January 29, 2008 | 1:02 am

Murder Inc. and Jewish toughs

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

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One of my favorite aspects of blogging is all the senseless surfing it allows me to do. On a daily basis, it seems, I come across an interesting old article or two like “Jews You Can Use,” published on Slate in 1998, which I found after my copy of “Tough Jews” arrived in the mail today.

Men with names such as Kid Twist and Gyp the Blood and Pittsburgh Phil once roamed the Jewish ghettos. These gangsters were as tough as the Irish and as powerful as the Italian mob, and when I discovered this fact at age 12 or so, it thrilled me. This reaction is easy to understand: I was, at the time, facing the oppression of anti-Semitic schoolyard thugs, and in my revenge-fantasies, Bugsy Siegel and Gurrah Shapiro were lining up on my side, blackjacks in hand.

Of course, all this was happening when I was 12. By the time I hit 16, my understanding of Jewish gangsters had become substantially more nuanced. Great nicknames and fists aside, I began to recognize these Jewish gangsters as fools and thugs who preyed on their own communities, robbed the Jewish poor, and murdered their own people.

Rich Cohen, author of a new book titled Tough Jews: Fathers, Sons, and Gangster Dreams, doesn’t get this fact. For Cohen, a writer for Rolling Stone magazine, the Jewish gangsters are the purest expression of the Jewish spirit and the means through which he defines his own Jewishness.

There are two books here. One is a very bad book of social history, defined by Cohen’s tendency to make up facts—“imagine” is his word—when he doesn’t know something: “I do not know what [Yasha Katzenberg] looked like,” he writes, “but I have tried to imagine him. I see his eyes as mirrors, reflecting not what he is looking at, but what he will see: mountains, rivers, wars. I imagine him tall and slender, wearing a hood, taking his time—something long prophesied, a nomad who has crossed wastes to get here.”

The second book is his attempt to portray himself as a spiritual heir to the Jewish gangsters. He does this by striking a tough guy pose throughout, a pose that fails to hide his sense of physical inadequacy, which he blames on his Jewishness

Geez, I wish I had read Jeffrey Goldberg‘s review before I ordered the book. “Blood Relation,” another book about Jewish gangsters that I mentioned here a few months ago, was, however, excellent.

January 28, 2008 | 4:20 pm

Obama swears he’s no anti-Semite

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Barack Hussein Obama has been the subject of quite a few Internet smear campaigns. The lingering one has been that he is not a Christian but a closet Muslim (as if belief in Islam should preclude someone from being president), that his name is strange and suspicious, and, most recently that he is an anti-Semite.

He has vehemently denied the first and last attacks. Leaders in the Jewish community jumped behind him last week and then seven of the 13 Jewish senators joined in. But just to make sure the Jewish community didn’t miss the point, Obama held a conference call this morning with reporters from a few Jewish publications. I was supposed to be on it, but the woman coordinating the call for Obama for America told me to call in tomorrow. Whoops.

Here is the link to the audio.

“As we celebrate Israel’s 60th year, I’m reminded of not just of Israel’s longstanding role as the democracy in the Middle East, and the steadfast friendships between our governments, but also the way in which the Jewish people have been able to transform themselves post World War II and the state of Israel’s incredible resolve to face down the constant threats it has faced. ...”

“I have consistently and strongly pledged that as president we are going to ensure Israel’s qualititative military support and superiority in this difficult neighborhood and stand with Israel’s democracy. ...

“I have always stood steadfast against anti-Semitism in all it’s forms. I have always stood with Israel in its quest for security. And I want to make sure that we continue to strengthen the enduring ties between our people and pledge to give real meaning to the words ‘never again.’”

After that, he took four questions, the first of which from JTA’s Ron Kampeas, who asked about Obama’s church’s connections with Louis Farrakhan. Again, you can listen to the rest here.

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January 28, 2008 | 12:17 pm

Bowing down for business

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

From the new issue of Portfolio:

Every week, the jumuah, or Friday prayer, is held in a large tent at the University of Tehran, with thousands of the faithful spilling out onto the surrounding campus. At each of these prayer meetings, the cleric on the platform clutches an AK-47 as he leads a chant of “Death to America! Death to Israel!”

Many of the chanters are not religious zealots. They’re here because this weekly morning ritual is, in effect, a Washington cocktail party, a board meeting, and an audience with the pope all rolled into one.

For Tehran’s leading politicians and businessmen, staying in favor with the ruling powers demands attendance, because in Iran, it’s not just government that is fiercely theocratic; big business is too.

