Lord our God, we stood before You just a week ago to receive the Ten Statements of Your Torah. We stood, as though with our ancestors, and listened to the Torah reader chant descriptions of the smoking mountain, the thunderous…
Using his preternatural smoothness, Justin Timberlake saved the Coen brothers from some serious awkwardness at a Cannes press conference for their folk singer film “Inside Llewyn Davis” on Sunday. “Jewish…
Monday night marks the national premier broadcast of the American Masters installment on Mel Brooks. To mark the occasion, we’ve put together a collection of Brooks’ best Jewish clips.
For your listening pleasure, “Perfect Night,” in which Sarah Silverman recounts the benefits of skipping the club for the couch. Because this is a Silverman production you can expect references…
Champions Maccabi Tel Aviv have reasserted their dominance of Israeli soccer but media reports on Tuesday suggested they might have to continue their revival without coach Oscar Garcia.
Opening this weekend at Laemmle’s Music Hall 3 is a very hot-button new documentary called State 194, which follows the recent history of Palestine. Many will approach this film with…
When I hear about the latest events in Israel – the air strikes on weapons facilities in Syria, the flare-ups over women donning prayer shawls at the Western Wall –…
If there is a news story involving Christians anywhere in the world, there is a good chance Ted Olsen will find it on the Web. From Ted’s blog for Christianity Today, “Trying to Convert in Egypt”:
Mohamed Hegazy, a journalist and political activist, is married, and his wife is four months pregnant. They’re Christians and want their child to be identified as Christian when born. But the Egyptian interior ministry refuses to let Hegazy change his official religious identification from Islam to Christianity. Hegazy, 24, converted to Christianity several years ago (Reuters says four years; Compass Direct says eight).
Now Hegazy has filed suit to have the change made. Yesterday, after a series of death threats â including some, reportedly, from the security police, Hegazy’s lawyerresigned.
“If you add to the state of alert in Egyptian society, and to protect the feelings of our Muslim brothers, and to protect our national unity ⦠we decided to abandon this case,” said the lawyer, Mamdouh Nakhla. “We ask all Egyptians, Muslims and Christians, to close this file and refrain from talking about this sensitive area. Not speaking about this is much better than blowing up such subjects, which could set society on fire.”
The Jewish Journal believes that great community depends on great conversation. So, jewishjournal.com provides a forum for insightful voices across the political and religious spectrum. Bloggers are not employees of The Jewish Journal, and their opinions are their own. Our entire blog policy is here. Please alert us to any violations of our policy by clicking here. (editor@jewishjournal.com). If you'd like to join our blogging community, email us. (webmaster@jewishjournal.com).
That trip to Israel last week made contributions to The God Blog challenging. Between Monday and Thursday, I worked about 60 hours, getting a few good stories including that one about Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. And then on my day off I went back down to the Gaza border. But I’m back now, so expect lots of activity this week.
I just got back from Shabbat in Kibbutz Nir-Am, which is located directly between Gaza and the Israeli town of Sderot. Nir-Am has been shelled for the past seven years with hundreds of Kassam rockets fired across the border, and I visited tonight to see how one family tries to live a normal life under abnormal circumstances.
I am blogging now, so I must have made it back safe. (Save a Kassam shot off five minutes after I arrived, the cab ride back, during which my driver entered the wrong side of a split highway, was more dangerous.) But I have to wonder what might have been had I gone into Jerusalem’s Old City today as I planned to.
I planned to walk from my hotel through the Jaffa Gate in the late morning but decided to go shopping for my wife and sister first. Fortunately, I ran out of time. Here’s what did happen at the Jaffa Gate:
A security guard shot and killed an Arab
attacker in the Old City of Jerusalem on Friday after the man shot and moderately wounded another security guard, police said.
Ten bystanders were lightly to moderately wounded in the shootout - apparently from the guard’s gunfire - including six Jews, two Armenians and two Muslims.
Marshall Allen is an old journalism friend of mine (by that I mean I’ve known him a little more than two years). He used to write about religion and crime—saints and sinners—for the Pasadena Star-News but moved last year to Sin City.
He has a story in the Las Vegas Sun that says the state insurance commissioner is shutting down Nevada operations a national Christian health care provider but they don’t have an insurance license. The company, Christian Care Medi-Share, argues that it doesn’t need a license because it’s not an insurance company; it’s a collective.
Medi-Share is a “mutually sharing ministry” among Christians who agree to help pay one another’s health costs, Sullivan said. Medi-Share members pay monthly “shares,” not premiums, ranging from $223 for singles younger than 40 to $459 for families. Members must profess to be Christians and adhere to a morally conservative lifestyle, including no tobacco and no abuse of drugs or alcohol. They risk having requests for money denied if their medical condition is the result of what is deemed a nonbiblical lifestyle.
