Getting furry for the Omer

Jay Firestone has given us a matzo taste test, shown the post-party perils of Purim and hit the streets to talk politics in Pico-Robertson, but this is by far his best video dispatch so far.

Villaraigosa renews his Israeli ties

To celebrate Israeli@60, Jewlicious started a feature called 60Bloggers, which has included a few notable names thus far, including Gary Wexler and The Calendar Girls. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa added his name Monday, drawing comparisons to the "culture and commerce, and ties of blood and family":

Los Angeles and Israel are both homes of creativity and bastions of innovation - places defined by a deep respect for diversity, a longstanding belief in what’s possible, and the fervent hope, dream and commitment to build a peaceful tomorrow.

Here in Los Angeles, we celebrate the state of Israel and our own Israeli community in a variety of ways. We host the largest showcase of Israeli films in the United States and we have built a strong relationship with our sister city, Eilat. Thousands of Israeli students of all ages have attended and enriched our schools and synagogues, and Israeli security specialists have come to the Tom Bradley International Terminal at the Los Angeles International Airport to help protect airline passengers and foreign visitors. Each year, the city’s Israel Festival brings together over 40,000 people in the largest celebration of Israeli culture anywhere. And, overcoming the obstacles faced by so many immigrant groups, the vitality and vibrancy of L.A.’s Israeli families never diminish and only grow stronger every day.

Israel’s 60 years have been shaped by the resilience, strength and devotion of its people. Through criticism and condemnation, the Jewish state has stood up for the values and principles that have long made the Jewish people a “light unto the nations.” Israel’s citizens have kept faith with the hope – “ha-tikvah” – that they might live as a free nation, in peace and security, in the land of their ancestors. I know the City of Los Angeles and our people will continue to benefit from a close relationship with the State of Israel long into the future.

Villaraigosa has a very close relationship with L.A.'s Jewish leaders. He's been called an "honorary member of the Tribe" and his best buddy on the City Council is Jack Weiss, who represents the city's most Jewish district.

As Speaker of the California Assembly, Villaraigosa twice visited Israel, and two years ago he developed a relationship with Sderot Mayor Eli Moyal. Efforts last summer to organize a mayor's trip to the Jewish state were unsuccessful; I've been told his calendar is marked for a week-long trip next month.

Though he couldn't see the holy sites or dignitaries from the San Fernando Valley on Sunday Villaraigosa had the chance to speak with several thousand Israelis at the annual Israel Festival at Woodley Park.

I was there, but, vainly attempting to avoid the heat of the day, before the mayor arrived. Between dripping buckets of sweat and being shown how to solve a Rubik's cube by a Messianic Jew, I enjoyed fake Hebrew coke and picked up books about Spinoza and Koufax. It reminded me of something a former field deputy for U.S. Rep Brad Sherman, who is Jewish and represents part of the Valley, once told me:

The biggest threat to Israel is Tarzana, Calif. It looks like Israel; it feels like Israel; and the people all speak Hebrew.

NY Jews protest attack on teen

New York Chasids responded with a lot more anger and outrage to the assault and robbery of a Jewish teen early Friday morning than Jews in Pico-Roberston did this time last year, when a spate of Shabbat muggings had the community on edge, or the attack last fall on the prominent rabbi of Young Israel of Century City. The difference seems to be that the L.A. attacks were crimes of opportunities while NY authorities are looking into Friday's incident as a possible hate crime.

How do American Jews love Israel?

My boss, Rob Eshman, contributed a commentary to KPCC yesterday on Israel's 60th anniversary. His argument was that most American Jews love Israel like little girls love Hannah Montana:

But the problem with crushes is that the instant our crush disappoints us, we become disillusioned. The problem with crushes is we overlook faults until they turn dangerous and tragic.

Israel at 60 is a wonderful achievement. But it also faces monumental problems that cannot be overlooked: it desperately needs to improve the quality of its democracy. It needs to narrow the gaps between rich and poor, between secular and religious, between Arab and Jewish Israelis. It needs to pursue agreements with its enemies. It needs to reject the ideologies that have mired it in the folly of settlements for the past 40 years.

And we who love Israel have to learn to scold it, to correct it, to not stay away out of disillusionment or keep quiet out of deference. The father of Zionism, Theodore Herzl, once said, "Nothing happens as one hopes, nor as one fears." A real state in the real world doesn't demand reverence, it demands we raise our voices and get involved.

Crushes are fine when we're young. But Israel is turning 60; it's time we grew up too.

Also on this topic, Shmuel Rosner wrote a piece Wednesday for Slate.com that recommends dropping the phrase "pro-Israel" because it is so widely used, it's lost any meaning.

Long Beach professor justifies anti-Semitism

I do not think Jews are living in 1938 Germany. But it really has seemed lately liked I've transitioned to the anti-Semitism beat. Besides posting several items on the topic during the past few days, I spent last night at UC Irvine, listening to a speech from Norman Finkelstein, who has certainly been called an anti-Semite, and that followed two weeks of researching and writing a profile of Kevin MacDonald, a psychology professor at Cal State Long Beach whose books have been compared to "Mein Kampf."

