March 30, 2008 | 11:58 pm

Mr. Halakhah, tear down this prayer!

Posted by JewishJournal.com

Some Jews want the Catholics to remove from their liturgy a prayer that calls for the conversion of the Jews.

The over-hyped and amateurish ‘Fitna’ video asks Muslims to strike certain verses from the Koran.

What’s next, censoring the Aleinu?

Ooops, been there done that!

Missing from most contemporary recitations of the Aleinu prayer are these lines, thanking God because he didn’t make us like the other Nations . . .

. . . for they bow to vanity and emptiness
and pray to a god which helps not

This was considered anti-Christian by European religious authorities and Jews themselves removed the offending lines.

Later, however

Many learned rabbis tried to prove how wrong the accusations against this prayer were, based on the facts that the phrase found to be offending is found in Isaiah,20 that the composition of the prayer was pre-Christian. If Rav (not Joshua) was the author, it was written in a non-Christian country. The censors remained adamant and renewed their attacks in 1716 and again in 1750. The vehement opposition to this phrase resulted in it being deleted from the Ashkenazic prayer books. The Sephardim, especially of Oriental countries, retained it, and in recent years it has been restored to many Ashkenazic prayer books at the insistence of many authorities, especially Rabbi Yehoshua Leib Diskin.

All religions have ‘difficult texts.’

We have to acknowledge and learn to accept them as products of their times, not hide them, destroy them or pretend they’re not part of the canon.

Phone call for Mr. Amalek!

—The Web Guy

March 30, 2008 | 12:48 am

ΣΥΜΑ ΙΣΤΡΑΗΛ ΑΔΩNΕ ΕΛΩΗ ΑΔΩN Α

Posted by JewishJournal.com

ΣΥΜΑ ΙΣΤΡΑΗΛ ΑΔΩNΕ ΕΛΩΗ ΑΔΩN Α

Does that look familiar?  It’s the Shema, in Greek.  On a gold scroll.

And not only is it the Shema in Greek, it’s from 300 C.E. and it’s from Austria.

All this comes from a recent archeological find from Austria.

Archaeologists from the Institute of Prehistory and Early History of the University of Vienna have found an amulet inscribed with a Jewish prayer in a Roman child’s grave dating back to the 3rd century CE at a burial ground in the Austrian town of Halbturn.

This amulet shows that people of Jewish faith lived in what is today Austria since the Roman Empire. Up to now, the earliest evidence of a Jewish presence within the borders of Austria has been letters from the 9th century CE. In the areas of the Roman province of Pannonia that are now part of Hungary, Croatia and Serbia, gravestones and small finds attest to Jewish inhabitants even in antiquity.

Jews have been settling in all parts of the ancient world at the latest since the 3rd century BCE. Particularly following the second Jewish Revolt against the Roman Empire, the victorious Romans sold large numbers of Jews as slaves to all corners of the empire. This, coupled with voluntary migration, is how Jews also might have come to present-day Austria.

Child’s grave

The one or two year old child, which presumably wore the silver amulet capsule around its neck, was buried in one of around 300 graves in a Roman cemetery which dates back to the 2nd to 5th century CE and is situated next to a Roman estate (“villa rustica”). This estate was an agricultural enterprise that provided food for the surrounding Roman towns (Carnuntum, Györ, Sopron).

The gravesite, discovered in 1986 in the region of Seewinkel, around 20 kilometres from Carnuntum, was completely excavated between 1988 and 2002 by a team led by Falko Daim, who is now General Director of the Roman-German Central Museum of Mainz, with the financial backing of the Austrian Science Fund FWF and the Austrian state of Burgenland. All in all, more than 10,000 individual finds were assessed, most notably pieces of glass, shards of ceramic and metal finds. The gold amulet, whose inscription was incomprehensible at first, was only discovered in 2006 by Nives Doneus from the Institute for Prehistory and Early History of the University of Vienna.

