subject of perpetual debate here, ranging from the nation’s philosophical temperament, to simple awe at the unprecedented combination of organization and brutality, to the sense that the crime was so great that it spread like a blot over the entire culture.

Whatever the reasons, as the events become more remote, less personal, this society is forced to confront the question of how it should enshrine its crimes and transgressions over the longer term.

Click here for the rest of this article from The New York Times. Others seem to be coming to poorer terms with Hitler's legacy.

Pat Robertson not popular with evangelicals

Pat Robertson gets mentioned here every now and then. And a recent poll by Beliefnet confirmed a sentiment I expressed in November when Rudy Giuliani garnered the endorsement of Pat Robertson: "Who cares?"

Only about 19.6 percent of evangelicals. That's the percentage that have a favorable impression of Robertson. That's the lowest popularity of the eight Christian leaders survey subjects were asked about. (Billy Graham led the list with 87.3 percent favorable reviews.)

Return of the Jedi religion

A Jedi "church" has been born in a galaxy far far away - North Wales.

The Holyhead chapter of the self-styled Jedi Church, which claims up to 400,000 members worldwide, has sprung up thanks to brothers Barney and Daniel Jones, both Star Wars obsessives.

The "church" is only one of a handful around the planet, said hairdresser Barney, 26, the Anglesey Order Minister, also known as Master Jonba Hehol.

This is a story in which the reporter takes tongue-in-cheek to the extreme. This is what happens when nearly 400,000 Britons claim in a census that their religion is Jedi. Like Voltaire said: If Yoda didn't exist, it would be necessary to invent him.

But what does it mean?

"We will have teachings based on Yoda - the 900-year-old grand master - as well as readings, essays submitted, meditation and relaxation, visualisation and discuss healthy eating.

"The Jedi religion is about life improvement, inner peace and changing your lifestyle so you have a more fulfilling existence.

"It's based on the films but we have brought things into it because the films are a bit more sci-fi.

"But we have developed on the film's teachings, introducing teachings we believe the Jedi Knights would seek.

"We used to watch the films over and over again and it came about from that."

That seems to open the door to all kinds of "religions" based on specific movies. In fact, there's already a following of Jeffrey "The Dude" Lebowski. We could call them cults.

(Hat tip: GetReligion)

Murder Inc. and Jewish toughs

One of my favorite aspects of blogging is all the senseless surfing it allows me to do. On a daily basis, it seems, I come across an interesting old article or two like "Jews You Can Use," published on Slate in 1998, which I found after my copy of "Tough Jews" arrived in the mail today.

Men with names such as Kid Twist and Gyp the Blood and Pittsburgh Phil once roamed the Jewish ghettos. These gangsters were as tough as the Irish and as powerful as the Italian mob, and when I discovered this fact at age 12 or so, it thrilled me. This reaction is easy to understand: I was, at the time, facing the oppression of anti-Semitic schoolyard thugs, and in my revenge-fantasies, Bugsy Siegel and Gurrah Shapiro were lining up on my side, blackjacks in hand.

Of course, all this was happening when I was 12. By the time I hit 16, my understanding of Jewish gangsters had become substantially more nuanced. Great nicknames and fists aside, I began to recognize these Jewish gangsters as fools and thugs who preyed on their own communities, robbed the Jewish poor, and murdered their own people.

Rich Cohen, author of a new book titled Tough Jews: Fathers, Sons, and Gangster Dreams, doesn't get this fact. For Cohen, a writer for Rolling Stone magazine, the Jewish gangsters are the purest expression of the Jewish spirit and the means through which he defines his own Jewishness.

There are two books here. One is a very bad book of social history, defined by Cohen's tendency to make up facts--"imagine" is his word--when he doesn't know something: "I do not know what [Yasha Katzenberg] looked like," he writes, "but I have tried to imagine him. I see his eyes as mirrors, reflecting not what he is looking at, but what he will see: mountains, rivers, wars. I imagine him tall and slender, wearing a hood, taking his time--something long prophesied, a nomad who has crossed wastes to get here."

The second book is his attempt to portray himself as a spiritual heir to the Jewish gangsters. He does this by striking a tough guy pose throughout, a pose that fails to hide his sense of physical inadequacy, which he blames on his Jewishness

Geez, I wish I had read Jeffrey Goldberg's review before I ordered the book. "Blood Relation," another book about Jewish gangsters that I mentioned here a few months ago, was, however, excellent.

Obama swears he's no anti-Semite

Barack Hussein Obama has been the subject of quite a few Internet smear campaigns. The lingering one has been that he is not a Christian but a closet Muslim (as if belief in Islam should preclude someone from being president), that his name is strange and suspicious, and, most recently that he is an anti-Semite.

He has vehemently denied the first and last attacks. Leaders in the Jewish community jumped behind him last week and then seven of the 13 Jewish senators joined in. But just to make sure the Jewish community didn't miss the point, Obama held a conference call this morning with reporters from a few Jewish publications. I was supposed to be on it, but the woman coordinating the call for Obama for America told me to call in tomorrow. Whoops.

Here is the link to the audio.

"As we celebrate Israel's 60th year, I'm reminded of not just of Israel's longstanding role as the democracy in the Middle East, and the steadfast friendships between our governments, but also the way in which the Jewish people have been able to transform themselves post World War II and the state of Israel's incredible resolve to face down the constant threats it has faced. ..."

"I have consistently and strongly pledged that as president we are going to ensure Israel's qualititative military support and superiority in this difficult neighborhood and stand with Israel's democracy. ...

"I have always stood steadfast against anti-Semitism in all it's forms. I have always stood with Israel in its quest for security. And I want to make sure that we continue to strengthen the enduring ties between our people and pledge to give real meaning to the words 'never again.'"

After that, he took four questions, the first of which from JTA's Ron Kampeas, who asked about Obama's church's connections with Louis Farrakhan. Again, you can listen to the rest here.

Bowing down for business

From the new issue of Portfolio:

Every week, the jumuah, or Friday prayer, is held in a large tent at the University of Tehran, with thousands of the faithful spilling out onto the surrounding campus. At each of these prayer meetings, the cleric on the platform clutches an AK-47 as he leads a chant of "Death to America! Death to Israel!"

Many of the chanters are not religious zealots. They're here because this weekly morning ritual is, in effect, a Washington cocktail party, a board meeting, and an audience with the pope all rolled into one.

For Tehran's leading politicians and businessmen, staying in favor with the ruling powers demands attendance, because in Iran, it's not just government that is fiercely theocratic; big business is too.

Drinking to Bush speak

Looks like at least one of my former colleagues is ready for the president's annual address:

WASHINGTON - The state of our union is strong.

I'll drink to that. And, come tonight, so will an entire subculture of young political wonks who have turned the hallowed annual presidential State of the Union address into one big excuse for a drinking game.

So while the pundits listen to President Bush's speech to Congress with pen and pad in hand, others will clutch shot glasses and pound whiskey every time the commander in chief utters familiar words and lines.

Phrases like "economic stimulus," "freedom is on the march," and "nuclear" will be accompanied with clinking shot glasses in common rooms and apartments across the country.

"It's an event that feels like it deserves attention. But you definitely don't want to be watching it alone," said Justin Krebs, who has hosted State of the Union drinking games for the past five years in New York City.

"It's definitely something that goes down better with a few drinks."

Luke Ford really left porn blogging

In October, Luke Ford supposedly sold his porn blog, LukeIsBack.com, but shortly thereafter an update appeared announcing that he could not, in fact, "leave his flock." Luke sent me an e-mail last night to clear things up.

I have not posted on lukeisback since Oct. 22, 2007, the day I sold it... Yes, there are now posters on there who ape my style but they are clearly not me.

Wikipedia has it right:

On October 23, 2007, Ford announced he had sold lukeisback.com and its contents for an undisclosed sum to an undisclosed party.^[8] "Any writing I do on the porn industry from now on will be for publications with no porn advertising," Ford said. All entries since the sale have been by the site's new owners.

This happened once before and explains why Luke's personal blog is a dot net. LukeFord.com, his original porn blog, was sold to a pornographer who died in a most depressing manner.

Mormon prophet and president dead at 97

Gordon B. Hinckley, the 97-year-old president and prophet of the Mormon church, died earlier today. From the NY Times:

“He’s been the face of the church, not only for church members, but more than any other president, to the world at large,” said Richard Lyman Bushman, professor of history emeritus at Columbia University, a member and scholar of the church. “He exposed himself to all these interviews and seemed to enjoy it. That has won the admiration of church members. We have been a little bit isolated and clannish, and it’s wonderful to see our church presented to the world.”

During his tenure, Mr. Hinckley faced tough questions about whether the church had muzzled critical scholars and about the role of Mormons in the Mountain Meadows massacre in 1857, when a wagon train of emigrants crossing the Utah territory was attacked. Under Mr. Hinckley, a church magazine published an article about the event, and a memorial was constructed at the massacre site.

He would often disarm interrogators with peppery humor, once welcoming a New Yorker magazine reporter to his office with the greeting, “All writers should be put in a box and thrown in the sea.”

In Mr. Hinckley’s term, the church grew to count more than 12 million members worldwide — more than the largest Lutheran denomination. It is now believed to be the fourth largest church in the United States. (But the Mormon church has acknowledged reports that a significant percentage of new converts, especially overseas, do not remain active members.)

Mormon presidents serve in office until their death, but Mr. Hinckley stood out for his enduring vigor. When his wife of 67 years, Marjorie Pay Hinckley, died in 2004, he told Larry King: “The best thing you can do is just keep busy, keep working hard, so you’re not dwelling on it all the time. Work is the best antidote for sorrow.”

President Bush awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2004.

Not surprisingly, the Salt Lake Tribune has all kinds of coverage.

The decaying urban church

The New York Times paints a familiar portrait of an ailing church that was once a Jewish center:

She and the other members worship on the Sabbath, filling the church each Saturday, where they are flanked by rich-hued stained glass windows depicting the Israelites’ flight from Egypt, the story of Esther and other scenes from the Hebrew Bible.

“We once talked about taking out these windows,” said Paul Gregory Graham, who was an associate pastor 10 years ago. “Talk about cultures changing, many of us are from a West Indian background, so what does this mean to us?”

A lot more than people thought. One Saturday, Mr. Graham preached an entire sermon on the history of the Jewish people using the windows as vivid illustrations. There were lessons to be learned, he said, from their respective journeys. “These windows are a history of a people and their worship,” he said. “They give us tradition.”

Throughout the city, houses of worship built in the last century for Jewish and Christian immigrants from Europe are now home to congregations with roots in Latin America, the Caribbean or the American South. Some are grand palaces that occupy a regal spot in a neighborhood, while others are modest halls nearly indistinguishable from bland storefronts. They sustain communities by helping slake spiritual and material thirsts.

Many of these buildings are under threat, crumbling from years of neglect and deferred maintenance in the case of impoverished congregations, or becoming targets for acquisition by developers in neighborhoods where choice real estate is scarce.

Preservationists have begun to sound alarms, warning that rich urban traditions of art, religion and community service are imperiled.

“You see in these buildings history and continuity, and the influence of new populations and new religions,” said Peg Breen, president of the New York Landmarks Conservancy. “The face of the city will change and an important part of our history will be lost if these buildings disappear.”

This is not a phenomenon unique to New York, but is in fact afflicting urban churches and religious centers throughout the country. As people have fled to the suburbs and exurbs, finding or creating megachurches there, beautiful, history-filled sanctuaries have been left behind, some to rot, others to struggle along.

The curse of context

Nathan Gibbs has a sad story on his blog about the death of his childhood friend, Benson Krause, and a remembrance of the music they made together. Their band, "The Third Half," included many of the guys I grew up a few years behind, and Nathan's post recalls an infamous moment at our church, though I was too young to remember it as much more than folklore.

One Sunday morning, his father Jim was preaching. He spoke about being corrupted by the world and used his youngest son Timothy’s innocence as an example. He said Tim was sitting in the pew making gestures with his hands and wound up being fascinated with his middle finger. Jim explained how it meant nothing outside the context of the world’s negative influence. What he did next is something no one in the audience that day will forget. He rested both wrists on the pulpit with two middle fingers extended upward. “Does this offend you?” he asked.

My childhood church was part of the Church of Christ denomination, which is, coincidentally, on the opposite end of the theological spectrum from the ultra-liberal United Church of Christ. No music with worship, no women in leadership, no heaven without baptism. And for many people the answer was obviously yes, and it led to the Krauses unceremonious return to Chicago.

The congregation's response does not surprise me years later -- many Americans, regardless of religion, would be bothered by such a display -- but it makes me wonder why we find certain words, or more aptly, certain gestures, offensive? Who decided that pointing at someone with your middle finger was a greater curse than wagging your index at them?

Muslim piety and race policy collide *

Juashaunna Kelly, a Theodore Roosevelt High School senior who has the fastest mile and two-mile times of any girls' runner in the District this winter, was disqualified from Saturday's Montgomery Invitational indoor track and field meet after officials said her Muslim clothing violated national competition rules.

Kelly was wearing the same uniform she has worn for the past three seasons while running for Theodore Roosevelt's cross-country and track teams: a custom-made, one-piece blue and orange unitard that covers her head, arms, torso and legs. On top of the unitard, Kelly wore the same orange and blue T-shirt and shorts as her teammates.

The outfit allows her to compete while complying with her Muslim faith, which forbids displaying any skin other than her face and hands.

As one of the other heats was held, two meet officials signaled to Kelly and asked her about her uniform. Meet director Tom Rogers said Kelly's uniform violated rules of the National Federation of State High School Associations, which sanctioned the event, by not being "a single-solid color and unadorned, except for a single school name or insignia no more than 2 1/4 inches."

Rogers then told Kelly she was disqualified. Kelly dropped to her knees and began sobbing.

This story from last week's Washington Post reminds me of those stories we see every now and then about a Christian teen who won't spell on Sunday or a baseball superstar who won't play on Yom Kippur (or Walter Sobchak who doesn't roll on Shabbos).

But this, plainly, is ridiculous. Kelly did not make a conscious decision to sit out a specific game that conflicted with, say, Eid al-Adha. Still, she was disqualified because of a conflict between her religious beliefs and cultural practices and a silly set of rules likely in place to keep high school races looking more like the NFL and less like the NBA.

For a story about how a Muslim football player makes it through the daytime fasting of Ramadan, check out this story I wrote a few years ago for The Sun.

*Check the comments for a little discussion about how I got this story wrong.

She was disqualified because the unitard was multi-colored instead of one color, not because she is Muslim and not because she wore a unitard. It should have been one color

'Hitler Suite' a popular pick in Belgrade

That's not the Westin LAX. It's the Mr. President in Belgrade. And it's sickening.

As a member of the Design Hotel chain, Mr. President boasts many luxurious suites. The most luxurious, on the seventh floor, comes complete with a portrait of former communist leader Josip Broz Tito, who ruled Yugoslavia for more than 35 years. You can enjoy his picture while soaking in your Jacuzzi.

In addition to the Bushes, Margaret Thatcher, Fidel Castro and Joseph Stalin, there is also a junior suite named after the infamous Adolf Hitler.

The Hitler or room 501, occupied mainly by German, Croat and Slovenian guests, sees the highest demand, according to Zabunovic. ...

Like all Serbs — who were persecuted alongside Jews and gypsies during the Nazi occupation — Zabunovic does not have any kind of admiration for Hitler. But sitting in the lobby of his new hotel surrounded by statues of former U.S. Presidents Lincoln, Washington, Jefferson and Madison, he says he refuses to exclude him.

"It is wrong not to have Hitler in Madame Tussaud and other museums," he told ABC News. "All his victims would turn in their graves if nowhere it is reminded what a monstrous criminal he was."

Indeed that would be true if all Hitler's victims were given the dignity of graves. But by capitalizing on Nazi nostalgia, Mr. President is not offering a form of remembrance. It is exhibiting old-fashioned avarice.