In the above video, which is 41 minutes long, MacDonald appears on the TV program "Current Issues," hosted by Palestinian American Hesham Tillawi. The focus of their conversation is the negative influence and clannish behavior of Jews. At the 17-minute mark, MacDonald describes his opinions, detailed in a three-volume series and subsequent essays that can be found at kevinmacdonald.net, as "rational" anti-Semitism.

MacDonald once served as an expert witness for Holocaust-denier David Irving, and many of his theories of Judaism as a "group evolutionary strategy" are controversial. The least palatable are that Judaism has a built in eugenics program -- the study of Talmud, which, he claims, stemmed the reproduction of dumber members of the Tribe -- and that anti-Semitism, even Nazism, were gentile responses to Jewish success.

He's been on the faculty of Cal State Long Beach 23 years now, having achieved full tenure in 1994. But the university is under increasing pressure from some of MacDonald's colleagues and outside organizations to denounce his writings, which, obviously, have very little to do with child psychology and, to his credit, have been kept out of the classroom.

Under the headline, "The Professor Anti-Semites Love," MacDonald carries this week's cover for The Jewish Journal. It's a long profile -- from his childhood in Oshkosh to the origins of his research to the contents of his books and the battle against him -- so I'll just mention now the biggest problem MacDonald has had: his anti-Semitic admirers.

As a warning, there will be some very vulgar language from someone who would like to see the fulfillment of the Final Solution:

In the second of two recent interviews, MacDonald said he is not a fan of anti-Semitism. But he also described his opinions on a Palestinian American TV news program in 2005 as "rational anti-Semitism" and has joked that being branded a Jew hater was a "badge of honor," the knee-jerk reaction of a scared Jewish establishment.

The chief concern over MacDonald's writings about Jews is directed at his fan base: white supremacists like Stormfront.org and Vanguard News Network -- whose motto is "No Jews. Just Right." The members of these online communities have become his loudest defenders, often in language that is as offensive as possible.

"So the goddam Kikes are getting their way yet again, putting the thumbscrews to a White scholar whose ass they are not worthy to lick.... At least this oppression proves that Prof. MacDonald's great work is hitting the scum hard," a Vanguard commenter wrote in February below a republished story about MacDonald from CSULB's student paper.

"How much more of this humiliation is our race going to take? How long before this motherf---ing plague of repulsive, hook-snouted ticks is given a real Zyklon fumigation, as opposed to the fairy tale one?"

MacDonald repudiated such rhetoric as "crazy stuff" but said he supports the ideology behind it.

"White people have legitimate ethnic interests. To the extent that that is all they believe, then we are on the same page," he said. "I don't like to use words like white supremacists. You could say that Koreans in Korea are Korean supremacists if they want to maintain their culture. It is kind of a loaded word; it is a politically charged word of the left, basically, to pathologize any sense of having an ethnicity and culture by people like me. I reject that."

"I certainly reject the tactics and the rhetoric of these people. It's very crude," MacDonald added. "But to the extent that David Duke is trying to advance a white ethnic interest and so on, I don't have any problem with that."

I'll post later about the basis for MacDonald's research, which rests on an assumption of "Jewish Genius."

It's 'alleged' anti-Semitism: a-l-l-e-g-e-d

Like the Wall Street Journal last week, the liberal Israeli daily, Ha'aretz, carried a story this week that convicted the Rev. Eric Lee of saying, "The Jews have made money on us in the music business and we are the entertainers, and they are economically enslaving us."

Prominent California reverend and black activist Eric Lee has apologized for anti-Semitic comments he said last month at a Los Angeles event commemorating the assassination of Martin Luther King.

The Los Angeles Times on Friday reported a "reconciliation" meeting between the Pastor and Daphna Ziman - an Israeli-American philanthropist and the recipient of this year's Tom Bradley Award for community service, for whose honor Lee made the keynote speech at an award ceremony in Los Angeles.

During his speech, Lee, the local president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a civil rights group, is reported to have suddenly launched an anti-Semitic rant, stating that Jews have made money on blacks in the music business.

In fact, there has been much dispute, which I reported several times over, about exactly what Lee said. And the word missing from the above story is "alleged." It is what Lee is "alleged" to have said. But Ha'aretz' Shlomo Shamir, like so many people who read Lee's apology, assumed, apparently without talking with Lee or Daphna Ziman, the Jewish philanthropist whose emailed account of Lee's speech went viral.

The difference between Shamir's news article and the Wall Street Journal op-ed by MLK's former lawyer is just that: One was news and the other opinion. Both, though, need to be accurate.