The inscription on the amulet is a Jewish prayer is:

ΣΥΜΑ ΙΣΤΡΑΗΛ ΑΔΩNΕ ΕΛΩΗ ΑΔΩN Α
Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one.

Greek script, Hebrew language

Greek is common with amulet inscriptions, although Latin and Hebrew and amulet inscriptions are known. In this case, the scribe’s hand is definitely familiar with Greek. However, the inscription is Greek in appearance only, for the text itself is nothing other than a Greek transcription of the common Jewish prayer from the Old Testament (Deuteronomy, 6:4): “Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one.”

Amulet to protect against demons

Other non-Jewish amulets have been found in Carnuntum. One gold- and three silver-plated amulets with magical texts were found in a stone sarcophagus unearthed west of the camp of the Roman legion, including one beseeching Artemis to intervene against the migraine demon, Antaura. Amulets have also been found in Vindobona and the Hungarian part of Pannonia. What is different about the Halbturn gold amulet is its Jewish inscription. It uses the confession to the center of Jewish faith and not magic formulae.

The gold-plated artefact from Halbturn can be viewed from 11 April 2008 onwards as part of the “The Amber Road – Evolution of a Trade Route” exhibition in the Burgenland State Museum in Eisenstadt.

Adapted from materials provided by University of Vienna.

Jews, Jews, everywhere, and not a drop to drink!

—The Web Guy

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March 27, 2008 | 12:33 pm

VideoJew explores the Purim hangover…at Chabad Purim party

Posted by Jay Firestone

Purim may be over, but the holiday is most likely still in our systems.  For me, the Purim hangover is never easy.  My body aches thanks to several consecutive sets of hora dancing.  My stomach aches from an overdose of flour, eggs and raspberry preservatives.  But most of all my head is throbbing – the result of listening to the megillah-reading, while seated adjacent to many annoying children armed with groggers.

It’s a hangover of the worst kind…and I’m not sure Torah can provide any comfort. 

For a more detailed analysis I went to the one of the biggest parties in the city, The Wild Wild Westwood Purim Party hosted by the UCLA Chabad and neighboring collegiate Chabads, to find out how LA Jews were preparing themselves for what is likely to be a very brutal bokar.

A shocking discovery, it seems as though UCLA has a mysteriously large number of students who are “of age.”  And none of them seemed to care about feeling sick the next morning. 

That’s how I knew that many of them were under 21.

Because as someone who’s been “legal” for the past 2 years, its virtually impossible to drink without the ensuing repercussions.  It seems that my search for a remedy to the holiday sickness will remain unanswered.

A week later, my body, stomach and head still hurt.  I need a severe detox…a break from regular food and beverage.  Maybe a four-cup minimum for by alcohol consumption…thank god for Passover.

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March 25, 2008 | 10:19 pm

Welcome to South Korea— enjoy our gratuitously anti-Semitic comic books!

Posted by JewishJournal.com

CAPTION: A series of cartoons in the America volume of ‘Far Country, Neighbor Country’ saying the reason Arab terrorists hate the U.S. and carried out the Sept. 11, 2001 attack is because ‘Jews use money and public discussion as weapons to make WASPs do what they want.’

Jewish Journal World Headquarters, located in twin office blocks on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles ‘s KoreaTown, is a shifting mosaic of ethnicities and lifestyles—the Mexican taco truck out front, Korean banks and Realtors, a minyan on the 12th floor, here a latte, here some kimchee, felafels and sushi, lawyers and traders, cube farmers in regalia, and all the smokers clenched outside, like shunned weasels.

What do the Korean bank people on our floor think of us?  Most of the Koreans that come here are Christians, and we are truly exotic to them.  I always smile at the bank reception lady and once I brought them some mis-delivered mail.  She smiles back.

I hope they don’t learn about the Jews from a top-selling series of comic books meant to teach world history to Korean kids.

A South Korean comic book has been defined as anti-Semitic in a U.S. State Department report. The book is from a series called “Distant Countries and Neighboring Countries” and is about the U.S.

