February 15, 2008 | 5:10 pm

Baruch Obama music video includes Hebrew, was directed by Bob Dylan’s son Jesse

Posted by JewishJournal.com

I love this music video (above), and its anti-video (which parodies the style to skewer McCain) but I never noticed that one of the “yes we can” lyrics was actually in Hebrew (ken, anu yecholim) sung by Israeli-born actress Maya Rubin ; and I certainly just learned that it was bankrolled and directed by Jesse Dylan, Bob Dylan’s son.

All this thanks to our friends at the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

With ordinary folks contributing remarkable videos like these, who can doubt that this year’s electemization will feature the greatest voter turnout in history?

I keep thinking of this old Dylan lyric (pay attention, Super Delegates!):

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway
Don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There’s a battle outside
And it is ragin’.
It’ll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin’.

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don’t criticize
What you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin’.
Please get out of the new one
If you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’.

The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin’.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin’.

—Dennis Wilen

February 8, 2008 | 11:33 am

Orit in Israel:  Just say ‘no’ to the Jewish state

Posted by JewishJournal.com

At the risk of losing some loyal fans and readers who have considered me their dear defender of the Jewish state, I’m coming out of the closet as a detractor of its current incarnation. No longer will I silently obey the exhortations of the Jewish community that I support the Zionist dream. I will unabashedly admit that this Jewish State is no longer a supreme value in my life.

The main reason for this: the “Jewish State” no longer really means anything. All too often it is an empty idol worshiped by the Jewish community and Israeli citizens to which the happiness and rights of individual Jews are routinely sacrificed.

The “Jewish state” means something different to so many Jews, just as the term “Jewish” does. For many Jews today—from Reform to Orthodox—the Jewish state simply means a political entity with a Jewish majority. This ranks the citizen’s race and religion as the top criteria for determining the state’s Jewish nature. This definition creates an obsession with Jewish demography, leading the State to view Jews as chess pieces on the board game of its borders. This definition is what has allowed 9,000 Jews to be cruelly uprooted from their homes in Gaza in the summer of August 2005 for the sake of the “Jewish majority.” A state can have many Jews, but what if most of those Jews are criminals? Of what value then is a Jewish majority?

Some consider a state “Jewish” if its leaders are Jewish. Give me a wise, righteous gentile over the power-hungry, incompetent Olmert any day. A leader’s Jewish blood does not guarantee justice for the Jews.

For the more liberal elements of the Jewish population, “Jewish” translates into altruism, compassion and self-sacrifice. These Jews, many of whom have no solid backing in the pshat (plain meaning) of Jewish texts, interpret Judaism to make it a competitor for Christianity in touting the virtue of altruism. As a light unto the nations, Jews must exhibit chesed, kindness, and that includes giving the poor Palestinians a state, ensuring the terrorist nest in Gaza receives humanitarian aid and care, removing all checkpoints even at the risk of terror infiltration. I’m afraid the Jewish state won’t last much longer if it’s too kind.

And then there are the more religious, conservative elements who translate the “Jewish” state as a state governed by halachah. Halachah is a system of law that has developed throughout the years, particularly in the Diaspora, replete with rituals that do not necessarily translate into the just governance and management of a country. Furthermore, halachah has all too often become obsessed with the small ritual details over the broad ethical principles of the Torah, such as the Ten Commandments. I for one do not want to live in a Jewish state in which I am forced to eat kosher or keep Shabbat. For me, keeping the minutiae of halachah is the not the ikar, the main essence, of what it means to be a Jew.

Some define the Jewish state as a state which employs Jewish symbols and holidays. When I have to deal with draconian Israeli bureaucracy, exorbitant taxation, and countless parking tickets, I am not comforted by the fact that my legal notices are imprinted with the state symbol of a menorah. Especially after being dragged out of a synagogue in Neve Dekalim in Gush Katif by soldiers wearing caps and vests imprinted with the Jewish star and menorah, I don’t view state symbols with joy and excitement. Countless of Jews in the Diaspora are not rushing to live the Jewish state because they are eager for a passport with a menorah on its cover.

At the end of the day, no matter how religious Jews are or aren’t, what most truly seek is to live a happy, fulfilled life. If the Jewish state is a state that doesn’t create the conditions for its Jewish citizens to pursue happiness: to realize themselves creatively, to feel secure crossing the street and its borders, to start businesses with undue hassle, to worship their form of Judaism, then of what true value is the Jewish state? For what are we really fighting? A symbol? A border? A piece of real estate?

What then, you might ask, would make the Jewish state different from the United States of America? There is a reason why the Unites States was called the New Zion. Let us not forget that many of the Founding Fathers of the United States were inspired by Scripture—only they looked towards the broad ideals of liberty and justice that permeate the Biblical tradition, not the ritual minutia, not the gushy moralism.

Like an individual, every nation has its own character and history. I uphold the necessity of a state to provide Jews refuge from persecution and to give Jews full cultural and religious expression on their soil. But those values will only take Jews so far if, on that soil, Jews are not protected from harm by its enemies, from government corruption, or from state-sponsored suppression of individual rights.