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January 28, 2008 | 10:35 am

Drinking to Bush speak

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Looks like at least one of my former colleagues is ready for the president’s annual address:

WASHINGTON - The state of our union is strong.

I’ll drink to that. And, come tonight, so will an entire subculture of young political wonks who have turned the hallowed annual presidential State of the Union address into one big excuse for a drinking game.

So while the pundits listen to President Bush’s speech to Congress with pen and pad in hand, others will clutch shot glasses and pound whiskey every time the commander in chief utters familiar words and lines.

Phrases like “economic stimulus,” “freedom is on the march,” and “nuclear” will be accompanied with clinking shot glasses in common rooms and apartments across the country.

“It’s an event that feels like it deserves attention. But you definitely don’t want to be watching it alone,” said Justin Krebs, who has hosted State of the Union drinking games for the past five years in New York City.

“It’s definitely something that goes down better with a few drinks.”

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January 28, 2008 | 10:10 am

Luke Ford really left porn blogging

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

In October, Luke Ford supposedly sold his porn blog, LukeIsBack.com, but shortly thereafter an update appeared announcing that he could not, in fact, “leave his flock.”  Luke sent me an e-mail last night to clear things up.

I have not posted on lukeisback since Oct. 22, 2007, the day I sold it… Yes, there are now posters on there who ape my style but they are clearly not me.

Wikipedia has it right:

On October 23, 2007, Ford announced he had sold lukeisback.com and its contents for an undisclosed sum to an undisclosed party.^[8] “Any writing I do on the porn industry from now on will be for publications with no porn advertising,” Ford said. All entries since the sale have been by the site’s new owners.

This happened once before and explains why Luke’s personal blog is a dot net. LukeFord.com, his original porn blog, was sold to a pornographer who died in a most depressing manner.

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January 28, 2008 | 12:35 am

Mormon prophet and president dead at 97

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Gordon B. Hinckley, the 97-year-old president and prophet of the Mormon church, died earlier today. From the NY Times:

“He’s been the face of the church, not only for church members, but more than any other president, to the world at large,” said Richard Lyman Bushman, professor of history emeritus at Columbia University, a member and scholar of the church. “He exposed himself to all these interviews and seemed to enjoy it. That has won the admiration of church members. We have been a little bit isolated and clannish, and it’s wonderful to see our church presented to the world.”

During his tenure, Mr. Hinckley faced tough questions about whether the church had muzzled critical scholars and about the role of Mormons in the Mountain Meadows massacre in 1857, when a wagon train of emigrants crossing the Utah territory was attacked. Under Mr. Hinckley, a church magazine published an article about the event, and a memorial was constructed at the massacre site.

He would often disarm interrogators with peppery humor, once welcoming a New Yorker magazine reporter to his office with the greeting, “All writers should be put in a box and thrown in the sea.”

In Mr. Hinckley’s term, the church grew to count more than 12 million members worldwide — more than the largest Lutheran denomination. It is now believed to be the fourth largest church in the United States. (But the Mormon church has acknowledged reports that a significant percentage of new converts, especially overseas, do not remain active members.)

Mormon presidents serve in office until their death, but Mr. Hinckley stood out for his enduring vigor. When his wife of 67 years, Marjorie Pay Hinckley, died in 2004, he told Larry King: “The best thing you can do is just keep busy, keep working hard, so you’re not dwelling on it all the time. Work is the best antidote for sorrow.”

President Bush awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2004.

Not surprisingly, the Salt Lake Tribune has all kinds of coverage.

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January 27, 2008 | 11:43 pm

The decaying urban church

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

The New York Times paints a familiar portrait of an ailing church that was once a Jewish center:

She and the other members worship on the Sabbath, filling the church each Saturday, where they are flanked by rich-hued stained glass windows depicting the Israelites’ flight from Egypt, the story of Esther and other scenes from the Hebrew Bible.

“We once talked about taking out these windows,” said Paul Gregory Graham, who was an associate pastor 10 years ago. “Talk about cultures changing, many of us are from a West Indian background, so what does this mean to us?”

A lot more than people thought. One Saturday, Mr. Graham preached an entire sermon on the history of the Jewish people using the windows as vivid illustrations. There were lessons to be learned, he said, from their respective journeys. “These windows are a history of a people and their worship,” he said. “They give us tradition.”

Throughout the city, houses of worship built in the last century for Jewish and Christian immigrants from Europe are now home to congregations with roots in Latin America, the Caribbean or the American South. Some are grand palaces that occupy a regal spot in a neighborhood, while others are modest halls nearly indistinguishable from bland storefronts. They sustain communities by helping slake spiritual and material thirsts.