In a report on contemporary global anti-semitism submitted to the U.S. Congress on Saturday, the State Department said the book “recycles various Jewish conspiracy theories, such as Jewish control of the media, Jews profiting from war, and Jews causing the September 11, 2001 World Trade Center attacks.”

The series, written by Rhie Won-bok, a professor at Duksung Women’s University, was designed to teach youngsters the history and culture of other countries in comic book format. The “best-selling” children’s book series sold more than 10 million Korean-language copies, according to the report.

The report cited two examples of anti-Semitism in the book. One comic strip shows a newspaper, a magazine, a television, and a radio, each with a Star of David, and is captioned, “In a word, American public debate belongs to the Jews, and it’s no exaggeration to say that [U.S. media] are the voices of the Jews.”

Another strip shows a man climbing a hill and then facing a brick wall inscribed with a Star of David and a STOP sign. The caption reads, “The final obstacle [to success] is always a fortress called Jews.”

The author later acknowledged his mistake and pledged to write “in a more responsible way,” the report said.

Yikes!  Koreans in Korea hate Jews?  Did they ever meet any Jews? 

The community here in KTown has reached out to us and vice-versa.

It’s hard to hate people you know.

-- The Web Guy

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March 24, 2008 | 12:33 am

Ring ring! Cluephone for Olmert’s diaspora task force

Posted by JewishJournal.com

An Israeli government task force headed by Cabinet Secretary Oved Yehezkel is looking at new paradigms in Israel-Diaspora relations.

One plan floated at a recent meeting, according to Haaretz, is for a government-funded central Web site meant to serve as a worldwide Jewish portal.  This is exactly wrong.

Thankfully, not everyone at the meeting drank the koolaid.

“There’s no chance that this project gets off the ground,” said one of the participants in the meeting who wished to remain anonymous. “This idea is too pretentious and it goes against the entire nature of the internet. If this will be a site devoted to government hasbara, people will treat it as such and it won’t be popular. If this will be a site that provides surfers with the freedom to exchange opinions and publish material, there will be a lot of things that the government and the Jewish organizations won’t be able to live with, and they will need to use a censor.”

Anonymous knows the Web, or at least reads this blog.

  Such policy needs to be changed. Websites funded with taxpayer or community money not only have a responsibility to provide decent resources but also a responsibility to link to, share resources with, and assist others. They must become the hubs of the virtual community, and regardless of their real-world importance, online they must re-earn their credentials though cooperation with the community. A new initiative in policy planning for the Jewish community is needed.

The only unified approach that can possibly work is sharing resources, sharing servers, sharing admins, etc., like a little hasbara community garden, where people could grow their own sites, without top-down supervision.

The strength of the Internet is its two-way nature; it’s a read/write medium.  As I’ve said before, it’s the uploads, stupid.

But listen to another task force member quoted in the article:

Moti Friedman, the director of the Herzl Museum who also developed Web sites for the Jewish Agency and was one of the officials who sat in on the meeting, said he believes the project is practical.

“It fulfills a need that is there,” Friedman said. “People want a place on the internet that they can interact with Jews from around the world and where they can find “high quality” work by Jewish artists, instantly. [They want a] place where it would be possible to read articles by A.B. Yehoshua, Elie Wiesel, and Bernard-Henri Levy.”

I don’t know the color of the sky on Moti’s planet, but here on Terra (we like to call it olam hazeh), where the sky is blue, his idea of what readers want bears little relation to reality, and I have the logs to prove it.

—The Web Guy

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March 23, 2008 | 6:22 pm

The Pope is cool; Network Solutions, not so much

Posted by JewishJournal.com

As Osama al-Nabi threatens the Pope, Benedict XVI steps up and baptizes Italy’s most prominent Muslim in special Easter ceremonies despite the threats.

As the same death-worshipping mobs threaten mayhem because of a Danish movie no one has seen, the film’s Web hosting company takes the film’s Web site off line “while Network Solutions [the host] is investigating whether the site’s content is in violation of the Network Solutions Acceptable Use Policy.”