Such conditions raise a red flag for the Nevada insurance commissioner’s office. For example, Medi-Share - whose guidelines are created by its members - provides coverage for pregnant married women but not for single mothers unless there’s evidence of a rape that has been reported to police.
Medi-Share membership is not open to non-Christians or to Christians with preexisting medical conditions.
Church leaders may be called to verify the testimony of applicants, the guidelines say.
Here’s my question: So say someone has a crisis of faith that becomes known to Medi-Share—could they be barred from medical coverage?
JERUSALEM, Aug. 8—“You are not to directly quote the prime minister,” Ehud Olmert’s press handler told a group of American Jewish journalists I’ve been traveling with this week.
This directive came as we sat in a conference room in the leader of Israel’s Jerusalem offices. It seemed a ridiculous request, but the prime minister’s fears made more sense once the meeting was over.
When Olmert walked confidently into the conference room, he shook some hands, said ‘Shalom’ and posed for a photo with a few journalists. Dressed in a navy suit and red tie, he sat tall, speaking in fluent English as he cracked jokes and invited our questions—and that’s when the meeting went south.
Asked about the hundreds of millions of dollars sent by American Jews to help Israel during and after last summer’s war with Hezbollah, Olmert responded that the donations were very important—but he stopped short of calling it necessary.
If a giver wants to give and the receiver wants to get, Olmert said, God bless that situation. And as we’ve seen this week, God—or human resourcefulness—has blessed a quick reconstruction of northern Israel.
But Olmert’s comments seemed particularly ungrateful because he spoke not only to the American journalists, but also to some top officials of the United Jewish Communities (UJC).
Through the UJC’s Israel Emergency Campaign last summer, North American federations sent $360 million to Israel. UJC is also the sponsor of this media trip, which was designed to show reporters and editors how American donations have been used. UJC officials have shuttled our group, including editors and writers from major Jewish publications in Washington, New York, Philadelphia and L.A., to show us the pain inflicted by war.
They arranged this forum with the prime minister to allow him to speak to the most philanthropic Diaspora community—and this is what he says?
That is the beginning of a column I just filed from Jerusalem after meeting with the prime minister earlier today. Check out the rest at jewishjournal.com, and let me know what you think.
Last month, Matisyahu appeared on the cover of the Christian hipster magazine Relevant and said Jesus had “started a new wave of Judaism.” A few weeks later, he told the weekly Miami New Times that he’d broken from the Chabad-Lubavitch movement. Here is what the Forward had to say:
Matisyahu, however, maintains that heâs still âreally religious,â and says that he prays and meditates before every performance. But some Lubavitchers have cited another reason to worry: After he davens, Matisyahu turns on Jay-Z and drinks wine to relax.
I’m probably thinking this because I’m drinking a Maccabees beer as I type, but: Oh my G-d.
I knew this day would come. Actually, since I profiled blogger Luke Ford for the cover of The Jewish Journal (I was speaking with other Jewish journalists yesterday, and they were appalled by this reality), Luke has been up and down on how he’s felt about the story. But we talked Friday and he said he thought it was fair and that his inner-Amalek “loved it.”
Today he wrote on his blog, that I was, in fact, a major disappointment:
For a decade, Iâve fantasized about appearing on the cover of the Jewish Journal.
Iâve spent more time thinking about what Iâll say in that ultimate interview than Iâve spent trying to pick up chicks.
(I have a far richer inner life than social life.)
I always thought this article would come at the hands of Amy Klein. I pictured us over lunch and how I would whip out my tape recorder when she started the on-the-record part of our conversation and all the brilliant justifications Iâd give her for my abominable behavior. (Some people use their intelligence to make the world a better place. I use mine to rationalize my sins.)
But then my time came at the hands of 25-year-old Christian Brad A. Greenberg. Bradâs a good reporter but heâs no Amy Klein. And when he started asking me questions, well, I just answered them. The whole thing didnât run anything like my fantasies. We didnât even hook up afterwards because that wouldâve been against the Torah.
WASHINGTON (ABP)—Beginning with ancient Christians martyred by the Roman Empire and running through Thomas Becket, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and beyond, church leaders often have spoken truth to the secular powers—regardless of the consequences.But in the months leading up to the now-unpopular Iraq war, did the United Statesâ powerful conservative evangelical community step away from its responsibility to speak hard truths to the government?
Mark Pinsky, the religion reporter for the Orlando Sentinel, agreeswithThe God Blog (well not, me directly, but I can dream ...) that the evangelical Christian vote is up for grabs in the 2008 presidential election.