Many of these buildings are under threat, crumbling from years of neglect and deferred maintenance in the case of impoverished congregations, or becoming targets for acquisition by developers in neighborhoods where choice real estate is scarce.

Preservationists have begun to sound alarms, warning that rich urban traditions of art, religion and community service are imperiled.

“You see in these buildings history and continuity, and the influence of new populations and new religions,” said Peg Breen, president of the New York Landmarks Conservancy. “The face of the city will change and an important part of our history will be lost if these buildings disappear.”

This is not a phenomenon unique to New York, but is in fact afflicting urban churches and religious centers throughout the country. As people have fled to the suburbs and exurbs, finding or creating megachurches there, beautiful, history-filled sanctuaries have been left behind, some to rot, others to struggle along.

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January 27, 2008 | 3:16 pm

The curse of context

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Nathan Gibbs has a sad story on his blog about the death of his childhood friend, Benson Krause, and a remembrance of the music they made together. Their band, “The Third Half,” included many of the guys I grew up a few years behind, and Nathan’s post recalls an infamous moment at our church, though I was too young to remember it as much more than folklore.

One Sunday morning, his father Jim was preaching. He spoke about being corrupted by the world and used his youngest son Timothy’s innocence as an example. He said Tim was sitting in the pew making gestures with his hands and wound up being fascinated with his middle finger. Jim explained how it meant nothing outside the context of the world’s negative influence. What he did next is something no one in the audience that day will forget. He rested both wrists on the pulpit with two middle fingers extended upward. “Does this offend you?” he asked.

My childhood church was part of the Church of Christ denomination, which is, coincidentally, on the opposite end of the theological spectrum from the ultra-liberal United Church of Christ. No music with worship, no women in leadership, no heaven without baptism. And for many people the answer was obviously yes, and it led to the Krauses unceremonious return to Chicago.

The congregation’s response does not surprise me years later—many Americans, regardless of religion, would be bothered by such a display—but it makes me wonder why we find certain words, or more aptly, certain gestures, offensive? Who decided that pointing at someone with your middle finger was a greater curse than wagging your index at them?

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January 25, 2008 | 1:20 pm

Muslim piety and race policy collide *

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Juashaunna Kelly, a Theodore Roosevelt High School senior who has the fastest mile and two-mile times of any girls’ runner in the District this winter, was disqualified from Saturday’s Montgomery Invitational indoor track and field meet after officials said her Muslim clothing violated national competition rules.

Kelly was wearing the same uniform she has worn for the past three seasons while running for Theodore Roosevelt’s cross-country and track teams: a custom-made, one-piece blue and orange unitard that covers her head, arms, torso and legs. On top of the unitard, Kelly wore the same orange and blue T-shirt and shorts as her teammates.

The outfit allows her to compete while complying with her Muslim faith, which forbids displaying any skin other than her face and hands.

As one of the other heats was held, two meet officials signaled to Kelly and asked her about her uniform. Meet director Tom Rogers said Kelly’s uniform violated rules of the National Federation of State High School Associations, which sanctioned the event, by not being “a single-solid color and unadorned, except for a single school name or insignia no more than 2 1/4 inches.”

Rogers then told Kelly she was disqualified. Kelly dropped to her knees and began sobbing.

This story from last week’s Washington Post reminds me of those stories we see every now and then about a Christian teen who won’t spell on Sunday or a baseball superstar who won’t play on Yom Kippur (or Walter Sobchak who doesn’t roll on Shabbos).

But this, plainly, is ridiculous. Kelly did not make a conscious decision to sit out a specific game that conflicted with, say, Eid al-Adha. Still, she was disqualified because of a conflict between her religious beliefs and cultural practices and a silly set of rules likely in place to keep high school races looking more like the NFL and less like the NBA.

For a story about how a Muslim football player makes it through the daytime fasting of Ramadan, check out this story I wrote a few years ago for The Sun.

*Check the comments for a little discussion about how I got this story wrong.

She was disqualified because the unitard was multi-colored instead of one color, not because she is Muslim and not because she wore a unitard. It should have been one color

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January 25, 2008 | 10:10 am

‘Hitler Suite’ a popular pick in Belgrade

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

That’s not the Westin LAX. It’s the Mr. President in Belgrade. And it’s sickening.