Coincidentally, this weekend marks the 63rd anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

(Hat tip: DMN)

He may be no philo-Semite, but he's not Hamas

Rob Eshman, in this week's column, argues that it is better to deal with the bad -- i.e. those who don't agree with Jews on a reasonable peace plan -- than the ugly -- i.e. those who don't even recognize Israel. I've got to say I agree.

For the past couple of weeks, the Boston-based pro-Israel media watchdog group CAMERA (Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America) has been riling up rabbis, congregants and any Jew with an e-mail address to pressure the All-Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena to cancel the appearance of a prominent Palestinian activist, the Rev. Naim Ateek.

Ateek, an Israeli Arab who lives in Jerusalem, is scheduled to speak at the liberal church Feb. 15-16. As founder of the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center and its sister organization in the United States, Friends of Sabeel North America (FOSNA), Ateek has championed the cause of nonviolent resistance to Israel in the West Bank. His writings are numerous and explicit: Ateek wants an end to occupation according to U.N. Resolution 242, and reconciliation between Israel and a Palestinian state.

"We want Israel to live in peace and security within its pre-1967 borders," he said in a sermon at Boston's Old South Church last year. "At the same time we want justice for the Palestinians in accordance with international law and the creation of a Palestinian state living in peace and security alongside the state of Israel. There is no other way."

CAMERA and other Jewish organizations vehemently protested Ateek's appearance in Boston and elsewhere. Their critique focuses less on his vision of a future settlement than on his language and methods. In his sermons and writings, Ateek uses imagery that portrays Palestinians as suffering under Israel as Jesus and the early Christians suffered -- raising disturbing images of the ancient anti-Semitic canard of deicide. He has also championed comparisons of Israel to apartheid South Africa and has promoted divestment as a nonviolent tool to bring pressure upon Israel.

These are disturbing tactics and unsettling words. But, man, it sure beats Hamas. It beats Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the armed wing of Fatah by a mile. I'll take a man who writes that the occupation is the equivalent of the stone blocking "Christ's tomb" and that "The Israeli government crucifixion system is operating daily," over a suicide bomber any day. This is an opponent you can debate, propogandize and educate.

This is the Palestinian resistance that, had it taken root in the Palestinian body politic 45 years ago instead of that cancer called Arafat, the history of that region would have been much different, much better.

Hillary and evangelicals: 'The Antichrist is here'

As you know, Hillary Clinton has been talking a lot about her lifelong commitment to the Methodist church, a part of the Godtalk game that I spoke with Georgetown associate professor Jacques Berlinerblau about today. (He's got a knew book out called "Thumpin' It.")

"In Hillary's case, it's not so much that she wants to project herself as a religious virtuoso, it is that she wants to avoids the stigma of a label that was unfairly applied to her in the early '90s of being a radical, godless feminist," Berlinerblau told me. "And she gives off the impression of being a solid religious citizen, of being steeped in her church since childhood. It's defensive. She is not letting people accuse her of being some godless, feminist, blue state politician.

"What's the prize? The prize is evangelical voters."

Still, the perspective in this cartoon is one many evangelicals have of Clinton. It's hard to know if she'll be able to overcome it.

(Hat tip: CT Liveblog)

Film would make Muhammad cartoon controversy look like 'a picnic'

From the world of faith, AKA FaithWorld:

Concern is mounting in the Netherlands as the country prepares for a film about the Koran by a far-right populist known for his hostility to Islam. It reached the point last Friday that Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende publicly appealed for restraint. A former Malaysian ambassador in The Hague has said the reaction could make the 2006 Danish cartoon controversy look like “a picnic.”

Geert Wilders, who wants to ban the Koran as a “fascist” book and has warned of a “tsunami of Islamisation” in the Netherlands, has proceeded with the film despite warnings from the Dutch justice and foreign ministers. (We blogged on this last November when the warnings came). It’s not clear when it will be broadcast, but it is expected soon. Wilders has denied reports that it will be shown on Friday Jan. 25. There is already a spoof on YouTube.

We all remember what happened when Theo van Gogh made a film critical of Islam, (he was killed), and when a Danish newspaper published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad (other people were killed). I don't think any ill befell Bill Keller.

But this brouhaha, which embodies a cultural clash in Europe, is certainly worth watching.

The anti-abortion generation

Stephanie Simon at the LA Times is always worth reading. And her article yesterday about the anti-abortion generation was no exception.

Looking specifically at teens, a Gallup survey in 2003 found that 72% called abortion morally wrong, and 32% believed it should be illegal in all circumstances. Among adults surveyed that year, only 17% backed a total ban.

These statistics should not obscure the fact -- made clear in poll after poll over decades -- that a substantial majority of Americans want abortion to remain legal in at least some circumstances. And millions of young people continue to choose abortion when faced with unplanned pregnancy; every year, 600,000 women under age 25 abort.

But among those fighting to criminalize the procedure, the young -- trained in antiabortion summer camps and political internships -- are increasingly out front.

"You look at pictures of marches [over the years] and the crowds just keep getting younger and younger and younger," said Derrick Jones, an advisor to National Teens for Life.

In Colorado, a teenager last year decided the state constitution should define a fertilized egg as a person. Kristi Burton, now 20, won a court fight about her proposed amendment and leads the campaign to put it on the ballot this fall.

In California, a 17-year-old girl last week filed a lawsuit in federal court for the right to start a "pro-life club" at her San Jose-area high school. A Virginia teen recently took similar legal action, and her school promptly dropped its objection to the club.

Here in greater Philadelphia, the antiabortion group Generation Life enlists teens to hand out literature on beaches and guides them through role-playing to hone their powers of persuasion.

At a recent workshop, Claire Levis, 17, played the part of an abortion-rights supporter. "My friend got raped and you want her to have the baby? How can you ask a 15-year-old to go through a pregnancy? That's nine months of ridicule and pain," she shouted.

Liz Coyle, 16, responded: "It's not the baby's fault. He's never done anything wrong."

Liz then added: "There are plenty of teachers willing to home-school your friend if she doesn't want to go to class when she's pregnant. Or she could go to school, and stand up for herself."

The dozen teens watching burst into applause.

"I feel like we're all survivors of abortion," Claire said.

Last week, Simon reported that abortions were down 25 percent from their peak.

LA Archdiocese sells headquarters

We knew this day was coming, and sadly, here it is.

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles has sold its 12-story administrative headquarters building to help pay last year's $660 million settlement with people alleging sex abuse by clergy, a spokesman said Tuesday.

The Archdiocesan Catholic Center was sold to Jamison Properties of Los Angeles for $31 million, archdiocese spokesman Tod Tamberg said.

Staffers who oversee the archdiocese's cemeteries will move to office space on the grounds of a cemetery, Tamberg said. Others will consolidate in four of the building's floors that church officials will lease from the new owner, Tamberg said.

Tamberg did not know what would be on the building's other eight floors.

Huckabee's southern sympathies

You don't like people from outside the state coming in and telling you what to do with your flag. In fact, if somebody came to Arkansas and told us what to do with our flag, we'd tell 'em what to do with the pole; that's what we'd do.

Mike Huckabee, who's been saying a lot of controversial things lately, said that to a South Carolina crowd last week, and the flag he was alluding to was the stars and bars rebel flag of the Confederacy. In an article on Slate, Christopher Hitchens ponders why the media hasn't much mentioned the racist root of Huckabee's statement.

But when real political racism rears its head, our easily upset media fall oddly silent. Can you guess why? Of course you can. Gov. Huckabee is the self-anointed candidate of the simple and traditional Christian folk who hate smart-ass, educated, big-city types, and if you dare to attack him for his vulgarity and stupidity and bigotry, he will accuse you of prejudice in return. What he hopes is that his neo-Confederate sickness will become subsumed into easy chatter about his recipes for fried squirrel and his other folksy populist themes. (By the way, you owe it to yourselves to watch the exciting revelations about his squirrel-grilling past; and do examine his family Christmas card while you're at it.) But this drivel, it turns out, is all a slick cover for racist incitement, and it ought not to be given a free pass.

After paying tribute to MLK Monday, it seemed all was quickly forgiven when Huckabee was endorsed by three dozen African Americans, most connected to conservative religious groups.

In other Huck news, one of my colleagues at the CT Liveblog has a post today explaining what the man from Hope not named Bill Clinton means when he calls himself a "cosmopolitan evangelical." (I didn't realize Arkansas had such a big-city mentality.)

Huckabee, though quite comfortable with speaking publicly about his personal relationship with Christ, his conservative views on religious hot-button issues like gay marriage and abortion, and even God's providential role in his Iowa win, nonetheless differs from many conservative evangelicals before him, especially those in the Religious Right.

"I'm a conservative, but I'm not mad at anybody," Huckabee often says, and when once asked whether the Christian life was the best way of life, he answered, "Well it is for me..." but that he didn't want to come off as "judgmental, caustic or pushy." As David Brooks of The New York Times recently noted, "Huckabee is the first ironic evangelical on the national stage. He's funny, campy (see his Chuck Norris fixation) and he's not at war with modern culture." In other words, you won't hear Huckabee talking about his push to "take back America" anytime soon.

Frankly, I'll be surprised if he survives Super Duper Tuesday, which is two weeks away. Then again, this presidential campaign has been nothing if not full of surprises.

(Photo: El Nuko)

'Does the News Matter to Anyone Anymore?'

Is there a separate elegy to be written for that generation of newspapermen and women who came of age after Vietnam, after the Pentagon Papers and Watergate? For us starry-eyed acolytes of a glorious new church, all of us secular and cynical and dedicated to the notion that though we would still be stained with ink, we were no longer quite wretches? Where is our special requiem?

Bright and shiny we were in the late 1970s, packed into our bursting journalism schools, dog-eared paperback copies of "All the President's Men" and "The Powers That Be" atop our Associated Press stylebooks. No business school called to us, no engineering lab, no information-age computer degree -- we had seen a future of substance in bylines and column inches. Immortality lay in a five-part series with sidebars in the Tribune, the Sun, the Register, the Post, the Express.

What the hell happened?

Those words, the beginning of a powerful op-ed in Sunday's Washington Post about the state of American journalism, caused much soul-searching for me yesterday. I don't remember these better days, and I know that if journalists are great at one thing, it is seeing the negative in any situation. But I also know that such nostalgia is not just bitter and certainly not sweet, and it's sad to wonder what the future holds for news ink journos.

The column is written by David Simon, executive producer of "The Wire," and it only gets more depressing from that point, particularly when he talks about the thinning of his former employer, The Baltimore Sun, and compares the attempt to repackage newspapers more efficiently and engagingly to the Chevy Vega.

Snapshot of a parted Red Sea

Clearly those biblical archaeologists were wrong. Google Earth seems to offer pretty definitive proof that Moses not only led the Israelites out of Egypt but that he parted the Red Sea in the process. (Also pictured, the Garden of Eden, Noah's ark and a sparsely attended Crucifixion of Jesus.)

Islam, Indy and Da Vinci

A real whopper from GetReligion:

Every now and then, I read a really interesting story and I think to myself, “You know, the minute someone covers that story in the New York Times or it shows up on National Public Radio, then all heckfire is going to break loose.”

That’s what I thought when people started sending me links to the following Asia Times essay by the famous reporter known simply as Spengler. The headline provides only a hint of the content: “Indiana Jones meets the Da Vinci Code.”

Thanks to a reader, here is the link to the Wall Street Journal article that sparked the Spengler piece. And here is some of Spengler’s take on this mysterious stash of Koran manuscripts that may actually exist in Europe:

The Da Vinci Code offered a silly fantasy in which Opus Dei, homicidal monks and twisted billionaires chased after proof that Christianity is a hoax. But the story of the photographic archive of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, now ensconced in a Berlin vault, is a case of life imitating truly dreadful art. It even has Nazis. “I hate those guys!” as Indiana Jones said.

No one is going to produce proof that Jesus Christ did not rise from the grave three days after the Crucifixion, of course. Humankind will choose to believe or not that God revealed Himself in this fashion. But Islam stands at risk of a Da Vinci Code effect, for in Islam, God’s self-revelation took the form not of the Exodus, nor the revelation at Mount Sinai, nor the Resurrection, but rather a book, namely the Koran. The Encyclopaedia of Islam (1982) observes, “The closest analogue in Christian belief to the role of the Koran in Muslim belief is not the Bible, but Christ.” The Koran alone is the revelatory event in Islam.

What if scholars can prove beyond reasonable doubt that the Koran was not dictated by the Archangel Gabriel to the Prophet Mohammad during the 7th century, but rather was redacted by later writers drawing on a variety of extant Christian and Jewish sources? That would be the precise equivalent of proving that the Jesus Christ of the Gospels really was a composite of several individuals.

There are, in fact, “variant copies” of the text of the Koran, evidence that the text evolved over time. If this story is accurate then what the press is sitting on is a bombshell, a giant chance that modern methods of “textual criticism” may be applied to the holy book of Islam (echoing several generations of similiar work on the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament).

The search for biblical history

I read "Walking the Bible" on my flight to and from Israel last summer and thoroughly enjoyed it, and on my short blogroll I link to David Plotz' Blogging the Bible. Last week, I found on Slate that Plotz has returned with "Digging the Bible."

So, it's not exactly the Ark of the Covenant. In fact, it's not exactly much of anything—just a dirty shard of pottery the size of my big toe. But I found it. I had been scraping the floor of this Israeli cave when I spotted its sharp edge. I fished the piece out of the dirt and pushed on it, as instructed, to see if it crumbled. If it did, it was probably just the local limestone, which is as soft as a bar of soap. But my piece firmly resisted, so I brushed off the dirt until I could see smooth pottery, one side black, the other brick red. I'm the raider of the lost pot.

I hand it to my digging partner Ian Stern, the archaeologist in charge of this site. He glances at it and says, "Cooking pot. See the black part? That's where it carbonized. Probably 2,200 years old, time of the Maccabees"—the Jewish heroes of the Hanukkah story. He tosses my shard into a plastic collection bucket. "That's why this place is so great. It has instant gratification. There's a biblical connection. There's a Hanukkah connection. It takes it out of the realm of the abstract and makes it tangible. You can come here and dig up pottery from the time of Judah Maccabee. He fought a battle near here. Now, I'm not saying he ate out of that pot, but you see and hold this pottery, and he is not a fairytale figure anymore. He is real."

I've spent much of the last year blogging the Bible for Slate, writing about reading the Good Book for the first time. Now I've come to Israel to see the Bible, to dig it. I've read the stories. Now I want to see where they happened and to learn if they happened—to experience the Bible through archaeology, history, politics, and faith.

This is a similar premise to "Walking the Bible," which contains quite a few passages where Bruce Feiler is wrestling with the lack of historical evidence for major events like the Flood and the Exodus or whether Moses really existed:

The unusual circumstances of this story -- the fact that Moses gets his name from an Egyptian and is raised in the pharaonic court, the fact that he claims not to speak well -- have led many to speculate that Moses wasn't an Israelite at all. Sigmund Freud, in his influential book "Moses and Monotheism," says that Moses was an Egyptian who learned monotheism from Akhenaten and was inspired to lead a revolt of foreign slaves out of a desire to overthrow his symbolic father. Freud says Moses gave the slaves the idea that they were a chosen people, which in turn led to anti-Semitism. "It was one man, the man Moses who created the Jews. To him his people owes its tenacity in supporting life; to him, however, it also owes much of the hostility which it has met and is meeting still.

Leaving aside Freud's psychological interpretation, many scholars agree with his underlying thesis, that Moses might have been an Egyptian.

First off, lots of scholars have lots of contradictory theories. This is the academic process. But after reading this, I jumped onto my computer and ordered Jonathan Kirsch's book, "Moses: A Life," which I anticipate will add to the discussion (though in half a year I have yet to crack).

