September 30, 2007 | 4:27 pm

Evangelicals to split from Republican Party?

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

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I’ve shared that evangelical Christians, widely credited with establishing the Bush presidency (I’m so embarrassed), are not happy with either Mitt Romney or Rudy Giuliani. This is leading, according to the NY Times blog The Caucus, to a potential revolt led by Focus on the Family’s James Dobson and Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council to support a third-party candidate, though who is not clear.

A revolt of Christian conservative leaders could be a significant setback to the Giuliani campaign because white evangelical Protestants make up a major portion of Republican primary voters. But the threat is risky for the credibility of the Christian conservative movement as well. Some of its usual grass-roots supporters could still choose to support even a pro-choice Republican like Mr. Giuliani, either because they dislike the Democratic nominee even more or because they are worried about war, terrorism and other issues.

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For months, Christian conservatives have been escalating their warnings about the risk that nominating Mr. Giuliani could splinter the party. Dr. Dobson wrote a column declaring that he would waste his vote before casting it for either Mr. Giuliani or a Democrat who supports abortion rights like Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. Richard Land, the top public policy official of the Southern Baptist Convention, has said that nominating a Republican candidate who supports abortion rights would make white evangelical votes “a jump ball” between the Republicans and Democrats, with other issues taking the fore.

I don’t imagine this coalition of evangelical leaders will be throwing their weight behind Michael Bloomberg.

September 30, 2007 | 12:57 am

A love song for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Last weekend, there was all kinds of concern about Columbia inviting the crazy president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to speak to students while here to address the United Nations about his country’s illicit nuclear program. I too shared the concern, but the “petty and cruel dictator” opened his mouth and said, “In Iran, we don’t have homosexuals, like in your country.”

This was great fodder for all, and thank you to “Saturday Night Live”—which on a rare occasion I was DVRing tonight because King James is hosting—for taking advantage of the opportunity. They just pilloried Ahmadenijad with a brilliant serenade from Andy Samberg, who loves Mahmoud’s “silly brown eyes, butter pecan thighs and hairy butt.”

Samberg, who is both Jewish (sorry, Mahmoud) and half of the “Dick in a Box” team, had some other choice lyrics:

They call you weasel
They say your methods are medieval
You could be the Jews
I’ll be your Jim Caviezel

You’re crazy for this, Mahmoud
You can deny the Holocaust all you want
But you can’t deny there is something between us

The digital short is online here and embedded below.

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September 28, 2007 | 12:47 pm

No Jews allowed: Judenrein U.S. program

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

The U.S. State Department and the University of California had this genius program to give Middle Eastern businessmen a leg up. Jordan, Kuwait, Yemen, even Israel. That is, so long as you’re not an Israeli Jew. I guess some people think Jewish businessmen already have too much power.

Jerusalem-based marketing specialist and businesswoman Miriam Schwab uncovered the bias last week when she checked into applying to the university’s San Diego branch Beyster Institute program for Middle East Entrepreneur Training (MEET). She discovered that the program was open to citizens of “Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Israel (limited to Israeli Arab citizens), Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, West Bank/Gaza and Yemen.”

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In response to an IsraelNationalNews.com question for confirmation of the restriction in Israel, program manager Mona Yousry verified, “It is only for Arab Israelis.” A subsequent question as to why Israeli Jews are not eligible for the program elicited the following reply from the Institute’s Director of Entrepreneurial Programs, Rob Fuller: “I’m sorry for the unfortunate misunderstanding about eligibility for the new MEET program. To be clear, for the programs for which we are now recruiting to be held in 2008, ALL Israeli citizens are eligible to participate. Sorry for any confusion we may have inadvertently caused.”

Israeli Jews originally were excluded despite the program’s stated advantage as “an important cultural exchange.” Fuller did not explain the initial “confusion” in barring Israeli Jews.

The programs are to be held in Jordan, Egypt and Morocco, all of which have relations with Israel.

Following the e-mail complaints to Beyster, the US Embassy of Yemen online document which announces the program was down for more than a day until the words “limited to Israeli Arab citizens” were deleted. [View the document announcing the program by clicking here. (I’ve disabled this link because it was virus-ridden.) When prompted with “Do you want to open or save this file,” click on “Open.”]

The US official who made the online edit, however, reposted the story in “track changes” format so that the document displays in the left margin, at the time of this writing, the words: “Deleted: Limited to Israeli Arab citizens.” (See pics below).

That story came up in our budget meeting Wednesday, but long before next week’s paper will be published it’s been making the rounds on Jewish blogs. Big time. Yid with Lid appears to have been the first to follow the INN scoop:

Where was the ACLU? How come Congressman Ellison isn’t screaming about profiling. Here we go again with another example of how the PC police only cares when things are convenient for them.

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September 28, 2007 | 10:04 am

The religious politics for ‘08

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

I couldn’t make it to the Religion Newswriters Association’s annual conference this week in San Antonio, but fortunately Jeffrey Weiss of the Dallas Morning News has been blogging the details. I found interesting the political insights he relayed from one of my favorite religion and politics sources: John C. Green of the Pew Forum.