Pinsky, who recently wrote “A Jew Among the Evangelicals: A Guide for the Perplexed,” writes in USA Today:
On Sunday mornings, it’s now commonplace to see presidential candidates in church pulpits or pews, proclaiming their faith and â not coincidentally â jockeying furiously (but piously) for crucial “values voters.”So, with so much at stake, now might be a good time to ask, “Who speaks for America’s evangelicals?”Will it continue to be bombastic, GOP-leaning, Southern preachers, such as the late Jerry Falwell, and strident, hard-line broadcasters such as Pat Robertson and Focus on the Family’s James Dobson? I don’t think so. From my neighborhood in the suburban Sunbelt, it is clear that a subtle, incremental but nonetheless tectonic shift is underway. And this is more than what Freud called “the narcissism of small differences.” As Joel Hunter says, the evangelical vote is now a “jump ball.”
Earlier this week, Rob Eshman, The Jewish Journal‘s editor in chief, spent two days in Utah at a conference were leading thinkers of American Jewry tried to answer a seemingly simple question: Why be Jewish?
The answer, obviously, is not so easy.
But Jews like to talk. God talked to Moses and told him to talk to the people. The people talked back, and we really haven’t shut up since.
The Bronfman Foundation, which sponsored the conference last week in Deer Valley, Utah, is set to launch something called the Bronfman Vision Forum that will offer new ways to invigorate and revitalize Jewish life, and this conference was designed to help generate new ideas and programs, and, yes, more conferences. What an endearing and Jewish idea—that talking will save the Jewish people.
But long days of listening provided clarity when Rob listened to Rabbi David Wolpe of Sinai Temple in Westwood.
As he spoke—and as I stared at the back of his head going on hour three—the answer became clear. Why be Jewish? Four words. It’s good for you.
Deep community, spiritual succor, emotional comfort, a challenging intellectual framework for understanding why we’re here, a moral compass to guide you and your children, mental and spiritual discipline, an approach to the Infinite and a shared fate.
It may not always be easy, it may not always feel right, it may not always bring transcendence, it may not be right for everyone at every stage in life, but it’s good for you.
You, of course, may not agree. But we can talk about it.
I’ve offered my thoughts on this before, and I will again. There are varying degrees and ways by which people self-identify as Jewish. (I sipped tea yesterday with Rachel Levin, who has been very involved in addressing this through REBOOT.)
For a Christian named Greenberg, I’m more aware of the way others identify Jews—by their name, appearance, attire, profession. But that doesn’t change the fact that inside the tribe, Jewish paranoia guarantees that every generation will worry about whether the next will care about being Jewish.
Baghdad was once one of the great cradles of Jewish culture and wisdom, but now, according to the Christian priest who has been looking after them, there are only eight Jews left in the Iraqi capital, and their situation is “more than desperate.” The Rev. Canon Andrew White, the Anglican chaplain to Iraq, says that the small group is in considerable danger.
That is the opening of an uncharacteristically boring and uninspiring story in Time magazine.
Honestly, I’m surprised any Jews remain in Baghdad considering the sectarian violence that has riven the city. The Iraqi government doesn’t acknowledge them because of fears that it might incite violence and Jewish aid has remained out of the area. Israel’s not a far journey from Iraq, but the article says the entire group has not agreed to emigrate, and that they’re sticking together.
“I don’t want them to leave at all because the Jewish presence here is very important,” White says. “But unless we care for them, I dread for what is going to happen to them. I do not want them to leave, but I think that is the only way.”
Luke Ford has a few goodposts on his blog in response to my profile of him. (He also has audio of our six-hour interview.) In one titled “Unrequited Love,” you can feel Ford’s pain at being rejected by Orthodox congregations:
I read the Jewish Journal profile of me and I wince. Itâs embarrassing. There are four great shuls in Pico-Robertson that I love â Aish Ha Torah, Young Israel Century of City, Beth Jacob, and Chabad Bais Bazelel â but they, understandably, rejected me.
Itâs the same thing with the ladies. Iâve met great women in Los Angeles, but theyâve rejected me.
Google (aka reality) is my enemy.
What do you do with that most embarrassing of feelings â unrequited love? I canât intellectualize it. I can only cop to it.
P.S. Rabbi Aryeh Markman is my Unkind Jew of the Month. Read the article and youâll see why.
Heâs a blunt, no-nonsense bloke who gets things done.
Like other rabbis at Aish, he opened his home to me when I was a lost soul.
Serving a community of 600,000, The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles is the largest Jewish weekly outside New York City. Our award-winning paper reaches over 150,000 educated, involved and affluent readers each week. Subscribe here.