The passage reminded me of Rabbi David Wolpe's famous Passover sermon a few years ago, when he let members of Sinai Temple know that most scholars don't believe the Exodus actually occurred. The declaration dropped on LA Jewry like an A-bomb (little hyperbole intended), thanks to the LA Times, which played the story as a Column One:

Wolpe's startling sermon may have seemed blasphemy to some. In fact, however, the rabbi was merely telling his flock what scholars have known for more than a decade. Slowly and often outside wide public purview, archeologists are radically reshaping modern understanding of the Bible. It was time for his people to know about it, Wolpe decided. After a century of excavations trying to prove the ancient accounts true, archeologists say there is no conclusive evidence that the Israelites were ever in Egypt, were ever enslaved, ever wandered in the Sinai wilderness for 40 years or ever conquered the land of Canaan under Joshua's leadership. To the contrary, the prevailing view is that most of Joshua's fabled military campaigns never occurred--archeologists have uncovered ash layers and other signs of destruction at the relevant time at only one of the many battlegrounds mentioned in the Bible.

Today, the prevailing theory is that Israel probably emerged peacefully out of Canaan--modern-day Lebanon, southern Syria, Jordan and the West Bank of Israel--whose people are portrayed in the Bible as wicked idolators. Under this theory, the Canaanites took on a new identity as Israelites were perhaps joined or led by a small group of Semites from Egypt--explaining a possible source of the Exodus story, scholars say. As they expanded their settlement, they may have begun to clash with neighbors, perhaps providing the historical nuggets for the conflicts recorded in Joshua and Judges.

"Scholars have known these things for a long time, but we've broken the news very gently," said William Dever, a professor of Near Eastern archeology and anthropology at the University of Arizona and one of America's preeminent archeologists. Dever's view is emblematic of a fundamental shift in archeology. Three decades ago as a Christian seminary student, he wrote a paper defending the Exodus and got an A, but "no one would do that today," he says.

The Jewish Journal followed the next week with a cover package dedicated to Exodus-doubting fallout, including conservative columnist Dennis Prager arguing that no Exodus = no Judaism, just as Christians would say that without the resurrection, Christianity is dead. But if Christianity is built upon the Torah, upon the stories of Jewish history, does it also need a literal, factual, historical Exodus?

And if we the faithful are willing to dismiss some historical findings, what is the value of biblical archeology?

Hamas fires rockets; Gaza City goes dark

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Gaza City was plunged into darkness Sunday after Israel blocked the shipment of fuel that powers its only electrical plant in retaliation for persistent rocket attacks by Gaza militants.

The power cut sent already beleaguered Gazans to stock up on food and batteries in anticipation of dark, cold days ahead. Gaza officials warned the move would cause a health catastrophe while a U.N. agency and human rights groups condemned Israel.

"We have the choice to either cut electricity on babies in the maternity ward or heart surgery patients or stop operating rooms," Gaza Health Ministry official Dr. Moaiya Hassanain said.

Israel justified the cutoff because of continuous rocket attacks by Gaza militants. Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Arye Meckel said the Gaza Strip continues to receive 70 percent of its electricity supply directly from Israel, which would not be affected, and another 5 percent from Egypt.

The blackout "is a Hamas ploy to pretend there is some kind of crisis to attract international sympathy," he told The Associated Press.

To read the rest of the story, click here. And for more about those rocket attacks and the havoc they reek on life in the Western Negev, read my report from Sderot and also this and this and this.

'I am Jewish'

In his criticism of Arun Gandhi's comments that Jews and Israel are to blame for a "culture of violence," Judea Pearl mentioned some of the last words of his son, Daniel, who was beheaded by Islamic radicals six years ago. Last February, Daniel's parents talked about what it meant for Daniel to be a Jew in this video, which opens with his voice.



Daniel Pearl's most memorable words, "I am Jewish," gave life to a book by that name that carries reflections of some of the world's most recognizable Jews.

Jews with swords: 'Gentleman of the Road'

Let’s face it: we Jews were never really the sword-carrying type. And that’s a good thing because you know what they say about those who live by the sword.

But, it’s amusing to read about Jews with swords in Michael Chabon’s latest novel, “Gentlemen of the Road.”

Originally published earlier this year in serial installments in the New York Times Magazine, the book follows the exploits of a pair of 10th century Jews — Amram and Zelikman — who pursue adventure throughout the Caucasus Mountains. They fight with swords and battle-axes, swindle tavern dwellers, perform daring acts of thievery and ultimately help raise a rebel army to overthrow the man who usurped the throne of the Khazar Empire from its rightful owner.

That’s a lot to get through in 196 pages but with Chabon’s fine storytelling abilities, our heroes make it from beginning to end without leaving the reader feeling rushed.

That's from Jewish Literary Review. Such fond phrases come as no surprise. Chabon is, quite simply, a master. I finished last week "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay," which reminded me poignantly of his ability with a pen. (Coupled with "swords," mentioning "pen" reminds me of a couple of Sean Connery SNL sketches.)

As for Jews with swords, sometimes they've wielded them well. Other times not so much.

Gandhi's grandson resigns after accusing Jews of 'culture of violence'

In a recent commentary for the blog On Faith, Arun Gandhi, a grandson of the great pacifist, accused Jews of using the Holocaust to promote of "culture of violence":

"The holocaust was the result of the warped mind of an individual who was able to influence his followers into doing something dreadful. But, it seems to me the Jews today not only want the Germans to feel guilty but the whole world must regret what happened to the Jews," Gandhi wrote. "The world did feel sorry for the episode but when an individual or a nation refuses to forgive and move on the regret turns into anger. The Jewish identity in the future appears bleak."

Outcry regarding Gandhi's comment led to his resignation yesterday from the M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence at the University of Rochester and an apology from the On Faith editors. I've got a short story up about it, with lots of links, at JewishJournal.com. The protest wasn't led, but was certainly helped, by Judea Pearl.

Pearl, an op-ed columnist for The Jewish Journal whose son was killed by Islamic extremists at least in part because he was Jewish, directed his protest to Donald Graham, chairman of The Washington Post Co., the text of which is reprinted on the blog.

"In his final moments," Pearl wrote, "Danny told his captors on camera: 'My father is Jewish, My mother is Jewish, I am Jewish,' and, as President Bush said in the White House last month: 'These words have become a source of inspiration to Americans of all faiths.'

"My son Daniel died mighty proud of his Jewish identity. He, like the millions of decent and peace-seeking Israelis, and Americans who proudly carry on their Jewish heritage, did not see his identity as 'dependent on violence' as the title of Gandhi's article implies.

"Mr. Graham, the article your editors have allowed to be posted is a painful insult to everything Daniel stood for, to everything America stands for, and to every decent person inspired by Daniel's words.

"Too many people were killed, abused or dispossessed in the past century by words of irresponsible authors, often disguised as scholars or humanitarians, who pointed fingers at, and blamed one segment of society for the ills and maladies in the world.

"Arun Gandhi did just that."

Sometimes, I think statements get blown out of proportion as being anti-Semitic. There was a great case of that in Thousand Oaks last summer. But it seemed to me from reading Gandhi's three-paragraph commentary, and his subsequent "apology," that he holds deeply negative views about Jews and Israel.

I'm from the school of thought that says criticism is OK. Even if it's not entirely constructive. But broad-brushing an entire people with stereotypes, that's not so useful.

No longer searching for Bobby Fischer

He was probably the greatest chess player the world has ever seen. He also was virulently anti-American and anti-Semitic, odd because he was born in Chicago to a Jewish woman. Bobby Fischer, who had been living for years in exile, died Thursday.

He had emerged briefly in 1992 from a mysterious seclusion that had lasted two decades and defied an American ban on conducting business in wartorn Yugoslavia to play a $5 million match against his old nemesis, the Russian-born grandmaster Boris Spassky.

After he won handily, he dropped out of sight again, living alone. He avoided arrest on American charges over his Yugoslavia appearance and stayed in touch with his few friends in the United States by telephone, compelling them to keep his secrets or risk his rejection.

He lived in Budapest -- and possibly the Philippines and Switzerland -- and emerged now and then on radio stations in Iceland, Hungary and the Philippines to rant in increasingly belligerent terms against the United States and against Jews.

Genius was certainly too much pressure for Fischer, whose appearance, when he made it, was constantly on the wane and prone to outburst. Often on the radio, the most telling of these was his Sept. 11, 2001 reaction to the terrorist attacks:

"This is all wonderful news," he announced. "I applaud the act. The U.S. and Israel have been slaughtering the Palestinians, just slaughtering them for years. Robbing them and slaughtering them. Nobody gave a sh--. Now it's coming back to the U.S. F--- the U.S. I want to see the U.S. wiped out."

Fischer added that the events of September 11 provided the ideal opportunity to stage a long-overdue coup d'état. He envisioned, he said, a "Seven Days in May scenario," with the country taken over by the military; he also hoped to see all its synagogues closed, and hundreds of thousands of Jews executed. "Ultimately the white man should leave the United States and the black people should go back to Africa," he said. "The white people should go back to Europe, and the country should be returned to the American Indians. This is the future I would like to see for the so-called United States." Before signing off Fischer cried out, "Death to the U.S.!"

When Fischer was released from detention in Japan two years ago, he was confronted at a press conference by Jeremy Schaap, the ESPN broadcaster whose father had befriended a young Fischer.

"I knew your father," he drawls to the young, dark-haired Schaap. "He rapped me very hard. He said I didn't have a sane bone in my body. I don't forget that."

I ask about chess; a Russian TV crew asks about Kasparov; the Icelanders ask whether Fischer likes herring, but the Schaap affair won't go away. Fischer insists on returning to it, and things suddenly turn ugly. "Let me get back to this guy," says Fischer, pointing at the young, dark-haired Schaap. "I hate to rap people personally, but his father many years ago befriended me, took me to see Knicks games, acted kind of like a father figure, and then later like a typical Jewish snake he had the most vicious things to say about me."

Schaap snaps at that, says "I don't know that you've done much here today really to disprove anything he said," and walks out. All on camera. Maybe it's a made-for-TV set-up, maybe not, but it certainly chills the air: Fischer groans and there is a half-minute silence before the woman from Icelandic radio can can things back on track with another question about herring. The human being starts to emerge from under the baseball cap, then bang, he's off again with another lengthy exposition of his intricately wrought, completely bonkers theories, usually rounded off with: "It's all on the internet! Why don't you go look it up?"

Insider: UJC a 'stumbling bureaucracy'

The Forward has a story on problems at the United Jewish Communities, the umbrella organization for Jewish umbrella organizations.

Adding to the tension, an anonymous, apparently insider blog has begun to attract attention among leaders nationwide, airing charges of UJC indirection and low staff morale.

UJC has been criticized as ineffective and inefficient almost since its formation in 1999 through a merger of three predecessor agencies, the United Jewish Appeal, United Israel Appeal and Council of Jewish Federations. UJC’s current president and CEO, Howard Rieger, has attempted, since taking office in 2005, to restructure and streamline the agency, but his tenure has been marked by turmoil. A number of senior professionals have left UJC since Rieger’s arrival; the local Detroit federation is in rebellion over its dues to UJC, and several other federations have protested the dues formula. Meanwhile, the annual fundraising campaign has stagnated, and allocations to overseas beneficiaries, the charities’ signature cause, have been dropping.
The organization has also been accused of being closed and resistant to criticism. Now, however, long-rumored internal complaints are being aired in the new blog.

“Notwithstanding the hopes of the federation system and the merging organizations that created United Jewish Communities in 1999, any fair review of its ‘accomplishments’ since its founding would have to conclude that UJC has been a costly bust,” said the opening post to the blog, which calls itself Disunited Jewish Communities. “What UJC is today is nothing more than a stumbling bureaucracy that can’t get out of its own way."

I don't cover national Jewish organizations, so I don't know if it's true. But I'm not sure even Stanley Gold speaks that bluntly.

More on the MySpace suicide

Remember the sad story of Megan Meier, the 13-year-old girl who killed herself after being ridiculed by a fictional "friend" on MySpace? A grand jury in Los Angeles is investigating charges that the mother who created or helped her daughter, a former friend of Megan's, create the Josh Evans identity committed fraud against the Beverly Hills-based company.

This story was, not surprisingly, at the top of the headlines across the country in November. For a better view, The New Yorker sent Lauren Collins to Dardenne Prairie, Mo. Here's her story.

Teen-age identities mutate so quickly online, and can be masked so easily, that by the morning after Megan was pronounced dead Josh Evans had vanished from MySpace. It wasn’t until a month after her death that a neighbor named Michele Mulford told the Meiers that Curt and Lori Drew, who lived four houses down, had created “Josh” in concert with their thirteen-year-old daughter, a longtime friend of Megan’s. (An eighteen-year-old girl who worked for the Drews was also involved.) The two thirteen-year-olds had recently quarrelled. Mulford’s own daughter, also thirteen, had been given the password to the account, and had sent at least one unkind message to Megan in Josh’s name. Megan had accompanied the Drews on several vacations, and they knew that she was taking medication.

For nearly a year, on the advice of the police, the Meiers had kept quiet about the Drews’ involvement in Megan’s death. After investigators determined that the Drews’ actions, if cruel, had not broken any laws, the Meiers spoke with Steve Pokin, a columnist at the local paper, the Suburban Journals. Pokin revealed the ruse in his column, “Pokin’ Around,” on November 13th of last year. “I know that they did not physically come up to our house and tie a belt around her neck,” Tina Meier told Pokin. “But when adults are involved and continue to screw with a thirteen-year-old—with or without mental problems—it is absolutely vile.”

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In the three weeks since Steve Pokin’s article appeared, public opinion against the Drews had been harsh, verging on violent. Much of the outrage was directed at Lori Drew as an exemplar of the micromanaging “helicopter parent,” a familiar image at least since the Wanda Holloway case. In Channelview, Texas, in 1991, Holloway, a homemaker, attempted to hire a hit man to eliminate a neighbor, Verna Heath, the mother of a girl, Amber, who had twice been elected cheerleader over Holloway’s daughter, Shanna. But Channelview and Dardenne Prairie, where teen-agers still have after-school jobs, are not type-A parent/overscheduled kid kinds of towns. Like Wanda Holloway, Lori Drew may not have represented a helicopter parent so much as a more ancient archetype: the resentful neighbor.

Lori Drew has shown little remorse, contending, through a lawyer, that she is the undeserving victim of an “avalanche of criticism.” Her statement suggests that she may have been less an overbearing parent than an indifferent one:

Although she was aware of the account, Lori Drew never sent any messages to Megan or to anyone else using this MySpace account. . . . Lori Drew was not aware of any mean, nasty or negative comments made by anyone against Megan until after Megan took her own life. . . .

Pam Fogarty, the mayor, had two hundred unanswered e-mails in her in-box. “People are shocked, and they’re pissed as hell!” she told me. Fogarty

Those godless Jews

You've heard the slander before, no doubt. But what if it wasn't a denigration? What if that was the point?

In a recent column on the religion Web site On Faith, Jonathan Sarna talks about how younger Jews have returned to a 100-year-old movement, that which marries Judaism with secularism. But these are often amorphous philosophies, as much social and political as spiritual, not non-theistic religious communities.

That is, however, the case with Jewish Humanists, whom Manya Brachear checks in on.

When Rabbi Adam Chalom stands before the Sabbath flames and sings the Hebrew blessing to welcome Shabbat, there is no mention of God.

Chalom believes there are no prophets. He preaches that only hard work yields miracles. And until science unlocks life's mysteries, his most honest answer to why people are here and where they go when they die is, "I don't know."

God has nothing to do with it.

At 32, the north suburban rabbi is the new face of the world's youngest and most provocative Jewish movement, Humanistic Judaism. These Jews celebrate the faith's historic culture, but revere compassion and generosity instead of God.

Chalom steps up to carry the movement at a turbulent time, when American society is increasingly polarized about God, and Humanistic Jews are still mourning Rabbi Sherwin Wine, the larger-than-life personality who founded the iconoclastic movement in 1963. Wine died last year in a car crash.

Chalom argues, and surveys support him, that a majority of American Jews embrace the humanists' emphasis on culture and ethics, independent of God. Many Jews buy tickets for High Holiday services and utter prayers to a supreme power they don't believe exists, he contends. Others simply abandon Jewish traditions.

For these Jews, Chalom says, the humanistic movement offers an authentic alternative, allowing them to celebrate rites of passage without compromising their beliefs.

"Honestly, we're keeping people Jewish," Chalom said.

Winehouse's Chanukah and Christmas album?