We likely will never know what exactly Lee said during his April 4 keynote before members of the Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity. Ziman and Lee, however, appear to have moved on with the ceremonial breaking of bread. My colleague, Tom Tugend, has a report from the publicized meeting.

Judging by the determinedly upbeat comments of the participants, their private deliberations had touches of a peace summit, a revival meeting and an exploration of past, present and future relations between the African American and Jewish communities.

Ziman and Lee, sitting side by side and occasionally linking hands, were a picture of amity and good will, with both crediting their reconciliation to "divine intervention."

Ziman noted that in the past three weeks she had moved "from shedding tears to a sense of hope" and stressed that those present had a responsibility not to damage future generations through prejudice.

"I request the pledge of every religious leader in the United States that no racism be spouted in public places and places of worship," she said.

Lee described Ziman and himself as "two passionate and well-intentioned people who both love God."

(Thanks to Richard Silverstein for emailing me Shamir's dispatch)

Tribal Affairs: Boxing's Golden Boy was Jewish

There is a long history of Jewish fighters who embraced Irish names and boxing as vehicles out of the LES ghetto. Art Aragon wasn't one of them, at least not until later in life.

Boxing's "Golden Boy" -- a sports celebrity on par with Joe Namath, though never a world champ -- was raised Catholic in East L.A. But his second wife was Jewish, and Aragon converted so he could marry her (and presumably his third wife, who also was Jewish; his fourth, however, was not). From a short appreciation I wrote about Aragon for this week's paper:

"My grandfather wouldn't let my mother marry him because he was a real swinger," Aragon's son, Brad, recalled recently. "So he offered him $100,000 to just leave. And my dad said, 'I can't be bought.' Then my grandfather said, 'Well, Irene, he's not Jewish.' So he converted."

Aragon, who died last month at his Northridge home after suffering a stroke, was buried at Mt. Sinai Memorial Park, a worthy resting place for someone who shrank his conversion certificate so he could be a "card-carrying Jew." He was 80 when he was buried on April Fools' Day.

"Everybody expected, because he was such a joker, him to wink his eye and say, 'Just kidding,'" Brad Aragon said.

Julian Eget, the EVP of the World Boxing Hall of Fame, which inducted Aragon in 1990, told me that the Golden Boy might not have been an observant Jew, except for enjoying the food, but he was certainly a proud one.

"It was incredible for me," Eget said. "It just doesn't happen; most of the time it goes the other way, people changing their names and trying to hide from being Jewish."

Aragon was so proud of his heritage that Eget believed had made the rare Abrahamic decision to receive an adult circumcision.

"No. That's not true," Aragon's son assured me, offering some details I left out of the story. "My dad had his sh-- clipped when he was a kid."

Parish donates $1.5 million to abuse victims

The Catholic clergy sex scandal has caused not just physical but also financial pain, only the victims are different. (Much of the cost was absorbed by insurers and religious orders.) The L.A. Archdiocese recently sold its headquarters to offset a $660 million -- ! -- settlement, a payout for which Cardinal Roger Mahony was reportedly assaulted. And now one of the cardinal's parish in my old 'hood has stepped forward to help foot the bill.

St. Bernardine of Siena Parish in Woodland Hills has donated nearly $1.5 million of its savings to the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles to help fund last year's multimillion-dollar settlement of clergy sex abuse cases.

The donation is unprecedented in the archdiocese, which has called on 101 churches with identified savings of at least $1 million each to help offset the more than $660 million payout to victims of clergy sexual abuse, according to archdiocese spokesman Tod Tamberg.

"While it may not sit well with everyone in the parish, it is an extraordinary gesture of community and family on the part of St. Bernardine Parish," said Tamberg, who called the gift "emotionally moving."

This story from the LA Daily News is moving, as Tamberg says; it's encouraging to see the church body step forward and support its leaders. If only those leaders had supported the church body when the seeds of this sorrow were being sown.

(Hat tip: LAObserved)

Rev. Lee blasted in Wall St. Journal

L'affaire Ziman-Lee made its way today onto the op-ed pages of the Wall Street Journal. Seriously. The focus of the piece was on the historic friendship between Martin Luther King Jr. and Jews, and the author, who was King's attorney, says the great civil rights leader would have been sickened by what the Rev. Eric Lee supposedly said.

(In case you need a reminder, Jewish philanthropist Daphna Ziman, who was being honored by a historically black fraternity for her work with foster kids, claims Lee said, "The Jews have made money on us in the music business and we are the entertainers, and they are economically enslaving us." Lee denied using those words, "unequivocally" denounced anti-Semitism and apologized for any "misunderstandings.")

It was bad enough that the event took place on April 4, the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination. Even more galling, Mr. Lee is the president-CEO of the L.A. branch of the Southern Christian Leadership Foundation – the very civil-rights organization co-founded by the slain civil-rights leader.