Recent polls, he says, show that just about every segment of religious belief in the US is breaking toward the Democrats at this point. These are very early and pretty abstract polls—asking if people would be more inclined to for Dem or GOP without any candidate involved. With the exception of evangelicals who say they regularly attend church, other segments of the US population are leaning Dem, including groups that helped elect President Bush twice.

Green thinks those Democratic attempts to be religious are working. Just as they bought the religious Republican line for the last 30 years, the public is now gobbling up the juicy pew details of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, et al.

But despite Clinton’s best efforts to put on a faithful face, her most unfavorable ratings are among people who don’t think she’s religions.

(Somebody better let Elisha Shapiro know that now is the wrong time to run for president.)

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September 27, 2007 | 5:18 pm

A porn star and ‘Jew forts’ on Sukkot

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

When I went to Las Vegas to write about Christians reaching out to porn stars, I met a heavily-tattooed and pierced woman about my age named Joanna Angel. She’s an “alt-porn” performer and entrepreneur, and thanks to Luke Ford I just learned that Angel grew up an Orthodox Jew.

Curious, I searched Wikipedia and learned that Angel’s mother was Israeli and her father American. It sounds like Angel still identifies as Jewish; Luke greeted her by phone two years ago with a “Shabbat Shalom.” This is not unusual. Ethnic Jews are prevalent in the porn industry, a story I will get around to one of these days.

But what I found interesting was a Q&A Angel had with a smutty British lad mag called Bizarre. (The link was on her Wikipedia entry, I swear.) Today, it turns out, is the beginning of Sukkot, the Feast of Booths, on which occasion Jews eat and sometimes sleep under tents they have erected outside their homes, and the interviewer asked Angel about the holiday. Sort of.

Can you explain to me the deal with Jew forts?

Jew what?

Jew forts. You know, once a year the Jews build these treehouse things.

OK, there’s this holiday called Sukkot. And you build these little huts next to your house and you’re supposed to eat in them for eight days. You’re supposed to appreciate nature on that holiday or something.

They’re kind of crazy-looking.

Yeah, well, some people think Christmas trees are weird. A tree you decorate is really weird. Lights and balls and a big star on top of a cut-down tree; that’s weird. You’re just accustomed to seeing them that’s all.

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September 27, 2007 | 4:51 pm

Latinos who love Israel, maybe Jews too

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Wandering through a sukkah at Sinai Temple, Jesus Alfredo Alfonso, a Pentecostal Christian, wore a navy tie embroidered with the Star of David, a menorah and the words “Amigos de Israel.”

“Every day,” Alfonso said, “me and my congregation pray three times for you. For Israel.”

Alfonso is the pastor of Iglesia Centro Christiano de Los Angeles, a 14-member church he founded two months ago. He was among about 200 Latino evangelical Christians who were guests for a Sukkot meal and Israeli flag ceremony hosted Monday by the American Jewish Committee (AJC) and the Israeli consulate.

The event was designed to strengthen relations between Jews and a specific segment of the Latino community—evangelicals. On the whole, surveys have found that Latinos harbor stronger feelings of anti-Semitism than most Americans. But among Latino evangelicals there resides a powerful love for Israel and gratefulness to Jewish tradition.

“Ahavat Zion,” said Randy Brown, AJC-LA’s director of inter-religious affairs. “They are lovers of Israel. They’ve followed the history; some of them have visited Israel. They clearly are Christian in their faith, but for the roots of their faith they are very appreciative of Judaism.”

That’s the opening of a story I wrote for today’s Jewish Journal, and it’s welcome news considering the Anti-Defamation League and Pew Hispanic Center have found that Latinos often don’t think warm fuzzies about Jews. A 2005 ADL survey found that 35 percent of foreign-born Latinos held “hardcore” anti-Semitic opinions, down from 44 percent in 2002.

Observers generally blame this on a South American Catholic Church slower to adopt the Nostra Aetate declarations of the Second Vatican Council. But the pentecostal Latinos hanging out at Sinai Temple are more theologically in line with other evangelical Christians who see the state of Israel as part of God’s continuing covenant with his children and as the staging ground for the end of the world.

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September 27, 2007 | 4:10 pm

Free OJ—are you nuts?

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

As if I didn’t already have enough reasons to hate Trojans and their fans, here’s a priceless photo from Deadspin.

(Thanks to Kelly Rayburn, who always has great links on his gchat.)

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September 27, 2007 | 12:14 pm

Nixon’s Jewish paranoia

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Remember Nixon’s infamous inquiry into just how many Jews worked at the Bureau of Labor Statistics? I don’t, but that’s because it happened well before I was born. (As for his ranting on the Jewish drug of marijuana, that rings more familiarly thanks to my interviews with Craig X Rubin.)