She's bellowed about "Rehab" and "F--- Me Pumps" but can you seriously imagine Amy Winehouse singing "Ma'oz Tzur" or "Silent Night"?

Winehouse's producer, Mark Ronson, told Rolling Stone magazine this week that the two had discussed an album of Hanukkah and Christmas songs.

"We're talking about making a holiday record, with Christmas songs on one side and Hanukkah songs on the other," Ronson told Rolling Stone. "She's got songs called, like, Kosher Kisses and Alone Under the Mistletoe."

According to Ronson, the idea came as the two were bemoaning the lack of "cool" Jewish songs for Hanukkah.

"She was kind of f**king around, but I was like, 'You have all these amazing records to play for Christmas, like Motown and Carla Thomas and the Charlie Brown Christmas, and unfortunately, us Jews have nothing that cool to listen to. So we should do something," Ronson told the magazine.

Yeah, that should go over really well with Christians. Not to mention, Jews have a cool Chanukah song. It's called "The Chanukah Song," and it comes in three versions

Imagining a newly divided Middle East

Not long ago, in a decrepit prison in Iraqi Kurdistan, a senior interrogator with the Kurdish intelligence service decided, for my entertainment and edification, to introduce me to an al-Qaeda terrorist named Omar. “This one is crazy,” the interrogator said. “Don’t get close, or he’ll bite you.”

Omar was a Sunni Arab from a village outside Mosul; he was a short and weedy man, roughly 30 years old, who radiated a pure animal anger. He was also a relentless jabberer; he did not shut up from the moment we were introduced. I met him in an unventilated interrogation room that smelled of bleach and paint. He was handcuffed, and he cursed steadily, making appalling accusations about the sexual practices of the interrogator’s mother. He cursed the Kurds, in general, as pig-eaters, blasphemers, and American lackeys. As Omar ranted, the interrogator smiled. “I told you the Arabs don’t like the Kurds,” he said. I’ve known the interrogator for a while, and this is his perpetual theme: close proximity to Arabs has sabotaged Kurdish happiness.

Omar, the Kurds claim, was once an inconsequential deputy to the now-deceased terrorist chieftain Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Omar disputed this characterization. By his own telling, he accomplished prodigies of terror against the pro-American Kurdish forces in the northern provinces of Iraq. “You are worse than the Americans,” he told his Kurdish interrogator. “You are the enemy of the Muslim nation. You are enemies of God.” The interrogator—I will not name him here, for reasons that will become apparent in a moment—sat sturdily opposite Omar, absorbing his invective for several minutes, absentmindedly paging through a copy of the Koran.

During a break in the tirade, the interrogator asked Omar, for my benefit, to rehearse his biography. Omar’s life was undistinguished. His father was a one-donkey farmer; Omar was educated in Saddam’s school system, which is to say he was hardly educated; he joined the army, and then Ansar al-Islam, the al-Qaeda–affiliated terrorist group that operates along the Iranian frontier. And then, on the blackest of days, as he described it, he fell prisoner to the Kurds.

The interrogator asked me if I had any questions for Omar. Yes, I said: Have you been tortured in this prison?

“No,” he said.

“What would you do if you were to be released from prison right now?”

“I would get a knife and cut your head off,” he said.

At this, the interrogator smacked Omar across the face with the Koran.

Omar yelped in shock. The interrogator said: “Don’t talk that way to a guest!”

Now, Omar rounded the bend. A bolus of spit flew from his mouth as he screamed. The interrogator taunted Omar further. “This book of yours,” he said, waving the Koran. “‘Cut off their heads! Cut off their heads!’ That’s the answer for everything!” Omar cursed the interrogator’s mother once again; the interrogator trumped him by cursing the Prophet Muhammad’s mother.

The meeting was then adjourned.

In the hallway, I asked the interrogator, “Aren’t you Muslim?”

“Of course,” he said.

“But you’re not a big believer in the Koran?”

“The Koran’s OK,” he said. “I don’t have any criticism of Muhammad’s mother. I just say that to get him mad.”

He went on, “The Koran wasn’t written by God, you know. It was written by Arabs. The Arabs were imperialists, and they forced it on us.” This is a common belief among negligibly religious Kurds, of whom there are many millions.

“That’s your problem, then,” I said. “Arabs.”

“Of course,” he replied. “The Arabs are responsible for all our misfortunes.”

“What about the Turks?” I asked. It is the Turks, after all, who are incessantly threatening to invade Iraqi Kurdistan, which they decline to call “Iraqi Kurdistan,” in more or less the same obstreperous manner that they refuse to call the Armenian genocide a genocide.

“The Turks, too,” he said. “Everyone who denies us our right to be free is responsible for our misfortunes.”

We stepped out into the sun. “The Kurds never had friends. Now we have the most important friend, America. We’re closer to freeing ourselves from the Arabs than ever,” he said.

So goes the opening of Jeffrey Goldberg's amazing cover story for this month's Atlantic and the hope of Iraqi Kurds who believe the American-led ouster of Saddam Hussein was the beginning of the new nation of Kurdistan. In his article, Goldberg imagines a new map of the Middle East, seen above, which he says could be the greatest consequence of the war.

It used to be that the most far-reaching and inventive question one could ask about the Middle East was this: How many states, one or two—Israel or a Palestinian state, or both—will one day exist on the slip of land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River?

Today, that question seems trivial when compared with this one: How many states will there one day be between the Mediterranean and the Euphrates River? Three? Four? Five? Six? And why stop at the western bank of the Euphrates? Why not go all the way to the Indus River? Between the Mediterranean and the Indus today lie Israel and the Palestinian territories, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Long-term instability could lead to the breakup of many of these states.

These new nations would largely be drawn along racial and ethnic lines, which certainly would lead to lots of bloodshed, probably like what we saw in Iraq before the sectarian violence slowed toward the end of the year. In fact, many in the Middle East and some pro-Palestinian American academics think this was the goal: an American plot to Balkanize Arab countries for the benefit of Israel. Seriously. The article is so ripe with choice nuggets that I can't possibly mention them all, but here is a poignant one made by a long-quite voice.

The neoconservatives’ big idea was that American-style democracy would quickly take hold in Iraq, spread through the Arab Middle East, and then be followed by the collapse of al-Qaeda, who would no longer have American-backed authoritarian Arab regimes to rally against. But democracy has turned out to be a habit not easily cultivated, and the idea that Arab political culture is capable of absorbing democratic notions of governance has fallen into disfavor.

In December of 2006, I went to the Israeli Embassy in Washington for a ceremony honoring Natan Sharansky, who had just received the Medal of Freedom from President Bush. Sharansky, the former Soviet dissident, had become the president’s tutor on the importance of democratic reform in the Arab world, and during the ceremony, he praised the president for pursuing unpopular policies. As he talked, the man next to me, a senior Israeli security official, whispered, “What a child.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“It’s not smart … He wants Jordan to be more democratic. Do you know what that would mean for Israel and America? If you were me, would you rather have a stable monarch who is secular and who has a good intelligence service on your eastern border, or would you rather have a state run by Hamas? That’s what he would get if there were no more monarchy in Jordan.”

After the ceremony, I spoke with Sharansky about this critique. He acknowledged that he is virtually the lone neoconservative thinker in Israel, and one of the few who still believes that democracy is exportable to the Arab world, by force or otherwise.

“After I came back from Washington once,” he said, “I saw [Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon in the Knesset, and he said, ‘Mazel tov, Natan. You’ve convinced President Bush of something that doesn’t exist.’”

Jews respond to Obama smear

Leaders of major Jewish organizations responded to Richard Cohen's thinly veiled argument that Barack Obama was an anti-Semite by association with this open letter:

As leaders of the Jewish community, none of whose organizations will endorse or oppose any candidate for President, we feel compelled to speak out against certain rhetoric and tactics in the current campaign that we find particularly abhorrent. Of particular concern, over the past several weeks, many in our community have received hateful emails that use falsehood and innuendo to mischaracterize Senator Barack Obama’s religious beliefs and who he is as a person.

These tactics attempt to drive a wedge between our community and a presidential candidate based on despicable and false attacks and innuendo based on religion. We reject these efforts to manipulate members of our community into supporting or opposing candidates.

Attempts of this sort to mislead and inflame voters should not be part of our political discourse and should be rebuffed by all who believe in our democracy. Jewish voters, like all voters, should support whichever candidate they believe would make the best president. We urge everyone to make that decision based on the factual records of these candidates, and nothing less.

Sincerely,

Rabbi Marvin Hier, Founder and Dean, Simon Wiesenthal Center

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, Associate Dean, Simon Wiesenthal Center

William Daroff, Vice President, United Jewish Communities

Nathan J. Diament, Director, Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America

Abraham Foxman, National Director, Anti-Defamation League

Richard S. Gordon, President, American Jewish Congress

David Harris, Executive Director, American Jewish Committee

Rabbi David Saperstein, Director, Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism

Phyllis Snyder, President, National Council of Jewish Women

Hadar Susskind, Washington Director, Jewish Council for Public Affairs

Huckabee: 'Change the Constitution' for God

I have no idea why Mike Huckabee thinks the Constitution is un-Christian, a statement he made last night that only makes me more wary of his candidacy.

I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution. But I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God, and that's what we need to do is to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards so it lines up with some contemporary view of how we treat each other and how we treat the family.

This is really ridiculous. And it is exactly the kind of politicking the Constitution sought to prevent. Huckabee keeps selling his conservative Christian creds like a used-car salesman, but this time it might backfire.

I can see how support for a human life amendment and a federal marriage amendment can win votes among some politically conservative evangelicals. But honestly, I'm thinking that this quote probably cost Huckabee more evangelical votes than it won him. The strongest supporters of those amendments have made the case on pragmatic grounds, not theological ones. James Dobson, for example, doesn't say the federal marriage amendment is necessary to bring the Constitution in line with God's standards. He says it's necessary to keep marriage from being redefined legally and culturally.

Six degrees of separation: Obama and anti-Semitism

Barack Obama has courted Jews early and often in his rapid political ascendancy, even if he did falter a bit in May. But there have been some rumors circulating that Obama's not the philo-Semite he seems to be, culminating in a Richard Cohen column in today's Washington Post.

Barack Obama is a member of Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ. Its minister, and Obama's spiritual adviser, is the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. In 1982, the church launched Trumpet Newsmagazine; Wright's daughters serve as publisher and executive editor. Every year, the magazine makes awards in various categories. Last year, it gave the Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. Trumpeter Award to a man it said "truly epitomized greatness." That man is Louis Farrakhan.

Maybe for Wright and some others, Farrakhan "epitomized greatness." For most Americans, though, Farrakhan epitomizes racism, particularly in the form of anti-Semitism. Over the years, he has compiled an awesome record of offensive statements, even denigrating the Holocaust by falsely attributing it to Jewish cooperation with Hitler -- "They helped him get the Third Reich on the road." His history is a rancid stew of lies.

M.J. Rosenberg sees something more insidious at play here: Dirty politics.

the whispers about Obama go like this. "You know, Obama's minister is a big Farrakhan supporter." "He's also Muslim, or half Muslim." "He studied in a madrassa." "And he's very anti-Israel."

No one knows if any campaign is behind these charges. According to the informative analysis and poll by Shmuel Rosner in Ha'aretz, the right-wing of the Jewish community does not like Obama and strongly favors Giuliani and Clinton because of their hardline stances on Israel.

But I don't think any campaign is behind this round of swiftboating because it bears all the markings of the Jewish far right, the camp that cheered Rabin's assassination. Nevertheless, the smears will have an effect, regardless of its origins. It will be felt on Super Tuesday when hundreds of thousands of Jews vote in New York, California, and elsewhere.

It's pretty ugly and today columnist Richard Cohen is taking it mainstream. Check out his column in the Washington Post. He shares the story of Obama's Farrakhan-admiring minister and sounds the alarms to Jews everywhere. He demands Obama repudiate the pastor. What idiocy! ...

Cohen should be ashamed. But, rest assured, none of the people involved in the race-baiting of Barack Obama are capable of it.

Considering the number of Jews involved in Obama's campaign, from the most official level to the grassroots, it's hard to believe he's really a closet Jew hater.

The American wives of Saudi men

Yesterday's Column One by Jeffrey Fleishman was, as usual, an excellent read. The storyline was, as usual, unique and, as of late, about the collision of Western values and Muslim culture:

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia -- Teresa Malof knew she wasn't in Kentucky anymore when a cleric issued a fatwa against her secret Santa gift exchange.

Malof proposed the idea at the King Fahad National Guard Hospital, where she has worked for more than a decade. It was supposed to be discreet, but rumors were whispered amid veils and hijabs that the lithe, blond nurse, raised on farmland at the edge of Appalachia, was planning to celebrate a Christian tradition in an Islamic kingdom that forbids the practicing of other religions.

"Even though I'm a Muslim too, I like to celebrate the holidays and have gift exchanges," said Malof, a convert to Islam who is married to the son of a former Saudi ambassador. "But word got out and the religious people came with a fatwa [or edict] against the Santa party. My husband was having a heart attack. He was worried I'd be in a lot of trouble."

For American women married to Saudi men, such is life in this exotic, repressive and often beguiling society where tribal customs and religious fervor rub against oil wealth and the tinted-glass skyscrapers that rise Oz-like in the blurry desert heat. This is not a land of the 1st Amendment and voting rights; it is a kingdom run by the strict interpretation of Wahhabi Islam, where abayas hang in foyers, servants linger like ghosts, minarets glow in green neon and, as a recent court case showed, a woman who is raped can also be sentenced to 200 lashes for un-Islamic behavior.

"Haram, haram" (forbidden, forbidden). American wives know the phrase well. It is learned over years of peeking through veils at supermarkets or sitting in the back of SUVs while Filipinos behind the wheel glide through traffic. Their adopted Arab home is a traditionally close U.S. ally. But like much of the Islamic world, Saudi Arabia's relations with Washington have been strained since the rise of global jihad. Terrorist bombings, which have killed nearly 150 people here in recent years, have kept many American families in gated communities that have the aura of golf courses protected by small armies.

Most non-Muslim women convert to Islam as a prerequisite for marrying a Saudi and living in the kingdom. Many American women, including those who converted before they arrived, have embraced the Koran; for others, the adoption of Islam is a pantomime act, the disguise of a second self to hold them over until they peel off their head scarves and travel to the U.S. for summer vacations.

For both kinds of women, it is a life of sacrifices and measured victories: Women can't drive or vote in Saudi Arabia, but their children are largely safe from street crime and drugs; a wife can't leave the country without her husband's written permission, but tribal and religious codes instill a strong sense of family.

Freedom lies behind courtyard walls, where private swimming pools glimmer and the eyes of the religious police, known as the mutaween, do not venture. Rock 'n' roll (haram) is played, smuggled whiskey (haram) is sipped, and Christianity (haram) sometimes is practiced. This sequestered, contradictory experience, a number of American wives noted, can turn an expat into an alcoholic or a born-again Christian, and sometimes both.

"American women get together and we talk," said Lori Baker, a mother of two who met her Saudi husband at Ohio State University in 1982. "We ask one another, 'Where are you on your curve now? Have you hit bottom yet?' We all go through the highs and lows when it comes to moods and tolerance. . . . When I first got here, I felt naked without my head scarf.

"Then after the terrorist bombings in 2003, I even covered my face. Foreigners were a target then. I became very comfortable with my face covered. I felt safe. Nobody knows me. They can't see me, and if you're covered, they respect you. Sometimes without a covered face it's like walking down Main Street wearing a bikini."

Read the rest here.

The Christians who live below India's caste

That didn't take long. My article for the February Christianity Today about India's treatment of "Untouchables" who convert to Christianity (or Islam) went online this morning. I mentioned it yesterday in a piece about new Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal.

If Dalits change their official religious identification from Hindu to Christian, they can lose benefits such as access to federal jobs or admission to government-funded universities. In December, the Supreme Court of India delayed hearings for Muslims and Christians demanding full constitutional rights.

Two months earlier, the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) had issued a statement of conscience that urged the United States and Indian governments to protect Dalits from physical violence, discrimination, and economic despair.

