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.

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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January 18, 2008 | 2:43 pm

Tom Cruise, Jewish supermensch?

Posted by The Web Guy

First came the Scientology promo video from Tom Cruise.

Then came the Jewish version, from our friends at Jewcy.com:

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January 15, 2008 | 10:33 pm

Jewish leaders defend Baruch Obama

Posted by The Web Guy

You’ve heard the rumors, seen the email, etc.  Obama is really a Muslim, he went to a madrassa, his church is racist, etc.

Some prominent American Jewish leaders strongly disagree.

Jewish organizational leaders defended Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama on Monday from a smear campaign claiming that he’s a Muslim.

Obama has been the subject of an e-mail making the rounds in the Jewish community in recent days alleging that he is a Muslim, attended a radical Islamic madrassah in Indonesia, and took his oath of office on a Koran. None of the claims are true, and the campaign has published a detailed refutation on its Web site.

“These tactics attempt to drive a wedge between our community and a presidential candidate based on despicable and false attacks based on religion,” said a letter signed by heads of several national Jewish organizations. “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.”

Among the signatories were David Harris, executive director of the American Jewish Committee; Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League; Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, and Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism.

From our friends at The Jewish Telgraphic Agency.

[Photo credit: Presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) addresses the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) forum on Foreign Policy March 2007 in Chicago.Photo by Jeff Haynes/AFP/Getty Images]

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January 13, 2008 | 6:33 pm

U CAN HAZ LAFFS

Posted by The Web Guy

Michael Showalter responds to an audience member who—no joke—brought two cats in a carrier to one of the sold out shows  JDUB Records  recorded for his debut comedy album . . . out now and appropriately titled Sandwiches & Cats.

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