Martin would have been repelled by Mr. Lee's remarks. I was his lawyer and one of his closest advisers, and I can say with absolute certainty that Martin abhorred anti-Semitism in all its forms, including anti-Zionism. "There isn't anyone in this country more likely to understand our struggle than Jews," Martin told me. "Whatever progress we've made so far as a people, their support has been essential."

Martin was disheartened that so many blacks could be swayed by Elijah Muhammad's Nation of Islam and other black separatists, rejecting his message of nonviolence, and grumbling about "Jew landlords" and "Jew interlopers" – even "Jew slave traders." The resentment and anger displayed toward people who offered so much support for civil rights was then nascent. But it has only festered and grown over four decades. Today, black-Jewish relations have arguably grown worse, not better.

For that, Martin would place fault principally on the shoulders of black leaders such as Louis Farrakhan, Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson – either for making anti-Semitic statements, inciting anti-Semitism (including violence), or failing to condemn overt anti-Semitism within the black community.

The strangest thing to me about this op-ed is that the author, Clarence B. Jones, assumes that because Lee apologized he must have said what Ziman claims he said. (A confusing line of thought, I know.)

Lee told me that he had spoken of Jewish influence in the entertainment industry but that he laid off such incendiary language as "economically enslaving us." I've been careful to not taint my reporting on this topic with conjectures about was and wasn't said. But it seems clear that, at the least, Lee was unaware of how sensitive some members of the Jewish community are to suggestions they control the media. As Richard Silverstein said in a blog post critical of Ziman's effort to attract attention to what she heard:

It appears to me that Lee is a tone-deaf African-American minister who hasn’t yet learned how to speak in a nuanced fashion about the issues he wants to address. He verges on anti-Semitism without quite coming right out and saying anything that is explicitly so. Slightly troubling? Maybe. ...

The fact is that Lee did in fact get very close to saying what he claims he doesn’t believe.

Whatever was said, Lee and Ziman plan to reconcile tomorrow at her Beverly Hills home. PR flaks have been retained and plane tickets booked for Charles Steele, head of the SCLC, and Rabbi Marc Schneier of the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding.

Fauxmemoirist likens gangsters to suicide bombers

This video turned up today on Gawker of "Margaret B. Jones," the James Frey of Gangland whose real name was Margaret Seltzer and real life was that of a well-off white girl from the San Fernando Valley. In the video, "Jones" rambles about how hardcore it is in the hood she didn't grow up in.

It's like being a Palestinian suicide bomber. When you are borne into it and you are caught up in it, and your ego and your pride, it makes perfect sense.

Someone at my paper went looking for Seltzer after the scandal broke because they were under the impression that, instead of being a half-white, half-Native American foster kid from South Central, she was actually a Jewish kid from Sherman Oaks. I, however, could find only that she attendy pricey Campbell Hall, an Episcopal prep school.

Dodgers strikeout adding Canter's to Koufax

Canter's Deli and Sandy Koufax -- two names that evoke the words 'Jewish Los Angeles' unlike any other. With the Tribe's contributions to Los Angeles' eateries and baseball team, it's fitting that the Dodgers would offer the delicacies that seem as much a part of Judaism as the Passover story: salt-cured beef and matzah ball soup. It only took 50 years for that to happen.

Part of a multimillion-dollar field-level expansion project at Dodger Stadium, Canter's Deli -- an anchor of the Fairfax district since 1948, but with an L.A. history that dates back to 1931 in Boyle Heights -- joined Gordon Biersch, Panda Express and all those Dodger Dog windows. Its menu is truncated but carries the essentials: matzah ball soup, corned beef and pastrami sandwiches and that marriage of the two meats, the Canter's Fairfax.

An avid Dodger fan -- the kind who takes his wife to games on their anniversary -- I was eager to sample the new fare. The line was short and my Canter's Fairfax was served up suspiciously quickly. Indeed, something terrible happens to thinly sliced, heavily salted meat when placed under a heat lamp. It doesn't melt in your mouth -- it flakes.

What I couldn't find at Canter's or any other concession stand was a kosher hot dog. Providing a kosher nosh would require renovating the kitchens at Dodger Stadium and peeling Farmer John's grip from its hot dog monopoly. A Dodger spokeswoman said the club has "no immediate plans" for this.

Fortunately, I don't keep kosher. But plenty of Angelenos do, and for years they've felt like they're missing out of one of the most enjoyable elements of rooting for the Dodgers: Eating a lukewarm hot dog that is never as tasty as you remember.

This is from a piece I wrote for this week's Jewish Journal. Plenty of other stadiums offer kosher nosh, including the Boston Red Sox, who just announced the additional menu item alongside the Fenway Frank. That makes Steve Getzug, an L.A. public affairs executive and founding member of the Lou Barak Memorial Hot Dog Committee (I could be so lucky in death), a bit jealous.

"Our field of dreams," he said, "includes kosher hot dogs."