"It is a compelling human rights issue," said Richard Cizik, vice president of governmental affairs for the NAE, "and we believe as evangelical Christians that the Dalits need to know we hear their concerns and are willing to come to their defense in a way that is diplomatic and salutary."

The church has grown significantly in India, thanks partly to an estimated 100,000 mostly native missionaries preaching throughout the country. But discrimination, both official and unofficial, continues against the Dalits.

The NAE's statement cited a 2005 killing of a Dalit man and a high-caste woman. They were beaten with rods and their throats were slit for marrying outside of their castes. The young woman's family had hired the killers.

Converting Bobby Jindal

The Times-Picayune had a lengthy profile last week of Louisiana's new Gov. Bobby Jindal that focused on the India native's conversion to Catholicism and the role that has played in his political ascent.

When Gov.-elect Bobby Jindal converted to Catholicism during high school and college, he took a momentous step away from his inherited faith of Hinduism, the prevalent religion of his parents' generation and Indian homeland.

But among Jindal's relatives and among Hindus in India generally, his decision to adopt the Christian way is strongly supported.

Jindal's personal path to Christianity, which had politically significant ramifications for Louisiana, was aided by an open-minded attitude among his relatives about theology. Also, he visited India infrequently as a child, giving him little chance to acquire the deeply ingrained appreciation for Hindu culture that comes from exposure to daily life in that country.

His relatives' perspective reflects a tolerant side of a religion that for thousands of years has survived philosophical transformations, rebellious counter-religions and numerous sects, only to claim them all in time as part of the infinitely flexible cosmos of Hindu faith.

"If you find and see that you get more peace of mind, more solace, in that religion, then why not change religion?" said Jindal's uncle Subhash Gupta, a practicing Hindu. "In India, many people change to the Christian religion. And I can understand that some people maybe find Christian religion more satisfying to their needs."

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Although the relatives' opinions might seem magnanimous, their views are typically Hindu. India's large-circulation national newspapers viewed Jindal's election as front-page news, and for the most part his conversion to Catholicism was not commented upon negatively. Indian criticism of Jindal instead has centered on his infrequent visits and seeming lack of interest in his parents' home country.

The Indian national figure Mahatma Gandhi, a Hindu so famous his image appears on most Indian currency, espoused religious tolerance because he believed there were many paths to God, so long as an individual was sincere in the pursuit of the divine way.

When asked about Jindal, Pandit Deoki Nandan Shastri, a Hindu holy man in Varanasi, made a similar point.

"Hindu is not a religion," he said. "Hinduism is a way of life."

"You pray to Christ, I pray to Rama, he prays to Mohammad," he said. "We are going the same way. God is one. His name is called a thousand names."

Sadly, such a liberal perspective is not universal in India, where Hindu fundamentalists poignantly remind the world that "religious extremist" is not just a code word for Islamic terrorist. Remember the Gujarat anti-Muslim pogrom five years ago that left 2,000 people dead, including a woman who's fetus was proudly ripped from her womb by this guy.


The fervency of Hindu nationalism is no secret; it gave birth to Pakistan and later Bangladesh. And India has had quite the history of violence against Christians, which sprang up again on Christmas Eve.

On Christmas Eve, violence broke out against Christians in the Kandhamal district of the eastern Indian state of Orissa, which has become well known for poor governance and class tensions. Hindu fundamentalist groups led by the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP, the World Hindu Council) have attacked Christians and their institutions at will in rural areas. Over 90 churches and Christian institutions have been burned and vandalized, over 700 Christian homes destroyed, and the number of pastors and Christians killed is yet to be known, according to a report by my colleagues in the All India Christian Council. A pastor in Chennai told me that 11 pastors have been killed and thousands of Dalit (formerly known as untouchable) Christians displaced. Compass Direct reports that the death count is at 9. Many people are missing, and others have vanished in the nearby forests.

Human Rights Watch and others have decried the present carnage in Orissa and have recognized that freedom of religious choice — especially in a democracy like India's — must be respected. The Prime Minister promised immediate action to restore peace in the state. But the affected areas are still reporting sporadic violence over two weeks since the attacks against Dalit Christians began.

Despite reports that Christians retaliated in some places, so far Dalit Freedom Network investigations and statements by the Orissa government indicate that Maoist rebels — called Naxalites — were behind the revenge attacks that left dozens of Hindu families homeless. Most Naxalites are armed Dalits, and their involvement gives evidence of the root problem: ancient caste divisions.

The author of this piece was Joseph D'Souza, whom I interviewed a few months ago for an article about the plight of the Dalits -- who dwell beneath the bottom of India's cast system -- that will appear in the February Christianity Today.

One of the biggest forms of discrimination meted out by the government is that Dalits who convert to Christianity or Islam lose their welfare eligibility. The same is not true if they converted to Buddhism or Sikhism. This often causes a dual identity.

"They will have their Hindu or pre-Christian indentity, sometimes keeping their Hindu name, because there is affirmative action and if they want to have the benefits of that, they cannot use their Christian name," Robert Eric Frykenberg, professor emeritus of history and South Asian studies at the University of Wisconsin, told me.

For more info about discrimination in India, I'll link to the article when it runs.

Christians shouldn't worry about the economy

I usually write a short article for each issue of Christianity Today, and last week I began contributing to the CT Liveblog, a coop blog for editors and reporters, with "Christian mission at the porn convention." You probably also saw it here, as co-posting will be the M.O. when I blog for CT.

Today on the Liveblog, Stan Guthrie has a piece attributing the roller-coaster round of early primaries to economic uncertainty. And while I can't say I agree with his political priorities or that I remember stagflation, he makes a strong point encouraging Christians not to worry about what tomorrow brings:

Every generation worries about the economy (remember the “stagflation” of the seventies?), and while no one knows the future with precision, I would guess that we have less to fear than most generations—even if recession comes. There are many other issues we also must consider, such as the war on terror, peace in the Middle East, abortion, the environment, and other priority issues.

Beyond all that, as Christians, we should look at the coming election through the lens of faith, not fear. We are to trust God to provide, not the promises of politicians. As a certain nonpolitical leader once said:

“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

"Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”

Thus, whatever the economy brings, we are to be busy doing his work—including helping those who really are struggling—trusting him to provide our needs each day.

The Onion for Christians

There is the Unitarian Church known as The Onion, where Ken Kesey and his Band of Merry Pranksters held their first acid test in L.A. And, of course, there is The Onion newspaper, which publishes story with headlines like this: "Dairy Company Introduces Lots-Of-Pulp Milk."

But there is also The Onion for Christians, better known LarkNews.com, via Christianity Today.

What keeps fans coming back for each month's fresh material is a wit so sharp that, as with The Onion, people sometimes mistake its satirical stories for real news. In February 2003, for example, Kilpatrick made up an item that Zondervan would publish a gay-friendly version of its New International Version of the Bible. Like many gay advocates within churches, the theoretical gNIV assumed that Jonathan and David were lovers. Enough people sent in horrified e-mails that Zondervan issued a statement calling the report "a sick joke."

Meanwhile, homeschooling bloggers fell for "Harvard forcing homeschoolers to 'Fit In,'" which played off of stereotypes that such students need more social skills. And Christian radio stations were duped by "Wal-Mart rejects 'racy' worship cd": "The latest Vineyard Music worship cd, 'Intimacy, vol. 2,' has raced to the top of the Christian sales charts, but Wal-Mart is refusing to stock the album without slapping on a parental warning sticker. The groundbreaking—some say risqué—album includes edgy worship songs such as 'My Lover, My God.'"

Today's top stories include "Warren to buy Saints, build Purpose-Driven Field," "Blessing the iPod: Churches sanctify music devices" and "Holy Spirit neglects to show up at revival."

Rev. Fuhrer a foe of injustice

A long-time voice for social justice in East Germany and its unified successor, the Rev. Christian Fuhrer is turning 65 and about to begin mandatory retirement. The New York Times made him the Saturday Profile.

CHRISTIAN FÜHRER was born in Leipzig in 1943, during World War II. Aside from how fitting his given name, Christian, is for a minister, his last name, Führer, simply means leader. Yet, for many — especially non-German speakers — the word is all but inseparable from Hitler. In addition to meaning leader, however, it also means guide, appropriate for a spiritual counselor.

A sickly child, he was fascinated by the way Jesus cared for the abject and the outsiders, and from a young age he knew he wanted to follow his father into the ministry. It was not a monastic life, however, but one of involvement that he sought. Pastor Führer cited Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the prominent German Protestant theologian who was part of a plot to overthrow Hitler, and was eventually executed in a concentration camp, as among his greatest influences.

“The church must always be political,” he said, “but there is a difference between political and party-political.”

If only American religious leaders and politicians agreed.

Round 2 for McCain and S. Carolina evangelicals

God-o-Meter looks at John McCain's second chance in South Carolina, the site of his presidential-would-be collapse eight years ago.

This all seems so eight years ago. A folksy Southern evangelical wins Iowa only to be stopped in his tracks by maverick John McCain. But will what happens next in the Republican presidential race be a replay of 2000? Will the Christian Right stop McCain cold in South Carolina? God-o-Meter doubts it. Let's examine the evidence:

1. As opposed to denouncing the Christian Right as "agents of intolerance," as he did in 2000, McCain is enthusiastically reaching out the movement. ...

2. McCain has launched a "truth squad" in South Carolina to smack down potentially ruinous attacks as they surface. Rumors spread by George W. Bush supporters about McCain in South Carolina--including that he had fathered an illegitimate child--hit him especially hard among "values voters."

3. McCain got just as many evangelical votes in New Hampshire as Mike Huckabee. ...

Does this mean John McCain will have an easy time in the Palmetto State? No. But for McCain, what happens next won't be a replay of 2000.

Inside Scientology's Celebrity Centre

My friends' apartment resides in the bluish glow of Scientology's LA offices, south and east of its Celebrity Centre in the former Château Elysee. I'm actually always surprised by how little foot traffic I see coming in and out of the main buildings, but clearly the religion based on the writings of sci-fi author L. Ron Hubbard has quite the following. The New Yorker checks in on its draw from the entertainment industry.

From the outset, the conversion of celebrities was important to Scientology. An internal newsletter produced by the Hubbard Communications Office, probably in the mid-fifties, asserts, “There are many to whom America and the world listens. On the backs of these are carried most of the enthusiasms on which the society runs.” It goes on, “It is obvious what would happen to America if we helped its leaders to help others. Project Celebrity is part of that program. It is obvious what would happen to Scientology if prime communicators benefitting from it would mention it now and then.” The piece concludes with a list of the day’s stars—Orson Welles, Howard Hughes, Walt Disney, and Greta Garbo among them—referring to them as “game” and “quarry” for Scientologists to “hunt.” Though Scientology is not known to have had success with this early group, the movement now counts Tom Cruise, John Travolta, Kirstie Alley, and many other celebrities as members.

Celebrity Centre is used for Scientology courses and for “auditing,” a mainstay of the religion, in which a person undergoes a guided talk-therapy session, usually while holding a device known as an E-Meter, which is supposed to measure one’s spiritual state. The goal is to eliminate “mental image pictures” associated with traumatic events; when a person is “Clear”—freed of all such associations—he can advance to the mystical and esoteric levels of Scientology. The path to becoming an “Operating Thetan,” or pure spiritual being (“thetan” being Hubbard’s word for the soul), is laid out in a table called “The Bridge to Total Freedom: Scientology Classification Gradation and Awareness Chart of Levels and Certificates.” Scientology is a technological religion and claims to have developed “exact, precise methods to increase man’s spiritual awareness and capability.” Completion of the Bridge takes years, and each stage requires a cash investment. An initial twelve-and-a-half-hour auditing session costs between six and seven hundred dollars, Greg LaClaire, a vice-president of Celebrity Centre, says. (Aspiring Scientologists can mitigate the expense by choosing to be audited by a fellow initiate rather than by a staff member.) In the Holiday 2007 Dianetics and Scientology catalogue, a deluxe Planetary Dissemination Edition E-Meter—billed as a “tool for Golden Age of Tech certainty,” to assist in “faster progress up The Bridge”—was offered, in “Diamond Blue,” for five thousand five hundred dollars.

On Celebrity Centre’s upper floors, there are thirty-nine hotel rooms to accommodate visiting Scientologists. An undated leaflet advertising “a safe environment for Celebrities and Scientologists” contains a plug from Travolta: “Good rest, good food, good service but most of all I felt very safe in this space”; Celebrity, a magazine produced by Celebrity Centre, which features a Scientology celebrity on the cover of every issue, urges readers to stay at the hotel for five to six weeks “to complete your Basics books & lectures courses faster!” In the basement, there’s a drug detox facility. The castle also fosters a feeling of community. “Hollywood’s not a very easy industry to bust into,” Hilary Royce, a former dancer who went to Sarah Lawrence and is now the director of community affairs for the Church of Scientology International, told me. “Any artist at Celebrity Centre would tell you it’s a safe place to study scripts, to network. It’s really a hub.”

The promise of connectedness attracts many Hollywood hopefuls. Celebrity Centre offers a range of Success in the Industry Seminars—Breaking Into Commercials, How to Get Cast in the Pilot Season, Hollywood Acting Class—which it promotes with flyers posted at auditions around town. A former actor I spoke with told me that when he first got to Hollywood, a decade ago, he went to Celebrity Centre for what “seemed like a legitimate industry workshop,” only to find that “it was more or less an opportunity for them to solicit people.”

“I stood in the foyer and watched this massive indoctrination presentation, where Marissa Ribisi, Juliette Lewis, and a casting director came out talking about how great it is to be in Scientology,” he said. “This celebrity panel was confirming that the people in the audience could in fact realize their dreams if they took courses and got ‘Clear.’ Then I was followed by auditors, who tried to get me to go into another room and get audited. It was a pervasive, invasive type of sales pitch. I started to get really pissed, and then they started to say that my stress was causing discomfort in my life.”

The rest of Dana Goodyear's piece offers a rhythmic history of the Celebrity Centre more than the Church of Scientology, not reminiscent of this staple from Rolling Stone.

Hey Karl Rove: What happened to two Jews, three opinions?

Yesterday, I added to my story list the fact that many Jewish Angelenos are upset with American Jewish University for inviting Karl Rove to speak at its vaunted Public Lecture Series. Then today I opened The Jewish Journal and saw that Rob Eshman had dedicated his column to that exact topic, and I realized how much better a story like this reads when it has the voice of someone who is allowed to inject their opinion.

Something has happened in the Jewish community, all across the political and religious spectrum, and it isn't good.

Somehow too many people in the Jewish community have become stuck in a very dangerous place: their comfort zone.

They are loathe to confront and really hear ideas that differ from their own, and they cleave to the company of voices that echo their preconceived ideas and long-formed opinions.

A few people have picked up on this.

"There was a time," Haaretz's Gideon Levy said in an interview with The Nation, "when you'd ask two Israelis a question, and you'd get three different opinions. Now you only get one."

In The Jerusalem Post, columnist Larry Derfner noted the problem in Israel, where public opinion fell into "lockstep" behind the war in Lebanon, the invasion of Iraq and the criticism of the National Intelligence Estimate report on Iran. How different, Derfner writes, from the Israel of old, where robust public debate was the norm.

"This is a society that's been brainwashed by consent," he wrote. "And when all hands are raised together, it not only enhances certainty, it offers the added comfort of unity."

J.J. Goldberg, The Forward's brilliant executive editor, wrote that the national Jewish debate is similarly afflicted. In fighting nouveau anti-Semitism, he wrote, "It doesn't help when Jews ignore or deny Israel's genuine shortcomings. It doesn't help when they overreact to criticism -- hostile, benign or just clumsy -- and intimidate their critics into resentful silence, reinforcing their enemies' worst stereotypes."

The response to Goldberg's essay? One organization head accused him of blaming the Jews for their own victimization.

And here at home things aren't any better.

In defense of Jewish journalism

About a year before I joined The Jewish Journal, on the paper's 20th anniversary, Tom Teicholz wrote this column in honor of Yiddish reportage. I just stumbled across it, and it's worth a read, especially in light of that article I linked to earlier this week.