Thank God The Vatican doesn’t depend on NetSol.

As for the rest of us, we have nothing to fear but fear itself.

—The Web Guy

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March 18, 2008 | 9:31 pm

Online Antisemitism 2.0. “Social Antisemitism” on the “Social Web”

Posted by The Web Guy

Just found this online.

Online Antisemitism 2.0. “Social Antisemitism” on the “Social Web” by
Andre Oboler:

Around 2004, changes in technology created Web 2.0.[1] As technology adapted, so did online antisemitism. With the new “social web” came a new “social antisemitism.” This Antisemitism 2.0 is the use of online social networking and content collaboration to share demonization, conspiracy theories, Holocaust denial, and classical antisemitic motifs with a view to creating social acceptability for such content.
 
    This phenomenon is spreading antisemitism and acceptability of antisemitism in new and increasingly effective ways. Social pressures are key to understanding Antisemitism 2.0, which is a combination of the technology and the emerging social environment.
 
    The main threat posed by Web 2.0 to the Jewish people and their supporters is the creation of a culture where antisemitism has social acceptability, particularly among young people, resulting in the lowering of resistance and the establishment of hate networks.
 
    To challenge Antisemitism 2.0, the Jewish community must as a strategy begin to engage online as an online community made up of individuals and organizations. The community has the talent to combat antisemitism online, but only if it is recognized, trained, funded, and given a shared sense of ownership in the fight against this newest manifestation of antisemitism.

After a lot of stuff you’re familiar with if you’re reading me here, he says:

How can the community more effectively combat online antisemitism and particularly Antisemitism 2.0? The primary requirement of any successful strategy is that it be communitywide and community based. A strategy of cooperation between organizations and individuals is needed, along with an infrastructure to facilitate such cooperation. As the Jewish sage Hillel said two thousand years ago, “Do not separate yourself from the community; and do not trust in yourself until the day of your death.”[49] Both organizations and individuals need to take this into account, as any attempt-by either individuals or organizations-to assert dominance or authority is doomed to fail in a Web 2.0 world.

Zionism on the Web, an organization run through voluntary effort and with a zero budget, is able to compete with the likes of Wikipedia for rankings and prominence in Google and is often able to outrank sites such as the Israeli Foreign Ministry or the Jewish Agency. This is largely because policy prevents those large organizations from taking the “community approach.”

Such policy needs to be changed. Websites funded with taxpayer or community money not only have a responsibility to provide decent resources but also a responsibility to link to, share resources with, and assist others. They must become the hubs of the virtual community, and regardless of their real-world importance, online they must re-earn their credentials though cooperation with the community. A new initiative in policy planning for the Jewish community is needed.

We make our little stand online here at JewishJournal.com and on YouTube.

How about you?  Anyone linking up these P2P hasbara efforts?  Funding them? Recognizing them?

—The Web Guy

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March 16, 2008 | 7:27 pm

Today, we’re Jewish AND Irish

Posted by JewishJournal.com

Today, St. Patrick’s Day, is Dad’s birthday. 

As long as I remember, our family has had fun with the coincidence of these two auspicious days, as we subtly mutate into Irish Jews, mostly at Dad’s expense.

We have given him presents like shamrock cufflinks and shamrock ties, green shirts and sweaters and endless dinners of corned beef and cabbage.

Dad, bless his heart, pretends like he likes it, and used to proudly point out that three times in recent history a Jew held the post of Lord Mayor of Dublin.

I hadn’t thought to look it up until today, but it’s all true, and the first Lord Mayor in question was The Honorable Bobbie Briscoe (photo above), a Sinn-Fein man elected for a one-year term in 1956 and again in 1961.  His son Ben also served as Lord Mayor.

After hearing that there was a Jewish Lord Mayor of Dublin, Yogi Berra allegedly said “Only in America!”

I say: Happy Birthday, Daddy! 

—The Web Guy

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