A Passover celebration with Jews and Rev. Lee

Last month, at the invitation of the American Jewish Committee and the request of my editors, I agreed to attend a seder tonight that I would have a difficult time writing about. It was an interesting enough event -- black Christians and Jews sitting together to remember our delivery from slavery -- but it was one of innumerable seders happening all over town for 10 days.

The whole context of the Passover meal changed, of course, when an email from Jewish philanthropist Daphna Ziman began circulating a little less than two weeks ago.

You're probably familiar with the story now: Ziman, who had been attending the annual banquet for a historically black fraternity, where she was honored for her charitableness toward foster kids, wrote that the keynote speaker delivered an anti-Semitic diatribe worthy of "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion." That speaker, the Rev. Eric P. Lee, local head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, vehemently denied Ziman's account of his speech and "unequivocally" denounced anti-Semitism.

"My entire reputation has been damaged," the Rev. Eric P. Lee told me Monday. "This has really taken its toll on me. I've taken the brunt, and it seems there is no question about whether Ms. Ziman inaccurately heard, and I was misinterpreted. It has just been really rough to me and my family."

In today's paper I have a 2,000-word follow up that doesn't answer the question of what Lee did or didn't say -- organizers say no recording was made and few people claim to have been paying attention -- but explains the email's seismic shocks and the cautious nature of community-leaders' reactions.

Ziman's e-mail soon moved across the globe, aided by dissemination on April 9 on StandWithUs' 50,000-member listserv. Jewish organizations in Los Angeles heard from folks in Chicago and New York and the South, from Israelis and Europeans. It got additional attention when the Los Angeles Times reported the "rift" a week after it began. Many who shared the e-mail added their own commentary.

"It's no secret: the black community is riddled with Jew-hatred," Robert J. Avrech, a screenwriter who is Orthodox, wrote when posting the e-mail to his well-trafficked blog, Seraphic Secret. "And with so many apologists for Jeremiah Wright on the left and in the Jewish community, well, Jew-hatred has found a comfortable home not just in the black community but in the Democratic party."

Larry Greenfield, California director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, added a similar sentiment in bolded letters when he forwarded Ziman's missive: "Anti Americanism, Anti Zionism, Anti Semitism mark today's left."

In responding to the incident, many community leaders have had to traverse a minefield.

The mayor, Councilman Bernard Parks and state Sen. Mark Ridley-Thomas had been present at the gala, but all left before Lee's address. In response to the controversy, Villaraigosa broadly condemned racism in any form and at any time. The AJCommittee and the ADL looked for a way to move forward regardless of what Lee had said.

"Unapologetic anti-Semitism has a much different feeling than this thing," said Amanda Susskind, the ADL's regional director, who has acted as a liaison between Ziman and Lee. "It doesn't mean that either side is right or wrong, or what he said or she said -- I wasn't there.... But I would say there is always room for more discussion, dialogue and sensitivity."

Also this week, Rob Eshman's column focuses on Four Questions raised by Lee's speech and its aftermath.

Beckham's boy to enter Jewish day school

If Jews and anti-Semites have one thing in common, it's that they spend all day talking about who is and isn't Jewish. David Beckham has been the subject of much of this discussion. Further fueling speculation that the Galaxy's biggest salary is more than just "half-Jewish," he and Posh Spice have decided to enroll their 3-year-old son at a Jewish school:

The former Manchester United and England captain moved to Los Angeles in 2007, after signing a five-year contract with L.A. Galaxy.

The Sun states that the couple last week visited the nursery school, which is "attached to a Jewish temple in Los Angeles," to meet with staff.

However, the report quotes a source as saying that there is "no plan" for three-year-old Cruz "to be educated in the Jewish faith."

David Beckham is often reported to have Jewish roots on his mother's side, and, according to The Sun, he recently referred to himself as "half Jewish."

The Beckhams have matching Hebrew tattoos showing a line taken from the Song of Songs. The tattoos read: "I am for my beloved and my beloved is for me."

In Los Angeles, where schools are so bad, people go through a lot of measures to avoid sending their kids to public schools.

Rev. Lee 'unequivocally' denounces anti-Semitism

The Rev. Eric Lee, the local head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, has been trying to smooth the waters since Jewish philanthropist Daphna Ziman accused him of saying blacks and Jews would never come together because "The Jews have made money on us in the music business and we are the entertainers, and they are economically enslaving us."

Yesterday Lee issued an official statement denying Ziman's account. And today he sent her an apology, which just arrived in my inbox and I have pasted below in its entirety.

It is with deep regret and my sincerest apologies that any comments I have made have caused you pain and distress. It was never my intent to insult you or the Jewish community, with whom I have a respected and long standing relationship. It is my hope that any misunderstandings may be clarified such that both our communities may move forward with mutual respect and a commitment to our shared struggles against any form of injustice.

As a Christian, and as an African American, we have long embraced the history of Israel’s plight of slavery, oppression, deliverance and freedom as symbolic of African American’s plight against slavery, oppression, deliverance and freedom. Our communities are joined together in this struggle.