People who seem to actually like what I write are always telling me they wish it were published somewhere else. Somewhere better -- i.e., more prestigious, with a larger circulation or certainly a less parochial one ... somewhere less, in a word, Jewish. "It's really good," I'm told as if that would disqualify my work for publication in a Jewish publication.

I won't say that I haven't, on occasion, shared these thoughts about other Jewish papers or Jewish journalism or even about my own ambitions for my writing. But when I do -- and particularly on the occasion of The Jewish Journal of Los Angeles' 20th anniversary -- I call to mind the longer view and recall the great history, tradition and noble cause of Jewish journalism.

I'm not sure who qualifies as the first Jewish journalists. It may have been the biblical Caleb and Joshua, who reported on the land of Canaan and brought back the headline: "Flowing With Milk and Honey; Land of Plenty."

Or perhaps it was Josephus (37 C.E.-100 C.E.) who chronicled "The Jewish Wars," his firsthand account of the Roman conquest of what is today Israel.

Jewish tradition is marked by rendering the oral tradition in print and recording the stories of the patriarchs and matriarchs, the accounts of the prophets, the tales of Kings David and Solomon and the tales of the rabbis. One can argue that the Jewish embrace of the responsibility to bear witness and pass along the stories from generation to generation is the cornerstone for a calling in journalism.

Regardless of the cause or the inspiration, by the late 19th century, Jewish journalism was flourishing, as were Jews who were journalists -- some of whom would forever shape the course of journalism and the course of world events.

To give but one notable example: In 1894, among those covering the Paris trial of Capt. Alfred Dreyfus was Theodor Herzl, an Austro-Hungarian journalist. Witnessing the French crowds screaming "Death to the Jews!" profoundly impacted him. Two years later in 1896, Herzl wrote "The Jewish State," the rallying cry for Zionism and the establishment of a Jewish homeland. Although he didn't work for a Jewish publication, Herzl entered history when his reporting focused on Jewish matters. Herzl did not live to see the creation of the State of Israel, a mere 52 years later, but in recognition of his role in the founding of the state, and as per his wishes, he is buried there today.

In the United States, America's first Jewish newspaper, The Occident and American Jewish Advocate, was published in 1843 by Philadelphia's Isaac Leeser. More than a decade later in 1854, Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise of Cincinnati, leader of the Reform movement, founded The Israelite, a weekly that proclaimed itself "devoted to the Religion, History and Literature of the Israelites."

Wise, himself an immigrant from Bohemia, was one of the most important Jewish figures of the post-Civil War era. The Israelite (later The American Israelite) was devoted to helping its readers become, as Wise once wrote, "Americans through and through." However, Wise's greatest contribution to American Journalism may not be The Israelite but rather his daughter, Iphigene "Effie" Wise, who married German Jewish immigrant Adolph Ochs in 1884.

In 1896, Ochs purchased The New York Times and set about making it the national newspaper of record. His descendants continue to steer The Times to this day.

Around the same time, the Hungarian-born Joseph Pulitzer, who had worked as a journalist for a German-language newspaper, acquired the St. Louis Post, later merging it with the St. Louis Dispatch. Pulitzer continued to acquire newspapers and became famous for sensationalist stories -- or "yellow journalism." In spite of that -- or maybe because of it -- he endowed the Pulitzer Prizes in Journalism at Columbia University.

English was only one of several possible languages for Jewish journalism in the United States. There was also a prevalence of German and Russian. The beginning of the 20th century saw a flood of Jewish immigration to the United States, bringing in a vast and engaged audience for Jewish papers in many languages, most notably Yiddish.

For many of its readers, there was a special quality to the Yiddish press that is missing from today's Jewish journalism. Eddie Portnoy, a historian of Yiddish popular culture, said it this way: "The Yiddish press was a private conversation."

It was by Jews for Jews, without concern about what the non-Jewish population might think.

Like FUBU for Jews.

Which brings me back to my original point: Don't Jewish newspapers deserve a little more respect?

Rudy on Rudy: 'Somebody who can do the impossible'

Though he is not especially funny, Rudy Giuliani likes to begin with a joke. “Did you know that I’m running for President of the United States?”

That's how Elizabeth Kolbert begins a profile of the former New York mayor's presidential campaign, which, she writes is more of the same.

“This is where we really need a leader,” he told her. “We need somebody who can do the impossible. Now, I say that because I did this a lot in New York.”

Depending on whether you count his abortive race for the U.S. Senate in 2000, this is either Giuliani’s fourth or his fifth political campaign. In the earlier races, his goal was to persuade New Yorkers to vote for a Republican; this time around, it’s to persuade Republicans to vote for a New Yorker. Gone are the “Godfather” imitations, the snapping at the press, and the praise for immigration (“the single most important reason for American greatness”). The candidate who stopped by the Letizios’, and before that had coffee at Suzie’s Diner, in Hudson, and before that went on a holiday stroll in Nashua, where he waited in line to buy a Christmas ornament of a moose, is a less ethnic, less impatient, and more conservative candidate than voters in Brooklyn and the Bronx ever knew. This Giuliani invokes Ronald Reagan, smiles—or tries to—at children, and pledges to “secure our borders and identify every non-citizen in the nation.”

And yet the logic of his new campaign is—mutatis mutandis—the same as that of the old. Once again, Giuliani is in the awkward situation of wanting to represent a group of people whose views he does not actually represent. Once again, appeals based on “values” or personal history are closed to him. (Fourteen years ago—before he had appeared in drag, or ditched his second wife on TV, or met his third wife at a cigar bar—a “vulnerability study” commissioned by his staff noted that Giuliani’s “personal life raises questions about a ‘weirdness factor.’ ”) And so, once again, Giuliani is left to campaign on the basis of a single, strongly held idea: a great-leader theory of history, in which the great leader happens to be himself.

Messianic rabbi: Olmert should be 'hanged from the gallows'

Whoa:

In a major blow to a decade-long campaign to play down divisions within the Chabad-Lubavitch ultra-Orthodox movement, the sect’s Israeli leadership appears ready to publicly distance itself from a significant messianic strand within the movement.

The unexpected development has been forced on the Chabad leadership by a spreading tide of anger toward the movement this week, after a rabbi from the messianic strand declared that, were Israel properly run, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert would be “hanged from the gallows.”

Rabbi Shalom Dov Wolpe, a Chabad educator and author, launched into a tirade about Israel’s negotiations with Palestinians at the conference of a right-wing organization he runs, S.O.S. Israel.

“The terrible traitor, Ehud Olmert, who gives these Nazis weapons, who gives money, who frees their murderous terrorists, this man, like Ariel Sharon, collaborates with the Nazis,” Wolpe said on Wednesday, January 2, in remarks that were shown on Israeli television news.

A Chabad spokesman in Israel, Moni Ender, lashed out at Wolpe for his comments.

“This is not Lubavitch. Rabbi Wolpe is talking by himself. We have nothing to do with him. He makes dirt for Chabad,” Ender said.

Wolpe is the most popular leader of the messianic strand of Chabad, which holds that the 1994 death of the Lubavitcher rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson did not challenge the belief held in parts of the sect that he was the messiah. Wolpe was the first rabbi to go public with this position in 1994. A conflict has festered since then between followers of this belief and others, who present themselves as the mainstream and who reject such overt messianic claims.

Forced circumcision in Kenya

LIMURU, KENYA — When men with machetes and axes chased Paul Otieno from his home here, they wanted more than his belongings. They wanted to cut off his foreskin.

"They were shouting, 'If we don't kill you, we'll cut your private parts,' " Otieno, a 25-year-old mechanic, said of the attack Sunday. "They were just shouting, 'Kill! Chop them all!' "

In Kenya, circumcision is a rite of passage for male members of most tribes. The Luos, however, do not practice it. In the recent tribal violence triggered by a disputed Dec. 27 election, circumcision checks have been conducted by roaming gangs of killers hunting for Luos. And the threat of forced circumcision has been used to terrify Luo men.

The number of such assaults so far appears small. The hospital here in Limuru, 30 miles northwest of Nairobi, confirmed that two cases of forced circumcision were treated after Sunday's violence, which saw members of the larger Kikuyu tribe evict hundreds of Luos from their homes. One case involved an adult, the other a 4-month-old.

But rumors of men being circumcised by gangs from rival tribes have cast a shadow of fear over Luos, who feel their manhood and cultural practices are under threat.

First off, circumcision doesn't remove your manhood, just your foreskin. (Though I know this was of great concern on an episode of "South Park.") But does this story from the LA Times remind anyone else of this story from 1 Samuel? To me, David's act of slaying Goliath pales in comparison to his ability to collect for God the foreskins of 200 Philistines. I can only wonder why this was necessary.

Christian mission at the porn convention

On this Wednesday last year, Brent Hopkins and I drove his Civic (not my Civic) out I-15 to Las Vegas for the annual AVN Adult Entertainment Expo. I am fairly certain that will be the only time I spend 20 hours over two days at a porn convention. My excuse was that I was writing a big story about adult-industry Christian ministries for the LA Daily News' then-upcoming porn series.

I focused on the guys and gals of XXXChurch.com, "the #1 Christian porn site," who are the most prominent of the anti-adult-industry ministries. Another character in this milieu is a former stripper named Heather Veitch, (pictured on left) who runs JC's Girls. I spoke with her last year at her booth, a black backdrop with furry pink accents, that was for some reason located in the gay porn section. She's back in Vegas this week with Hooker for Jesus Annie Lobert, and an LA Times blog gives them some play.

One Vegas topless bar allows Veitch to come at night to buy lap dances and use the time to talk to the dancers about Jesus. I have been invited along for a future trip and am very curious to see how that works out. Veitch says she has received almost no hostility from the people she is trying to reach in Vegas, even those not at all interested in her message.

On the other hand, selling her fellow Christians on her project has been difficult. Veitch has found that some churches are not interested in populating congregations with strippers she has invited to services. And then it always comes back to her look. Veitch says, "The Christian community can be very judgmental. But we think our look lets girls in the industry identify with us."

For the upcoming 40,000-strong Adult Entertainment Expo, Veitch and Lobert will be working the convention floor, handing out cards and delivering their message to whoever will listen.

There is no question that patrons and performers at the porn convention are open to Veitch and XXXChurch and the handful of other ministries. But after watching these interactions, I wasn't sure how effective they were. A lot of people listened, few people turned down the "Jesus Loves Porn Stars" Bibles handed out by XXXChurch, but they seemed to think it was more kitsch than Gospel.

Craig Gross, who runs XXXChurch, told me that people ask him all the time whether he feels like he is making a difference. And at one point he wasn't so sure. In his book "The Dirty Little Secret," he writes about a guy who he thought he had helped free from the bondage of porn -- only to find the guy later fly off the deep end.

Some Christians are cynical of Gross and his colleagues, claiming they're a bunch of perverts who want an excuse to cavort with unnaturally endowed women. In a documentary, "Missionary Positions," one of the guys from XXXChurch (I can't remember who) gets smacked by a more fire-and-brimstone preacher who thinks Gross is doing the work of the devil.

I don't buy this. Certainly there are people who want out of the adult business. People like Keri Humble. And knowing that, these ministries just want to be there. Even if there is there.

(Hat Tip: My old editor, A-Ron)

Ron Paul: Maybe '93 WTC attack was Mossad

No one ever claimed Ron Paul was mainstream. But, sheesh, look what The New Republic found in his old newsletters:

Martin Luther King Jr. earned special ire from Paul's newsletters, which attacked the civil rights leader frequently, often to justify opposition to the federal holiday named after him. ("What an infamy Ronald Reagan approved it!" one newsletter complained in 1990. "We can thank him for our annual Hate Whitey Day.") In the early 1990s, a newsletter attacked the "X-Rated Martin Luther King" as a "world-class philanderer who beat up his paramours," "seduced underage girls and boys," and "made a pass at" fellow civil rights leader Ralph Abernathy. One newsletter ridiculed black activists who wanted to rename New York City after King, suggesting that "Welfaria," "Zooville," "Rapetown," "Dirtburg," and "Lazyopolis" were better alternatives. The same year, King was described as "a comsymp, if not an actual party member, and the man who replaced the evil of forced segregation with the evil of forced integration."

While bashing King, the newsletters had kind words for the former Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, David Duke. ...

The rhetoric when it came to Jews was little better. The newsletters display an obsession with Israel; no other country is mentioned more often in the editions I saw, or with more vitriol. A 1987 issue of Paul's Investment Letter called Israel "an aggressive, national socialist state," and a 1990 newsletter discussed the "tens of thousands of well-placed friends of Israel in all countries who are willing to wok [sic] for the Mossad in their area of expertise." Of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, a newsletter said, "Whether it was a setup by the Israeli Mossad, as a Jewish friend of mine suspects, or was truly a retaliation by the Islamic fundamentalists, matters little."

Paul's campaign response: "I have never uttered such words and denounce such small-minded thoughts."

(Hat tip: Campaign Confidential)

How N.H. Democrats voted based on religion

From the Christianity Today Live Blog:

This was supposed to be the year the Democrats got religion. Too bad somebody forgot to tell the pollsters. One of the big untold stories of the Iowa caucus is that only Republicans were asked about their religious affiliation.

The problem isn't just that we don't know how many Iowan evangelicals voted for the various Democrats (it would be interesting to see, for example, if Edwards scored as well among evangelicals as he did among conservatives). The problem is that we don't know whether Democrats as a whole have succeeded in attracting more evangelical voters. (Usually somewhere between one quarter and one third of evangelicals vote Democratic.) I'm told we'll see some Iowa caucus poll results soon (not from Edison Media Research, the company that does most of these entrance and exit polls) that may shine some light on the religion questions.

The good news is that Edison Media Research has repented, and today's New Hampshire exit polls (via CNN [Rep | Dem] and MSNBC [Rep | Dem] )had many religion questions for both Republicans and Democrats.

Clinton, it seems, took the moderately religious (those who attend church monthly or a few times a year), while Obama took the devout (weekly attenders) and the nonreligious (those who never attend church). Roman Catholics (the largest religious group among New Hampshire Democrats, with 36% of voters in that primary), overwhelmingly chose Clinton (43%) over Obama (28%). Those who said they had no religion supported Obama (47%) over Clinton (28%), and that formed a remarkable 22 percent of Democratic voters.

NY Times: Life still miserable in Sderot

The mainstream media has mainly only written about the plight of Israelis living around Sderot when someone actually is killed by a Qassam rocket falling out of the sky from Gaza. But tomorrow's New York Times has this story, pegged to President Bush's arrival:

SDEROT, Israel — Less than two months ago, Raziel Sasson emerged from his rocket-proof closet, willing now to sleep just outside it, with the rest of his family, on mattresses circled on the living room floor. But Razi, 13, still wakes his father up three times a night, afraid to walk alone to the bathroom.

Four years ago, Razi was climbing a tree when a Qassam rocket, fired from nearby Gaza, flew over his head and exploded nearby. He remembers the spinning contrail of the crude rocket and its fierce whistle. The blast blew him eight yards to the ground.

Sderot, a working-class town of mainly North African immigrants less than two miles from Gaza, has been hit over the past four years with some 2,000 rockets of improving range and explosive power — 22 in the last eight days. Eight Sderot civilians have been killed by the rockets; Razi has seen 15 therapists.

“He wouldn’t leave the house to go to school for a year,” said his mother, Shula. One of his older brothers, Rafi, 22, used his army exit pay to build Razi a bomb shelter in the living room, a concrete cocoon with a steel door.

Across the border in Gaza, life is wretched for Palestinians. But as President Bush prepares to arrive in Jerusalem on Wednesday for the first time since taking office, to spur peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian president, he will hear a lot about the Qassams.

For many Israelis, Sderot (pronounced stay-ROTE) embodies the fears of what happens when they pulled back from occupied land, as they did from all of Gaza more than two years ago — it turns into a staging ground for attacks by extremist Palestinians that a peace treaty will not stop.

“When Bush comes, he should come to Sderot,” said Razi’s father, Moshe, 49, who works as a prison warden in Beersheba.