Anyway, the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia this week released the transcript of that conversation (Nixon really should have turned the tape off once in a while), and they shed new light on an infamous conversation. Slate has the run-down, beginning with this conversation with to-be imprisoned and later born-again Christian Chuck Colson.

Nixon: Well, listen, are they all Jews over there?

Colson: Every one of them. Well, a couple of exceptions.

Nixon: See my point?

Colson: You know goddamn well they’re out to kill us.

 

Also that day, Nixon and his chief of staff, H.R. “Bob” Haldeman, had the following conversation (this, too, is from the July 3, 1971, tape that was released in 1999):

Nixon: Now, point: [Fred] Malek is not Jewish.

Haldeman: No.

Nixon: All right, I want a look at any sensitive areas around where Jews are involved, Bob. See, the Jews are all through the government, and we have got to get in those areas. We’ve got to get a man in charge who is not Jewish to control the Jewish … do you understand?

Haldeman: I sure do.

Nixon: The government is full of Jews. Second, most Jews are disloyal. You know what I mean? You have a [White House Counsel Leonard] Garment and a [National Security Adviser Henry] Kissinger and, frankly, a [White House speechwriter William] Safire, and, by God, they’re exceptions. But Bob, generally speaking, you can’t trust the bastards. They turn on you. Am I wrong or right?

Haldeman: Their whole orientation is against you. In this administration, anyway. And they are smart. They have the ability to do what they want to do—which—is to hurt us.

 

Wow. Nixon really suffered from that other kind of Jewish paranoia.

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September 27, 2007 | 10:07 am

Was Pope John Paul II allowed to die?

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

An Italian doctor has the Vatican defending that Pope John Paul II was not allowed to kill himself by denying necessary medical treatment, which in his case was the administration of a feeding tube. The pope, who died in April 2005 after a long bought with Parkinson’s, didn’t receive a tube until three days before his death.

The physician leveling the mercy killing allegation, Dr. Lina Pavanelli, heads the intensive care medical school at Italy’s University of Ferrara.

“The doctors had done something, the doctors didn’t inform the pope completely, or the pope decided,” Pavanelli told CBS News. “These are the three conclusions that I reached.”

If true, such an action would violate the Catholic Church’s own doctrine. During the Terri Schiavo drama the following winter, a Vatican bishop said: “The administration of food and water even by artificial means is, in principle, an ordinary and proportionate means of preserving life.”

The problem is Pavanelli reached her conclusion with no more information than I had: Watching the pope’s deterioration on TV. I’m probably being a cynic, but it sounds like a certain doctor was looking for some attention.

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September 26, 2007 | 3:27 pm

Bob Dylan a Chabadnik?

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Bob Dylan’s religious journey has been a passing interest for his cult following of fans. It looks like the former Robert Zimmerman, once a born-again Christian, is again a Torah-reciting (though I doubt -observant) Jew.

While in Atlanta for a September 22 concert with Elvis Costello and Amos Lee, Dylan (ne Robert Zimmerman) attended the Chabad-Lubavitch of Georgia’s Yom Kippur services, where he was called up to the Torah and recited the blessings in Hebrew, the organization reported.

How great would Dylan look with sidelocks?

(By the way, if my wife gives it another two months, my hair will look just like that.)

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September 26, 2007 | 2:49 pm

Pew: Americans know little about Muslims, Mormons

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life released a poll today on American understanding of Muslims and Mormons and opinions of Pope Benedict XVI. It’s a follow up on this May report on American Muslim attitudes.

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September 26, 2007 | 2:19 pm

U.S. Navy Nazi sympathizers?

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Do you think the architect cried mulligan after these barracks went up on an amphibious base in Coronado?

Whatever the case, it’s amazing that they’ve stood for the past four decades, especially when you consider their proximity to downtown San Diego skyscrapers and Lindbergh Field. The Navy has finally decided to spend the money—$600,000—to remedy the problem.

“We don’t want to be associated with something as symbolic and hateful as a swastika,” said Scott Sutherland, deputy public affairs officer for Navy Region Southwest, the command that is responsible for maintaining buildings on local bases.

The collection of L-shaped buildings is at the corner of Tulagi and Bougainville roads, named after World War II battles.

Navy officials say the shape of the buildings, designed by local architect John Mock, was not noted until after the groundbreaking in 1967—and since it was not visible from the ground, a decision was made not to make any changes.

It is unclear who first noticed the shape on Google Earth. But one of the first and loudest advocates demanding a change was Dave vonKleist, host of a Missouri-based radio-talk show, The Power Hour, and a website, www.thepowerhour.com.

In spring 2006, he began writing military officials, including then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, calling for action.

That August, he received a response from officials in Coronado, who made no promise to take action and said, “The Navy intends to continue the use of the buildings as long as they remain adequate for the needs of the service.”

Not long after, the San Diego chapter of the Anti-Defamation League took the issue to Rep. Susan Davis, who is Jewish. But, seriously, did the Navy really need to wait for public outcry before doing something about this?

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