I unequivocally denounce any anti-Semitic sentiments, statements and behavior and assure you that such hatred is not reflective of my character and my work. Specifically, I do not believe, and the SCLC does not subscribe to the belief, that Jews control the entertainment industries or are responsible for negative characterizations of African Americans. As the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. stated, “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” My commitment is to ensuring justice is promoted for all of G-d’s people.

I am reminded of a part of a Seder ceremony in which the children of Israel are fleeing Pharaoh’s army and celebrate the drowning of their pursuers in the Red Sea. G-d’s response was disappointment because all are His children. I wholeheartedly believe that we are all G-d’s children and in the words of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “we must learn to live together as brothers, or we perish together as fools”.

Anti-Semitism interrupts black frat event?

Below is the choicest nugget of an e-mail from Daphna Ziman, a respected Jewish philanthropist and political contributor in Los Angles, that has spread like a viral video during the past few days. It accuses a black leader, the Rev. Eric Lee, president and CEO of Southern Christian Leadership Conference's L.A. office, of espousing some virulent anti-Semitism at a ceremony Friday night that honored Ziman for her work with foster children.

Lee emphatically denies saying what follows, but, like those rumors about Barack Obama that spread around the Internet a few months ago, Ziman's missive has taken on a life of its own.

He began his speech by thanking Jesus for Obama, who is going to be the leader of the world. He continued by referring to other leaders Like Dr. King,being that this was the moment of celebrating Dr. King's spirit on the anniversary of his assasination, and Malcolm X.

It was right after the mention of Malcolm X that he looked right at me and started talking about the African American children who are suffering because of the JEWS that have featured them as rapists and murderers.

He spoke of a Jewish Rabbi, and then corrected himself to say "What other kind of Rabbis are there, but JEWS". He told how this Rabbi came to him to say that he would like to bring the AA community and the Jewish community together. " NO, NO, NO,!!!!" he shouted into the crowd, we are not going to come together. "The Jews have made money on us in the music business and we are the entertainers, and they are economically enslaving us"

I received this Sunday morning and spent a good part of the past four days trying to figure out heads from tails. What I ended up with was a he-said, she-said atomic bomb of accusations.

Ziman left in tears during Lee's speech. The guests who accompanied her, including two women who work for her and a friend, have corroborated her account.

"He said that the African-American community is not going to bridge any gaps because the Jewish community is responsible for the defamation of African Americans on the silver screen," said Branka Gonzales, Children Uniting's chief financial officer. "His feelings were that nothing is going to change until those things change, until the Jewish community stops its ways."

"When the reverend got up, it almost felt like he was ... promoting Barack, and he said he is the only leader for where our country stands today," said Chase Dreyfous, who is Episcopalian. "Then he went on a tangent to say the Jews are holding the African-American musicians captive, that they had portrayed their children as thieves and murderers. I don't know if it was his intention or not, but for not being a Jewish person, I was extremely offended."

Others in attendance - from a state assemblyman to a civil rights attorney to the event's organizers, who invited Ziman - said they didn't listen carefully enough to the speech to confirm or deny Ziman's accusations.

"I vaguely remember hearing something about a conversation he had with a rabbi and dealing with the media," said the evening's emcee, Damon M. Brown, head of the Los Angeles alumni of Kappa Alpha Psi. "I don't recall hearing anything that was offensive to me, and then again, I'm not Jewish so I don't know if there are some sensitivities one would have."

Curtis R. Silvers Jr., the head of the fraternity's Western Province, which held the gala as part of its annual conference, also said he heard nothing offensive. He said there was no audio or video recording of the event and that, like Brown, he was preoccupied during Lee's keynote and paid it only intermittent attention. Assemblyman Mike Davis, a Los Angeles Democrat who has been supported by Ziman and her husband, said the same.

"I speak for a living, and I learned a long time ago that when you speak about controversial issues you have to be really careful and sometimes, even the best of people, will make mistakes," Davis said. "I can't say I was tuned into what he was saying, but I do know people make errors."

People are listening now.

The full text of the e-mail, and Lee's characterization of what he said, can be found here.

Why Jews should vote for Obama

I first learned of Saigon Bob one day while putting off deadline at the Daily News and refreshing the home page of LAObserved. Bob Kholos had been press secretary for legendary Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, and on his blog, which LAObserved linked me to, Kholos alleged that while running for mayor, Bradley's campaign had discovered that then-Mayor Sam Yorty once paid for a back-alley abortion that left the young woman dead.

Instead of blasting it in the news media, we decided to use it about 10 seconds prior to a live debate in the San Fernando Valley just a couple of days before the election.

Aide, and future Bradley Press Secretary, Tom Sullivan volunteered to run past Yorty just as the debate started and whisper a name.

Sullivan whispered the name of the person, and Yorty responded, “So, your going to play that game.”