The problems of Sderot — and of a Gaza run by Hamas, considered a terrorist group by Israel and the United States — are at the heart of Israel’s security concerns. But those concerns, like Hamas itself, are present only in the abstract in the American-led peace effort, which features negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah, who has no control over Hamas or Gaza.

Bloomberg playing 'presidential footsie'

Despite Barack Obama's decisive victory in Iowa last week, and double-digit leads for tonight's primary in New Hampshire, and maybe because the Republican landscape remains so unclear, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg continues to play the will-he-or-won't-he game.

Onto this crowded and rejuvenated political stage now comes Michael Bloomberg, our skilled and uncommonly non-neurotic mayor, engaged in a different variety of the electoral enterprise—a prolonged game of Presidential footsie. Even as he has issued denials of interest to everyone from the press corps at City Hall to Ryan Seacrest on Dick Clark’s New Year’s Eve broadcast, Bloomberg has deputized some of his leading aides to draw up scenarios for a third-party candidacy and to keep the interest of the press well fluffed. The press, titillated by access, has coöperated with front-page “would-he, could-he” stories. This week, Bloomberg will attend a meeting of Unity08, in Oklahoma, to discuss third-party options, and in recent weeks he has displayed a vague yet imperious disdain for the assembled candidates, while privately hustling from one policy consultant and policy grandee to the next, to ask, “What chance does a five-foot-seven billionaire Jew who’s divorced really have of becoming President?”

The reason that Bloomberg’s coy exploratory venture has earned him such attention is obvious. “There are two things that are important in politics,” Mark Hanna, the Ohio industrialist and senator who ran William McKinley’s campaign, in 1896, said. “The first is money and I can’t remember what the second one is.” All the front-runners except Mike Huckabee are millionaires to one degree or another—Obama is the poorest, with a net worth of just over a million dollars, Mitt Romney the richest, with two hundred million—but Bloomberg is wealthier by an order of magnitude. According to Forbes, he is worth more than eleven billion dollars. Bloomberg owns an estate in Bermuda, a horse farm in Westchester County, a condominium in Vail, a ten-million-dollar town house in London, and a thirteen-and-a-half-million-dollar town house on East Seventy-ninth Street. To commute among them, he takes his private jet, a Falcon 9. He isn’t stingy, though; he’s one of the leading philanthropists in the United States and has said that at some point he hopes to give away as much as four hundred million dollars a year.

Still, running for President is not cheap.

The biggest question, obviously, is whether a third-party candidate -- Bloomberg is a nominal Independent -- can really compete in a two-party system. I know a lot of Republican Jews who remain excited about the possibility of voting for someone they agree with not just fiscally but socially, but most observers have so far said Bloomberg couldn't overcome the outsider handicap.

Huckabee is Kristol's man

New New York Times columnist Bill Kristol -- liberals didn't exactly role out the welcome mat -- used his first paid column to pom-pom Mike Huckabee. This surprised me because, aside from the clear religious and social differences between the two, Huckabee seems to be among the least globally aware of the Republican presidential candidates, and I always thought foreign policy was what neocons prided themselves on.

Then again, with statements like this, maybe Kristol and Huckabee have the same knowledge of what's going on in the Middle East.

Some of us would much prefer a non-liberal and non-Democratic administration. We don’t want to increase the scope of the nanny state, we don’t want to undo the good done by the appointments of John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court, and we really don’t want to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory in Iraq.

Who knew we were winning the war in Iraq? At this point, is it accurate to even call the situation over there a "war?" Or is it better to refer to it as a colossal screw-up in reconstruction (though, yes, some progress has been measurable)?

Malaysian Christians can call God 'Allah'

This is good news:

A Roman Catholic newspaper has reported the Malaysian government has reversed its decision to ban the publication over its use of the word Allah, easing tensions that had strained racial harmony in the multiethnic country.

In a surprising turnabout, the government renewed The Herald weekly’s 2008 permit without any conditions, said its editor Rev. Lawrence Andrew. Internal security officials declined to comment. All publications in Malaysia require a government permit, which is renewed annually.

The government had said that Allah, an Arabic word for God, can only be used by Muslims. Officials feared that using Allah in Christian literature would confuse the Malays and draw them to Christianity.

Malaysian Christians said that Allah that was used by Christians before Islam was established. Even in Malaysia, Malay-speaking Christians have used the word Allah for generations. Allah also means God in Bahasa Melayu, the language of Malays.

Though Muslims, Christians and Jews all worship the God of Abraham, there are clearly differences in how members of those faiths understand Him, which I would say actually means they believe in different representations of the same One God. Other amateur theologians argue that members of the Abrahamic faiths believe in a different Creator. Assuming the former is true, should Christians call God "Allah?"

Santeria seminary

Those who came to Oba Ernesto Pichardo's fall semester course at Florida International University's Biscayne Bay campus expecting chicken heads, seashells and drum circles probably left disappointed.

The controversial, charismatic and enterprising Pichardo, a Yoruba priest and the country's leading expert on Santeria, spent hours talking about the transatlantic slave trade, paraded in cultural anthropology professors and expected both Powerpoint presentations and 12-page research papers at semester's end.

It was a different side of a man best known for having spent the last few decades fighting lawmakers and Santeria detractors. His most notorious tussle: with the city of Hialeah over sanctioning animal sacrifices in religious ceremonies. He won, earning the U.S. Supreme Court's blessing.

He also won over his sixteen undergraduate students this year. The class included several religious studies majors, a Peruvian-American Broward school teacher, a 61-year-old auditor and a grandfather-grandson duo. Many of them came to get in touch with their Afro-Caribbean roots.

Four months ago he concluded FIU's first three-credit Santeria class, with a grand prediction: ``You are making history here today.''

''This is not some fringe movement,'' Pichardo told his students. ``If you can get a Ph.D. in Judaism or Christianity, you should at least be able to take a course in Santeria.''

Santeria is not a religion I suspect many Americans are familiar with. The only place most people my age have probably even heard that word was on KROQ about 10 years ago. I don't think the above article from the Miami Herald does much to explain the belief practices associated with it either. It's roots lie in the Yoruba people of Nigeria, and the most controversial element is that of animal sacrifice. I find more interesting the Santeria understanding of God and of good and evil.

The Yoruba believe in a creator who is called Olofi (god). There is no specific belief in a devil since the Yoruba belief system is not a dualistic philosophy — good versus evil, God versus a devil. Instead the universe is seen as containing forces of expansion and forces of contraction. These forces interact in complex ways to create the universe. All things are seen to have positive aspects, or Iré, and negative aspects, or Ibi. Nothing is seen as completely good or completely evil but all things are seen as having different proportions of both. Similarly no action is seen as universally as wrong or right, but rather can only be judged with the context and circumstances in which it takes place.

I mentioned this summer that Santeria is a popular religion among Major League Baseball's Latin American players, though few are willing to talk about it.

(Hat tip: GetReligion)

Latkes and vodkas with Germany's Jews

Speaking of Germany, the Economist has a story about the reborn Jewish community there. and how its resulting from an influx of Soviet immigrants is causing a totally different crisis.

German Jews who survived in Germany, or in exile, had a deeply ambivalent relationship with their homeland. Apart from guilt—that they had survived, and even stayed in the killers' country—many felt an almost physical revulsion when they came into close contact with Germans. So they retreated to live in yet another form of ghetto.

By the time the Berlin Wall fell, Germany's Jewish community had only 30,000 ageing members and was dwindling rapidly. Today it is the third-largest, and the fastest-growing, Jewish population in western Europe, after France and Britain. Between 1991, when the country was unified and immigration rules relaxed, and 2005, more than 200,000 Jews from the former Soviet Union emigrated to Germany. (At the same time, more than a million emigrated from the former Soviet Union to Israel and about 350,000 to America, leaving only about 800,000 behind.) In some parts of Germany, immigrants—usually referred to as “the Russians”—make up 90% of the local Jewish population.

A few of the so-called established Jews—those who lived in Germany before the fall of the Berlin Wall—are enthusiastic about the new arrivals. Hermann Simon, director of the Centrum Judaicum, a museum and research centre in Berlin, was born in 1949 of German parents, and grew up in East Berlin. He says that without the immigration of Russian Jews, the future for Germany's Jews would be dark.

Yet most established Jews disagree. The dapper Mr Schoeps, now director of the Moses-Mendelssohn Centre for European-Jewish Studies in Potsdam, near Berlin, argues that Germany's old Jewish heritage is gone. Its so-called “memory landscape”—memorial sites, commemorative plaques, cultural centres and museums—is now being guarded by gentiles who are merely interested in things Jewish; the sort of people who crowd to the Chanukkah market at Berlin's Jewish Museum to sample latkes and sufganiot (doughnuts) and to sip kosher mulled wine.

As for the immigrants from the former Soviet Union, most neither know nor care about Jewish rituals and traditions. Few of the newcomers keep a kosher home. Many men are not circumcised. When they arrive in Germany, they focus on the practicalities of life—jobs, flats, social security and health insurance. They play chess rather than Skat, a popular card game in Germany. Their cultural icons are Dostoyevsky and Tchaikovsky, not Goethe and Beethoven, let alone Mendelssohn or Heine, who were German Jews.

Established Jews find the newcomers anders (different from us), suspect that they are not “real” Jews and think they are mainly coming in search of prosperity and material help from the state and the community. “They take whatever they can get,” sniffs one.

It's not so much eerie as it is reinforcing how familiar this story is. Immigrant Jews have often been at odds with their more refined second- and third-generation co-religionists. In fact, Stanley Gold, the new chair of the Jewish Federation of Greater LA, told me his father was born in El Paso because his grandfather had been forced to immigrate through a port in Texas by New York's German Jews, those elite publishers and bankers with names like Schiff and Sulzberger (though not necessarily those men), who had succeeded in redirecting Yiddish-speaking Hebrews from Central and Eastern Europe.

Here in Los Angeles, there has certainly been a delay, if unintentional, in breaking down the barriers between the former Soviet Jews and the more-established Jewish community. Not to mention the overdue acceptance of tens of thousands of Persian Jews.

(Hat tip: Bintel Blog)

Publicist: Romney about to get 'swift-boated'

I'm been receiving e-mails from Daryl Toor since last week promoting a new book, at first ambiguously, that he says will do to presidential candidate Mitt Romney what the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth did to Sen. John Kerry in his unsuccessful 2004 run for the Executive Office.

This exciting new book -- Mitt, Set Our People Free! -- published by Revelation Press, reveals just how Mitt Romney's sacred oath to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, known as the Mormons or the LDS -- including a vow of obedience to the "Living Prophet," the President of the LDS Church -- will impact his ability to govern as President of the United States.

Jesus said that man cannot serve two masters -- but if Romney is elected President, he will have to serve two conflicting oaths. American Presidents swear an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. However, this Presidential Oath is in direct conflict with Romney's sacred oath to his Mormon Church -- a blood oath which puts Romney's life, fortune and obedience at the unrestricted service of his Church. This obedience is defined by the Church's Living Prophet, the President of the Mormon Church and -- as they believe -- the literal Voice of God on earth.

According to author Mike Moody, "One of the LDS Church's basic tenets is a prophecy from founder and First Prophet Joseph Smith that in the latter days, the U.S. Constitution will 'hang by a thread as fine as silk fiber' until a Mormon leader rides in on his White Horse to save the U.S. and the Constitution -- then use his control of the United States to set up a world-wide theocracy, one based on the clearly unorthodox beliefs of the Church of Latter Day Saints."

Author Mike Moody, himself a 7th Generation Mormon from a family of Church-founding patriarchs - men who served Joseph Smith and Brigham Young as they created this remarkable "church" -- uses his both insider knowledge of the LDS Church and his long-time personal ties to his one-time college fraternity brother, Mitt Romney, to point out the essential conflict between Romney's sacred Oath to the Church and the oath he seeks to take as President.

Moody also details -- chapter and verse -- the many compromises and less-than-candid and frequently inconsistent positions Romney has taken to bring himself from successful venture capitalist to one of the leading contenders for the Republican nomination for Presidency.

The entire press release, via Reuters. After reading the release, I was immediately suspicious of author's intentions and current religious affiliation. The Sleuth picks up the scent:

For all the talk about dirty tricks this season, one of the more questionable (and curious) came at a news conference Monday far from the campaign trail. At a news conference at the sleepy National Press Club in Washington, a no-name college classmate of Mitt Romney hawked his "open letter" to Romney titled "Mitt, Set Our People Free!"

A lapsed Mormon, Michael Moody mocked his former religion (in very nasty terms) and declared Romney unfit for the presidency because of what he sees as the Mormon former Massachusetts governor's biggest conflict: his "blood oath" to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

And then came the "C" word: "The great American cult," Moody said, characterizing the religion founded by Joseph Smith, a prophet to Mormons.

"Many of you are from the East Coast and you don't know a lot about Mormonism," Moody said to the roomful of about a dozen reporters and four photographers who clearly had nothing better to do, what with 75 percent of their colleagues from the Fourth Estate (truly a "C" word organization) in New Hampshire to cover Tuesday's primary.

So, even as he went on and on (and on) trampling the tenets of Mormonism, Moody omitted references (too obscure for his East Coast audience) to the angel Moroni, who led Smith, the prophet, to a set of golden plates in 1827 written in an unknown language -- and then to the seer-stones Urim and Thummim, which translated the ancient language to the epic Book of Mormon.

Instead, Moody spoke in more dumbed-down terms of how Mormons are beholden to living prophets, such as Gordon Hinckley, who can tip them off to the Second Coming. "The Mormon prophet -- he is the man," Moody said, adding that "they" -- the Mormons -- are "waiting for Hinckley to tell 'em: 'Let's go to Missouri and knock it off with an Osmond concert and build the new Jerusalem."

The seemingly embittered former Mormon claims he and Romney were members of the Cougar Club together at Brigham Young University, where he saw Romney give the valedictorian speech at their 1971 graduation ceremony. There was "great buzz" on campus about young Mitt one day running for president, he said. Romney's view, he claims, was "If not me, then who?"

One of his main problems with Romney becoming president is that Romney, if he follows the teachings of his faith, "believes he's going to become a God some day."

Don't worry about this book making much of an impact. I can't find it online. And who's ever heard of Revelation Press?

Jewish newspapers in focus, sort of

In the office of Jonathan Tobin, top editor of Philadelphia's weekly Jewish Exponent newspaper, hangs a portrait of Vladimir Jabotinsky (1880-1940), the Zionist leader who urged Jews to arm themselves against future attacks, then founded the Irgun militia.

In the office of J.J. Goldberg, editorial director of the Forward - the English-language spin-off of the Jewish Daily Forward, the Yiddish paper that taught Jewish immigrants how to be Americans - hangs a portrait of founding editor Abraham Cahan (1860-1951), a Russian Jewish socialist who evolved toward liberalism.

The opposed visuals confirm that history counts for a lot at these two vibrant, yet different, survivors of Jewish newspapering in America.
Tired of all the kvetching about crises in the newspaper biz? Here's some good news: Jewish newspapering remains alive and well.

Indeed. But this piece from the Philly Inquirer, which in focusing on The Forward and Exponent discusses a brief history of Jewish newspapering, completely fails to mention anything west of Chicago. Last time I checked, LA Jewry claims the second largest community in the country and one of the largest weeklies. Not that I am biased or anything. But back to the Inquirer's report.

Robert Singerman, a University of Florida scholar whose "Jewish Press" article in Jewish-American History and Culture: An Encyclopedia surveys the field, writes that "approximately 2,500 dailies, weeklies, monthlies, quarterlies, bulletins and annual reports . . . have been published in most of the 50 states."

The oldest continuously published Jewish paper in the United States is Cincinnati's American Israelite, founded in 1854. Philadelphia papers have included Isaac Leeser's Occident and American Jewish Advocate (1843-69).

Singerman also reflects on some standard criticisms of the weekly Jewish American press, referred to as "weaklies" by nonadmirers. He notes that many papers "rely almost exclusively" on copy from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency ("the AP of Jewish journalism," says Tobin) for nonlocal Jewish news.