As a member of the Design Hotel chain, Mr. President boasts many luxurious suites. The most luxurious, on the seventh floor, comes complete with a portrait of former communist leader Josip Broz Tito, who ruled Yugoslavia for more than 35 years. You can enjoy his picture while soaking in your Jacuzzi.

In addition to the Bushes, Margaret Thatcher, Fidel Castro and Joseph Stalin, there is also a junior suite named after the infamous Adolf Hitler.

The Hitler or room 501, occupied mainly by German, Croat and Slovenian guests, sees the highest demand, according to Zabunovic. ...

Like all Serbs — who were persecuted alongside Jews and gypsies during the Nazi occupation — Zabunovic does not have any kind of admiration for Hitler. But sitting in the lobby of his new hotel surrounded by statues of former U.S. Presidents Lincoln, Washington, Jefferson and Madison, he says he refuses to exclude him.

“It is wrong not to have Hitler in Madame Tussaud and other museums,” he told ABC News. “All his victims would turn in their graves if nowhere it is reminded what a monstrous criminal he was.”

Indeed that would be true if all Hitler’s victims were given the dignity of graves. But by capitalizing on Nazi nostalgia, Mr. President is not offering a form of remembrance. It is exhibiting old-fashioned avarice.

Coincidentally, this weekend marks the 63rd anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

(Hat tip: DMN)

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January 24, 2008 | 2:50 pm

He may be no philo-Semite, but he’s not Hamas

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Rob Eshman, in this week’s column, argues that it is better to deal with the bad—i.e. those who don’t agree with Jews on a reasonable peace plan—than the ugly—i.e. those who don’t even recognize Israel. I’ve got to say I agree.

For the past couple of weeks, the Boston-based pro-Israel media watchdog group CAMERA (Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America) has been riling up rabbis, congregants and any Jew with an e-mail address to pressure the All-Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena to cancel the appearance of a prominent Palestinian activist, the Rev. Naim Ateek.

Ateek, an Israeli Arab who lives in Jerusalem, is scheduled to speak at the liberal church Feb. 15-16. As founder of the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center and its sister organization in the United States, Friends of Sabeel North America (FOSNA), Ateek has championed the cause of nonviolent resistance to Israel in the West Bank. His writings are numerous and explicit: Ateek wants an end to occupation according to U.N. Resolution 242, and reconciliation between Israel and a Palestinian state.

“We want Israel to live in peace and security within its pre-1967 borders,” he said in a sermon at Boston’s Old South Church last year. “At the same time we want justice for the Palestinians in accordance with international law and the creation of a Palestinian state living in peace and security alongside the state of Israel. There is no other way.”

CAMERA and other Jewish organizations vehemently protested Ateek’s appearance in Boston and elsewhere. Their critique focuses less on his vision of a future settlement than on his language and methods. In his sermons and writings, Ateek uses imagery that portrays Palestinians as suffering under Israel as Jesus and the early Christians suffered—raising disturbing images of the ancient anti-Semitic canard of deicide. He has also championed comparisons of Israel to apartheid South Africa and has promoted divestment as a nonviolent tool to bring pressure upon Israel.

These are disturbing tactics and unsettling words. But, man, it sure beats Hamas. It beats Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the armed wing of Fatah by a mile. I’ll take a man who writes that the occupation is the equivalent of the stone blocking “Christ’s tomb” and that “The Israeli government crucifixion system is operating daily,” over a suicide bomber any day. This is an opponent you can debate, propogandize and educate.

This is the Palestinian resistance that, had it taken root in the Palestinian body politic 45 years ago instead of that cancer called Arafat, the history of that region would have been much different, much better.

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January 23, 2008 | 5:30 pm

Hillary and evangelicals: ‘The Antichrist is here’

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

As you know, Hillary Clinton has been talking a lot about her lifelong commitment to the Methodist church, a part of the Godtalk game that I spoke with Georgetown associate professor Jacques Berlinerblau about today. (He’s got a knew book out called “Thumpin’ It.”)

“In Hillary’s case, it’s not so much that she wants to project herself as a religious virtuoso, it is that she wants to avoids the stigma of a label that was unfairly applied to her in the early ‘90s of being a radical, godless feminist,” Berlinerblau told me. “And she gives off the impression of being a solid religious citizen, of being steeped in her church since childhood. It’s defensive. She is not letting people accuse her of being some godless, feminist, blue state politician.

“What’s the prize? The prize is evangelical voters.”

Still, the perspective in this cartoon  is one many evangelicals have of Clinton. It’s hard to know if she’ll be able to overcome it.

(Hat tip: CT Liveblog)

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