Six months later, Bob contacted me after reading an article I'd written about an eruv dividing Oak Park and its expensive neighbors, Agoura Hills and Westlake Village. I last talked with Bob, whom I believe now lives in Oregon, shortly after I joined The Journal. But yesterday he shot me this note -- "This Obama 'guilt by association' has the definite feel of the old Tom Bradley 1969 campaign ... in which he lost as Mayor" -- with a link to his thoughts on why the Jewish community should support Barack Obama.

Social justice is a four thousand year old tradition in Jewish history(some would say five thousand years..give or take a thousand years)

Of course, that does not mean that every person practices such an ideal, but this strength among the Jewish population has lead to the end of child labor, a movement of Unions, better treatment of animals, and a joining together with other minorities in bringing about the civil rights revolution in America (That's the short list)

Certainly, Hillary Clinton and John McCain, have also enjoyed wide Jewish support, and deservedly so.

Senator Barack Obama, is a special case.

He is trying to bring about a "post racial" attitude among all Americans.

(skip)

As far as Obama's support for Israel, one Israeli newspaper said that, "Barack Obama is pro-Israel. Period."

Also, guilt by association, has been the unfortunate hallmark which has been used to destroy many Jewish communities throughout Jewish history.

An angry preacher, and a Black separatist, have supported Senator Obama. But, nothing could be further from the truth, as to the mind set and political practice of the junior Senator from Illinois.

To blame him for the small mindedness of others is about as "un-Jewish" as you can get.

Barack Obama is his own man, a great candidate, and someone who can bring a nation together.

That is the best reason to support him.

I sense Michael Spitzer-Rubenstein would agree with that logic.

Hagee came, he didn't conquer, but he wasn't booed

John Hagee spoke in Los Angeles last night, and my colleague, Danielle Berrin, reports that, as far as controversial speakers go, he was no Karl Rove. Despite receiving a lot of press during the past few weeks for his history of incendiary comments, Hagee, Danielle writes, "was quite boring."

Here are the verbal highlights from a night that sounded more like a bible recitation than a discussion:

"I'd rather talk to G-d for 30 seconds than to George [W.] Bush all night."

"Granting forgiveness without demanding a change in conduct is to make the grace of G-d an accomplice to evil."

"Jesus, who was a reform rabbi..."

On Jews bringing the bible to the world:
"We, as Christians have a bible mandate to help you. If we have benefited from Jewish spiritual things, than we have an obligation to help Jews with material things."

On he and his rabbi friend:
"When we're standing in the streets of Jerusalem together and the Messiah comes, one of us has a great theological adjustment to make."

On the Crusaders:
"They were thieves, liars, robbers and rapists."

Mourning the Mercaz Harav massacre

The killing of eight students at a Jerusalem yeshiva last week, the first terror attack in the Holy City in four years, broke the hearts of Jews around the world. Here in Los Angeles, their were vigils and peace rallies and very shaken Jewish teenagers like Aaron Begin.

"Rabbi, I have a question," he says to his principal, Rabbi Heshy Glass, who is standing with him. "Doesn't it say you can't die while you're learning Torah?"

Glass tells him the story of the Mishnaic sage Rabbi Akiva, who was taken by the Romans while he studied. Like these boys, he tells Begin, he was a Jewish hero, remembered for the ages.

Glass doesn't try to make sense of the tragedy, just to continue the conversation about what is so troubling to Begin and other boys at YULA, many of whom plan to study in Israeli yeshivas when they graduate.

"You hear about tragedies in Israel, but it hits so close to home because this is us next year. Next year we're going to yeshiva," said Chaim Gamzo, a 17-year-old senior. "These guys had their whole lives ahead of them -- like me. I hope to go to yeshiva, to go to college, to have a normal successful life, but they didn't have the opportunity to do that."

On Sunday, a peace rally packed Young Israel of Century City and L.A. Councilman Jack Weiss said the massacre at Mercaz Harav was not an attack on a seminary affiliated with the settler movement.

“Judaism is about Torah and the transmission of Torah. The essence of Judaism is Torah, and its transfar from one generation to the next, “Medor le'dor.” And that's what Mercaz HaRav does, all day and all night, year in and year out.

“The attack on the students of Yeshiva Mercaz Harav had absolutely nothing to do with politics. The terrorist was not acting because of national grievances, it was not a dispute about territory—as if that would excuse such an atrocity—for it wouldn't.

“No, the terrorist was attacking Judaism.

“By murdering these eight pure students the terrorist was trying to eradicate the core of Judaism: Torah and the transmission of Torah.

“In addition, the rockets that fly from Gaza into S'derot may appear as if they are connected to a dispute about land, but that's a lie.

“The rockets are also an attack on Judaism. The rockets are an attack on Jews in Israel and on Jews in every corner of the world.

“The battle that Israel wages against the Muslim jihadists is not a local conflict, but just one front in a world-wide jihad.

“Make no doubt about it, this war is a genocidal attack against all Jews.