Singerman observes that "more often than not, local 'news' is a bland potpourri of self-congratulatory press releases prepared by institutional public relations specialists." Some weeklies, he warns, "become subjugated to the local Jewish federation's fund-raising."

That last line is a reason I was much more comfortable joining The Jewish Journal, which broke away from Federation funding a few years back. And we might not have a huge staff or fleet of foreign correspondents -- though we have a few of each -- but I think we get along pretty respectably. Correct me or congratulate my colleagues.

(Hat tip: Luke Ford)

Lisa Loeb writing for The Forward

What a catch. The Forward's Bintel Blog is getting some love from geeky Jewish hottie Lisa Loeb in the form of some weekly guest blogging.

Having opened her heart to all of us for the past 15 years, Loeb will be giving Forward readers a chance to open up to her. In January, she will be serving as our guest Bintel Brief advice columnist.

Are you wondering how you can achieve your artistic ambitions? Do you have a dating dilemma? Could you use a little advice? Send your questions for the Bintel Brief to bintelbrief@forward.com. Questions selected for publication are printed anonymously.

Maybe The God Blog could use an advice columnist. Does anyone know if Amy Winehouse is available?

Gay Muslims: From Baghdad to Berlin

The New York Times has been on the gay-Muslim beat of late, with this piece from Iraq in December and this dispatch from Berlin last week.

Taken apart, each story is an interesting look at people other than Episcopalians struggling to marry their religious identity with their sexuality. Juxtaposed, however, the stories show the differences -- and similarities -- between being gay in an open society and a religiously violent one. From the Gayhane club in Germany:

European Muslims, so often portrayed one-dimensionally as rioters, honor killers or terrorists, live diverse lives, most of them trying to get by and to have a good time. That is more difficult if one is both Muslim and gay.

“When you’re here, it’s as if you’re putting on a mask, leaving the everyday outside and just having fun,” said a 22-year-old Turkish man who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear that he would be ostracized or worse if his family found out about his sexual orientation.

Safety and secrecy come up regularly when talking to guests, who laugh and dance, but also frequently look over their shoulders. To be a gay man or lesbian with an immigrant background invites trouble here in two very different ways.

“Depending on which part of Berlin I go to, in one I get punched in the mouth because I’m a foreigner and in the other because I’m a queen,” said Fatma Souad, the event’s organizer and master of ceremonies.

That photo is of Souad, who looks a lot like Andy Dick.

My top 10 religion stories of 2007

I was on Pittsburgh WORD FM's John and Stephanie Show on Wednesday offering my opinion on the top 10 religion stories of 2007, which I have pasted at the bottom of this post. These stories, ranging from the swearing in of the first federally elected American Muslim elected to Mother Theresa's lifelong struggles with God, were certainly significant. But they weren't my favorite stories. These were:

1. Shabbat in Sderot beneath a canopy of Qassams
2. Nebraska senator sues God3. Israeli neo-Nazis
4. Michael Vick, Paris, Britney – and Jesus
5. Tommy Thompson’s “Jews and Money” comment
6. Evel Knievel born again and again
7. Kevin Everett walks


Top 10 stories of 2007
1. Annapolis conference and everything surrounding it – Hamasistan, Orthodox Jews denouncing Olmert and Avraham Burg’s apostasy
2. Religion on the presidential campaign trail – Democrats find religion, Huckabee trumpets his and Romney downplays it3. Mother Theresa’s dark nights4. Popularity of atheist books5. Anglican schism6. South Korean missionary hostages and murdered Bible sellers in Turkey and Gaza
7. Passing of Christian Right leaders Jerry Falwell and D. James Kennedy, and of the oddball Original Jew
8. Rev. Al Mohler’s gay comment
9. Mr. Ellison goes to Washington
10. Double lashings for Saudi gang rape victim

'Honor killing' not Islam's fault

The Crunchy Con says no in a post in which he evaluates whether the double murder of two teenage girls in Texas even was a so-called "honor killing":

Police have not used the phrase "honor killing" in talking about the murder of the two Muslim teenage girls in Lewisville, allegedly by their father, Egyptian immigrant Yaser Abdel Said, but there are signs emerging that it might be something like that. Today's DMN story says:

Police did say they are looking into the possibility that the father was upset with his daughters' dating activities.

Like, what? Were they dating non-Muslims? Were they behaving in any way that fits the well-established "honor killing" pattern we've seen among some Muslim communities in the West?

Channel 11 has a bit more detail in its report:

Sisters, Amina, 18, and Sarah, 17, were each shot to death. Friends of the girls say their father was Egyptian and critical of popular American lifestyles. ""He was really strict about guy relationships and talking to guys, as well as the things she wears," Kathleen Wong, a friend of the dead teenagers. "I'm definitely 100% sure that it was her dad that killed her."

Honor killings are present in Middle Eastern Muslim societies, but it seems that the religion is not to blame -- that it's a relic of harshly patriarchal culture. Muslim countries outside the Middle East don't really have these things, it appears. You also see it lingering in non-Muslim Mediterranean societies.

I agree that such familial violence is not endemic to Islam. There was, however, a disturbing "honor killing" in Canada last month that allegedly was motivated by a teenage girl's refusal to wear the hijab.

Robertson predicts recession, stock crash

Morning humor from the DMN religion blog:

In what's become an annual tradition (or, if you prefer, joke) televangelist Pat Robertson revealed his predictions for 2008 -- or, more accurately, he let the rest of us in on what he says God has told him will happen.

Here's the story from the Associated Press.

According to Robertson, God has economic disaster in store for us: A deep recession, $150-a-barrel oil, a tumbling dollar. All of this will lead to a major stock market crash in 2009 or '10.

It's worth noting that Robertson's past predictions have often been wrong.

As for the 2008 presidential race, in which Robertson endorsed Rudy Giuliani, the televangelist was silent on who will win.

Evangelical vote buries Romney, buoys Huckabee

About 80 percent of those who helped Mike Huckabee trounce Mitt Romney in the Iowa caucuses last night described themselves as evangelicals. More from The New York Times.

Despite some major stumbles in the final stretch of his Iowa campaign as he endured a ferocious assault on his record from Mr. Romney, Mr. Huckabee struck a chord among Iowa Republicans with a distinctive mixture of humor, Christian conservatism and economic populism.

His stump speeches evoked comparisons to the prairie populism of William Jennings Bryan. And he charmed audiences with a witty and extemporaneous speaking style honed over 10 years in the pulpit as a preacher and local televangelist before he entered politics; he is a former governor of Arkansas. He told voters to pick a candidate who was “consistent” and “authentic,” an unstated contrast to Mr. Romney’s recent conversion to opposing abortion rights.

What most distinguished Mr. Huckabee from the rest of the Republican field, though, were his escalating appeals to the economic anxieties of lower-income voters. He emphasized his own roots as “the son of a fireman who worked a second job,” denounced stagnant wages and rising inequality, and portrayed his underfinanced fight with Mr. Romney as “the people” against “the Wall Street-to-Washington axis of power”

“People would rather elect a president who reminds them of the guy they work with, not that guy who laid them off,” Mr. Huckabee said at a campaign stop Thursday morning, invoking an implicit contrast with Mr. Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts.

The easy answer: The Jews did it

On the fifth anniversary of 9/11, The Jewish Journal ran a cover story that superimposed these words over silhouettes of the World Trade Center towers: "THE JEWS DIDN'T DO IT, YOU IDIOTS!"

I mentioned this in September as one of many immortal fallacies, and was just reminded of it while reading a remembrance of Benazir Bhutto, the former Pakistani prime minister who was assassinated last week.

Bhutto told me she knew that if she returned to Pakistan, she’d probably be killed. She was, on December 27, shot after a rally in Rawalpindi, the military garrison town abutting Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital. No one who knew her — or understood what she was — was surprised.

Least of all Hamid Gul, the former director-general of the Inter-Services Intelligence, Pakistan’s notorious intelligence service, famously aligned with Islamist extremists, and still known as the man at the ISI’s controls. Days after my first conversation with Bhutto, I met with Gul in his home in Rawalpindi, a few hundred yards from where Benazir was to die. First, Gul told me he knew for a fact that the Mossad was behind the 9/11 attacks, and that Monica Lewinsky was an Israeli agent sent by Tel Aviv to undo the Clinton presidency. Then he said, matter-of-factly, “Being prime minister again is a job Benazir will not do.” He paused and cocked his head. “But she can try it if she likes.”

Tucked in there, right in the middle, are two less-than-flattering-but-oft-mentioned maligns of Jews. These are, in essence, the descendant lies of the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion." And not only in the Muslim world.

Season 10 of "South Park" saw Cartman finger Kyle, the fourth grade's only Jew, as the mastermind of the 9/11 terror attacks. Here in Los Angeles, the head of the Muslim Public Affairs Council pondered on the radio whether Israel was behind the attacks "because, I think, this diverts attention from what's happening in the Palestinian territories, so that they can go on with their aggression and occupation and apartheid policies." He later apologized for the remark.

Israel's 'non-Jewish Jews'

In Israel, the "non-Jewish Jews," as some Israelis call them, are everywhere. They drive buses, teach university classes, patrol in army jeeps and follow the latest Israeli reality TV shows as avidly as their Jewish counterparts.

For these people -- mostly immigrants from the former Soviet Union who are not Jews according to Israeli law -- the question of where they fit into the Jewish state remains unanswered nearly two decades after they began coming to Israel.

At an estimated 320,000 people and with their ranks growing due to childbirth, the question is growing ever more acute.

"They are not going to be religious but want to be part of what is called the Jewish secular population," said Asher Cohen, a political scientist at Bar-Ilan University, who has written a book on the subject.

"Thousands are being born here, and they are no longer immigrants," he said. "They are raised just like their secular neighbors, and these children want to know why they are not Jewish because their mother is not Jewish. The problem is just getting worse."

This story raises serious questions about identity and affiliation that reminds me of the plight of half-Jews. Tough not mentioned in this article from this week's Jewish Journal, the disenfranchisement of this population of Israelis has had more negative consequences than simply a sense of outsiderness. Remember the case of those Israeli neo-Nazis?

Effort to destroy Old Damascus

The city of Old Damascus is presently threatened by an obtuse and cynical plan that would destroy great chunks of it. The Syrian regime is trying to push through a "modernization" and "re-development" scheme, which would raze areas dating back to the eleventh and twelfth centuries, including Syria's second oldest mosque, Jami' al-Tawba, of great beauty and historical significance. The company that aims to do this is a regime protégé. The boorish mayor of Damascus, Bishr Sabban, recently described the buildings to be razed as "garbage", not heritage. Like most regime officials, he has been ordered to say (and may, to his shame, actually believe) that the ripping out of the world's oldest city's heart, to replace it with banal and vulgar multi-story hotels, tower blocks, American-style shopping malls and motorways, is a laudable thing.

I found this article in the current issue of Islamica magazine, which I picked up at the MPAC conference two weeks ago. It is a familiar story not simply because historic buildings are being destroyed for the sake of "progress" and profit but because, as is the case with many things in Syria, the hand of Iran is seen in this effort to reshape a neighborhood that is predominantly Sunni Muslim and Christian.

Congress' only Holocaust survivor won't run again

Rep. Tom Lantos announced today that he has cancer of the esophagus and won't seek re-election. Lantos, 79, is Congress' only Holocaust survivor and has been a staunch advocate for Israel. The Chronicle offers this appreciation:

Right or wrong, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Tom Lantos, D-San Mateo, has never failed to raise his voice for human rights in parts of the world Washington has often forgotten. Even if you disagreed with him, as this newspaper did when Lantos supported President Bush's push to send U.S. troops to Iraq, you knew he did what he thought was right.

Lantos took his status as the only Holocaust survivor elected to the House seriously. In 2006, he was arrested at a Darfur protest. In 2007, Lantos accompanied Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Syria. He has long sought a visa to visit Iran - where he wants to hector Tehran's tyrannical clerics. "I believe in talking with everyone," he explained.

In November, Lantos scolded Yahoo executives for their role in helping China identify and jail two journalists. "While technologically and financially you are giants, morally you are pygmies," Lantos railed.

Lantos will leave the House a giant.

McCain-Lieberman ticket hot with the Orthodox

The Iowa caucuses tomorrow night will be followed by the primaries in New Hampshire next Tuesday, and the popularity of former Republican front-runner-turned-bottom-dweller John McCain has been surging. The NY Times' blog The Caucus credits his duet with Sen. Joe Lieberman for some of that.

But the northeast is not the only place McCain is gaining some cred thanks to his Jewish friend. The Orthodox community is all abuzz about the prospect of a McCain-Lieberman ticket.

Radio host Michael Medved, a hardcore Republican, and political scientist David Luchins, former adviser to the late U.S. Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.), disagree on just about everything related to the presidential race.

Except the idea of John McCain.

In a campaign that they say is filled with adulterers, fundamentalists, crooks, bigots, and wildcards, the GOP senator from Arizona is the only candidate both men say they could endorse — especially if his running mate were Sen. Joseph Lieberman, the Sabbath-observant Democrat-turned-Independent who crossed party lines last week to endorse the Republican war hero.

On Sunday, at the Orthodox Union’s West Coast Torah Convention in Beverly Hills, Calif., during a session titled "Should Torah Jews Vote Democratic or Republican?," Medved and Luchins examined the campaign lineup. With about 100 people in attendance, they ruminated on which candidates deserve the support of Orthodox voters, the majority of whom bucked the overall Jewish trend and voted for President Bush in 2004.

The two men trashed one candidate after another, until a woman in the back of the room offered the final question of the day: What about a McCain-Lieberman ticket?

Heads swiveled back to enjoy what would surely be another of Medved’s sharp witticisms, as he skewered the woman’s political naïveté.

But no. Medved paused. He’d had lunch several times with McCain, he confessed. And maybe — no, he couldn’t tell about it. It was off-the-record information.

"Turn off the tape!" one man shouted at the video technician recording the session.

Smiling slightly, Medved relented: "I don’t think it’s an unthinkable possibility, and it would be a very strong ticket."

But like the Kerry-McCain ticket floated in 2004 that the Republican hawk refused to join his dovish Democratic friend on, I don't really see how McCain could run with a Democrat VP. Like he said in 2004 only reversing the roles:

[I]n a series of phone conversations with McCain, Kerry offered to augment the power of the Vice-Presidency with the defense portfolio—in effect, a combined Vice-President and Secretary of Defense, according to John Weaver and Mark Salter. “Kerry was saying, ‘You can still call yourself a Republican,’ and John was saying, ‘No! I can’t just call myself a Republican,’” Salter recalled. “‘We don’t have the same philosophy. I’m a hawk, I’m for nation-building, I’m pro-life, I’m a free trader, I believe in small government. If you’re hit by a lightning bolt and I become President, the people who voted for you will feel betrayed.’”

God Blog publishing problems

As many of you have probably noticed, The God Blog has experienced major technical problems during the past week. The bugs are tied to a switch of the server hosting JewishJournal.com, and it prevented me from putting new posts up since Friday. The web editor and I are working through it, and hopefully normal posting will resume ASAP. (That story below is one I tried putting up yesterday.)

In the meantime, use this address -- thegodblog.org -- to get here without any of the Web problems at JewishJournal.com.

Kenyan mob burns down church and those inside

NAIROBI, Kenya — Dozens of people seeking refuge in a church in Kenya were burned to death by a mob on Tuesday in an explosion of ethnic violence that is threatening to engulf this country, which until last week was one of the most stable in Africa.

According to witnesses and Red Cross officials, up to 50 people died inside the church in a small village in western Kenya after a furious crowd doused it with gasoline and set it on fire.

In Nairobi, the capital, tribal militias squared off against each other in several slums, with gunshots ringing out and clouds of black smoke wafting over the shanties. The death toll across the country is steadily rising.

Witnesses indicate that more than 250 people have been killed in the past two days in bloodshed connected to a disputed election Kenya held last week.

Read the rest of the story here.

The victims appear to have been targeted because they of their ethnicity, unlike last week's attacks in India, when Hindu nationalists went nuts on Christians, burning down dozens of churches and killing an unconfirmed few.