When the state of Israel gives every single Jews the opportunity to truly flourish and thrive, each according to his or her inalienable rights—and the Jewish symbols stand for that—I will be a proud defender of the Jewish state. I won’t mind if a sizeable Arab population lives within it, so long as they too uphold right of Jews to pursue happiness. I guess you could say my vision for Israel is a pure theocracy, where God translates into an objective, rational, moral rule of law that guards the unfolding of the human—and Jewish—spirit in all its beauty.

—Orit in Israel

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February 7, 2008 | 12:07 pm

JewsChoose 2008: SuperTuesday results show no clear trend

Posted by Jay Firestone

Who needs CNN, FOX, ABC, NBC or CBS when you can get up-to-date coverage on campaign issues that matter to Jews everywhere?

New from JewishJournal.com and VideoJew installments…JewsChoose 2008!

Reporting from the Pico-Robertson neighborhood, VideoJew Jay Firestone brings you interviews, commentary and results from Super Tuesday’s primary. Plus, special guests—Brad Greenberg and Raphael Sonenshein, JewishJournal.com’s two key political analysts.

Check out our articles on Super Tuesday.

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February 1, 2008 | 6:59 pm

Obama’s phone call with the Jewish press

Posted by JewishJournal.com

Just before the big simcha at American University where Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass) anointed Sen. Baruch Obama as JFK’s successor, Obama was on a 23-minute conference call with members of the Jewish press.

The phone call was yet another attempt to stop the lashon hara about Obama’s religion, honesty and pro-Israel record—lies and slander circulating in some Jewish communities on and off line.

The news of this call was eclipsed by the Kennedy blessing.  On any other news day, Obama’s outreach to Jews would have been a headline story.

I grabbed the MP3 of the conference call from our friends at the Jewish Telegraphic Agency so we could serve the audio locally, and save the JTA some bandwidth, and here it is:

Click here for the phone call.  It’s 5MB +/-, 23 minutes, in MP3 format.

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January 31, 2008 | 11:47 pm

If Web hits were votes, the election will be between Baruch Obama and Ron Paul

Posted by The Web Guy

Based on the number of visitors to our election stories today, look for a November contest between Democrat Baruch Obama and Republican Ron Paul.

Four times as many people visited the Paul profile as checked out a pro-Obama pitch, the next most popular story.

But web hits aren’t votes, thankfully. 

I don’t think America is ready for the gold standard and other Flat Earth ideas.

America likes humps.  Also, Israel.

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January 24, 2008 | 6:54 pm

A priest, a rabbi and a minister go on the Jay Leno show*

Posted by The Web Guy

Writers are still striking NBC here, so Jay Leno, unlike union man Dave Letterman in New York, has to write his own material and book guests who write as well.

In this recent Tonight Show bit, an actual priest, an actual rabbi, and an actual minister tell ‘priest, rabbi and minister’ jokes.

The rabbi is Levi Cunin of Chabad in Malibu, who we last featured during the Malibu fires, when he packed a Torah scroll in the back of his car in case they had to evacuate.

* Update: NBC got this video yanked from YouTube because of copyright issues.

The jokes are an interesting contrast. 

Only the priest tells a joke on himself; Rabbi Cunin tells a ‘Jews are smart’ joke and makes the priest in his story sound all Kosher for Passover; the minister’s joke is vaguely sexist. 

They are LOL material, though!

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January 23, 2008 | 12:08 am

$145 billion in government cheese—the good news and the bad

Posted by JewishJournal.com

The bad news: The economy is messed up and all the idiots in Washington can think of is $145 billion in “government cheese.”

The good news: It will be Kosher cheese!

KOSHER ONLY PRODUCTS
‘€œKosher Only’€ products will be identified in the solicitation.

Offerors shall not bid on these products unless they are properly certified to produce Kosher products. 

If awarded a contract, contractors shall:

(1) Comply with applicable dietary (Kosher) laws as established by the ‘€œ613 Council of Kashruth,’€ and

(2) Contact the Board of Jewish Education of Greater New York at 646-472-5365.

A rabbinic supervisor will be sent to visit the plant to certify compliance with the applicable dietary (Kosher) laws.

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January 20, 2008 | 12:48 pm

Martin Luther King, Jr.‘s 1965 sermon at Temple Israel of Hollywood

Posted by JewishJournal.com

It was a Friday night Shabbat service at Temple Israel of Hollywood that would be forgotten for years.

Rabbi Max Nussbaum z"l invited the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King to give a sermon. 

Someone taped it, and the tape was unknown until last year; as soon as I heard it, I knew it needed to be available online.

L.A. Observed’s Kevin Roderick came up with a bit more of the zeitgeist:

King was 36 years old at the time. Selma was heating up that month, and Malcolm X had just been killed in New York, so King arrived in Los Angeles under heavy guard. It was his first trip west since winning the Nobel Peace Prize. King dined with prominent Westsiders at the Beverly Hills home of Dr. Irving Lichtenstein and attended a screening of The Greatest Story Ever Told at the Cinerama Dome (now the Arclight.) The theater crawled with police because of death threats and the seizure of stolen dynamite connected to a racist group. King also spoke at the World Affairs Council at the Hollywood Palladium. The Times reported that an “overflow crowd” of 1,500 at the temple gave King a warm welcome. That Sunday he returned to Selma.

It’s worth listening to again:

Part I, 27 min., MP3, 3.1MB
Part II, 14 min., MP3, 1.6MB

As Rob Eshman asked after hearing the sermon, who is today’s moral leader?

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