“The goal of the Islamic jihadists is to eradicate Judaism from the face of the earth.

“And that's why the eight Torah students were chosen for slaughter.

“If you don't understand this simple calculus, then you have no understanding of the true nature of the enemy.”

Tied to the Mercaz Harav attack, I have a short piece in tomorrow's Jewish Journal, online now, about a protest against the Jewish state that was held outside the Israeli consulate in L.A. while officials inside mourned the deaths that occurred only the day before. The protest was organized by the Muslim Student Union at UC Irvine in response to the IDF's entry into Gaza the weekend before, which left 100 Palestinians dead, and among the speakers was Amir Abdel Malik Ali, who referred to Zionists as "the new Nazis."

Scientology is entertainment or religion?

When the LA Times put a story today about the Internet assault on Scientology in the Calendar section, was the paper settling the half-century-old debate about the sincerity of Scientology as a religion or just filling a weak entertainment section?

The day before ExScientologyKids.com launched, another inflammatory allegation about the church began to circulate virulently online. "L. Ron Hubbard Plagiarized Scientology," read a headline at the popular Internet culture blog BoingBoing. The post linked to images of a translated 1934 German book called "Scientologie," which critics say contains similar themes to Hubbard's Scientology, which he codified in 1952, according to a church website.

These were just the latest in a series of Scientology-related stories to burn across the Internet like grass fires in recent weeks, testing the church's well-established ability to tightly control its public image. The largest thorn in the church's side has been a group called Anonymous, a diffuse online coalition of skeptics, hackers and activists, many of them young and Web-savvy. The high-wattage movement has inspired former Scientologists to come forward and has repeatedly trained an Internet spotlight on any story or rumor that portrays Scientology in unflattering terms.

No corner of the Web, it appears, is safe for Scientology. Blogger and lawyer Scott Pilutik recently posted a story noting that Scientology was yanking down EBay auctions for used e-meters, the device the church uses for spiritual counseling. EBay allows brand owners -- Louis Vuitton or Rolex, say -- to remove items they believe infringe on their trademark or patent rights. Basically, fakes. But, Pilutik said, the used e-meters being taken down were genuine. Reselling them was no different than putting a for-sale sign on your old Chevy.

"What's actually going on here," he wrote, is that the church is "knowingly alleging intellectual property violations that clearly don't exist." Within a day Pilutik's blog had gotten over 45,000 visitors -- so much traffic that his site crashed completely.

Facing a steady stream of negative publicity and a growing number of critical voices, Scientology has found itself on the defensive.

The church has referred to Anonymous as a group of "cyber-terrorists" and, in a statement, said the group's aims were "reminiscent of Al Qaeda spreading anti-American hatred and calling for U.S. destruction."

"These people are posing extremely serious death threats to our people," said church spokeswoman Karin Pouw in a phone interview. "We are talking about religious hatred and bigotry."

Scientology has certainly been under assault lately, from that revealing piece in Rolling Stone to Germany's efforts to ban it and the war launched against it last month in Hollywood. But Pouw, I think, is reaching when she calls this "religious hatred and bigotry." This is criticism, something all religions have had to face. And most haven't resorted to frivolous lawsuits to silence their detractors.

Visit Sderot: Zionism reborn

The Los Angeles Jewish community has been forced this week to take notice of the daily rocket attacks that for the past seven years have been visited upon Sderot and the surrounding kibbutzim and moshavim. The Live for Sderot concert attracted more than 2,000 Tuesday night, and 10 children from the western Negev have been sharing their stories at LA college campuses and high schools.

Still, it's difficult to grasp the precariousness of life along the Gaza border unless you visit. After I spent two days there last summer, my perspective changed dramatically. Starting today, an Israeli travel company is offering that first-hand experience.

the trips will leave from Tel Aviv stopping in a few places along the way including locations of significant battles in the 1948 War of Independence. They will visit areas blossoming with the coming of spring in the northern Negev area and then continue onto Sderot for a two-hour visit.

In the rocket-battered town, the organizers have not planned any specific activity. They are hoping that participants will roam the town's streets and spontaneously speak with residents about what they are going through and purchase products at Sderot's various commercial centers.

Smadar Bat-Adam, the person responsible for the Eretz Nehederet tour, told Ynet that "in every bus, there will be a tour guide who will add to the trip. In addition, Uzi Landau, (former Minister) Avigdor Kahalani and others will be among the passengers and they will also give explanations. ...

Landau said that "Sderot is a manifestation of Zionism renewing itself, we are turning to all who are Zionist and care about the land." However, the former minister emphasized that "the calling is for the entire public – from left to right. We're touring without political arguments – this is not a place for politics – everyone can be his own solution. We're going in order to tour, to identify and to aid the resident by purchasing (products from them)."

(The top photo came from Rick Richman's blog, where he recently has been chronically in pictures and words the situation in Sderot.)