February 11, 2008 | 8:11 pm

McCain: ‘Like hope, but different’

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

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February 11, 2008 | 10:37 am

Lantos, Congress’ only Holocaust survivor, dies

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Bay Area Rep. Tom Lantos, who was the only Holocaust survivor to ever serve in Congress, died early this morning at age 80. The chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee was battling cancer and announced last month that he would not run for reelection.

Lantos, who referred to himself as “an American by choice,” was born to Jewish parents in Budapest, Hungary, and was 16 when Adolf Hitler occupied Hungary in 1944. He survived by escaping from the labor camp and coming under the protection of Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who used his official status and visa-issuing powers to save thousands of Hungarian Jews.

Lantos’ mother and much of his family perished in the Holocaust.

That background gave Lantos a moral authority unique in Congress and he used it repeatedly to speak out on foreign policy issues, sometimes courting controversy. He was a strong supporter of Israel and a lead advocate for the 2002 congressional resolution authorizing the Iraq war, though he would come to be a strong critic of the Bush administration’s strategy there. In 2006 Lantos was one of five members of Congress arrested in a protest outside the Sudanese Embassy over the genocide in Darfur. ...

Tall and dignified, Lantos never lost the accent of his native Hungary, but his courtly demeanor belied the cutting comments he would make in committee if the testimony he heard was not to his liking.

“Morally, you are pygmies,” he berated top executives of Yahoo Inc. at a hearing he called in November 2007 as they defended their company’s involvement in the jailing of a Chinese journalist.

Lantos showed his moral authority when in 2005 he identified the giant elephant that is the American refusal to recognize as genocide the 1915 atrocities committed against Armenians by the crumbling Ottoman Empire.

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February 10, 2008 | 11:36 pm

War on Scientology begins

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Sean Bonner at Metroblogging L.A., who last month posted about the war declared against the Church of Scientology, captured quite the protest outside the church’s Hollywood center today. Fearing litigation, many of the protesters wore masks a la V of “V for Vendetta” or wrapped black scarves around their faces. (Reminds me of that episode of “South Park” in which all the credits were Jane and John Smith.)

I like the Thetans sign. Check it out.

(Photo: Sean Bonner)

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February 10, 2008 | 11:29 pm

Video from Vilna

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

The Web guy sent me an e-mail saying the Jewish Journal‘s forums were filled with conversation regarding the Jews on parade in Vilna.

This video shows the Lithuanian Catholic Carnival, streets filled with monsters and ghouls and, yep there it is 17 seconds in, an obnoxious Jew. I really don’t understand how this can be a modern Christian observance.

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February 10, 2008 | 12:37 am

Scary costumes: Jews on parade

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Lithuanian Catholics have an incredibly odd, and I would say bigoted, Lent tradition of dressing up as heavily stereotyped, grotesque Jews—haggling peddlers with big noses, sidelocks and hideous features. The Forward has the story, and some photos, and reports that Jews in Vilna don’t complain because they don’t want to cause conflict.

During Carnival — or Uzgavenes, as it is known in Lithuania — Catholics from around the world congregate for a feast of foods prohibited during Lent. The festival usually involves a parade or circus, with attendees in masks and costumes. But in Vilnius — commonly known to Jews as Vilna — participants traditionally dress and act “as Jews,” a feat that generally calls for masks with grotesque features, beards and visible ear locks and that is often accompanied by peddling and by stereotypically Jewish speech.           

Perhaps even more shockingly, the “festivities” extend beyond the parade itself and into a Halloween-style trick-or-treating. When Simonas Gurevicius, the 26-year-old executive director of the Jewish Community of Lithuania, opened the door to his house during last year’s Uzgavenes, he was greeted by two children dressed in horns and tails, reciting a song that translates as, “We’re the little Lithuanian Jews/We want blintzes and coffee/If you don’t have blintzes/Give us some of your money.” (It rhymes in Lithuanian.)

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Diana, a 20-year-old Jewish medical student from Vilnius who did not wish to give her last name, was surprised to learn that Lithuanians dress as Jews during Uzgavenes. “It’s not the most pleasant thing, but it could be worse” she said, adding that “they could be smashing menorahs” — a reference to protests surrounding the erection of a large menorah in the Lithuanian town of Siauliai last December.

Last Saturday, hundreds gathered in front of city hall in the capital to celebrate. The Web site of the Vilnius City Municipality promised that during Uzgavenes, which is an official holiday in Lithuania, “creatures wearing different masks — devils, witches, deaths, goats, Gypsies, and other joyful and scaring characters — hang around.” Claiming to be dressed as a Jew, one woman tried to convince spectators to buy dirty handkerchiefs.

Although typical costumes include farm animals and monsters, masquerading is sometimes broadly referred to as “eiti zydukais,” or “going as Jews,” regardless of how one dresses.

The Roma do not fare better. Participants who masquerade as “Gypsies” wear gaudy makeup, hold babies and ask bystanders for money.

Last Friday, Vilnius’s Center of Ethnic Activity hosted an exhibition of Uzgavenes masks and screened archival footage of past celebrations. Masks of Jews were displayed between those of witches and animals, and shown with no apparent compunction to cultural delegates from Latvia and Denmark. In a video shot in Vilnius last year, a man dressed as a Jew carrying a briefcase full of toilet paper haggled with cab drivers as he led a group of people made up as beasts through the streets.

And I thought Mardi Gras was a strange, unholy tradition.

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February 9, 2008 | 10:38 pm

Brother, can you spare a few grand?

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Tomorrow brings that time of year again, Super Sunday, when L.A.‘s Jewish federation will raise about 10 percent of its yearly support. This year, Jewish social-service agency are eagerly anticipating the outcome of tomorrow’s effort because state funding is shrinking at the same time the economy is skidding.

I lede the Jewish Journal‘s annual advance-article with the obligations of Alfred Katz.

It was 1952, and Katz was a first-year surgical resident at Cedars of Lebanon. His wife, Cecilia Eve, had just given birth to their first son, and she told Katz they needed to thank God by giving $35 to The Federation.

“I said, ‘We can’t give $35,’ and she said, ‘We must,’” Katz, 82, recalled Monday. “She called up The Federation and they asked, ‘Who solicited you?’ and she said, ‘God.’”

More than half a century later, the Katzes still give consistently to The Federation. And on Feb. 10, Alfred Katz again will be working the phones trying to get other Jewish Angelenos to give back, something he’s done each Super Sunday, save one, since the annual fundraiser’s 1979 inception.

“There are so many Jews who are needy,” he said. “We were lucky; we survived. We have kids and grandkids, and we were so blessed by God. It’s important that we give.”

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February 9, 2008 | 12:34 pm

Anglican leader suggests Sharia for England?

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

I was cave-dwelling yesterday and most of Thursday, working on a cover story for next week, so you’ll forgive my minor oversight of a major row in the Church of England.

In a speech Thursday night and an interview with the BBC, Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury who has faced enough grief with the division in his church over homosexuality, said it is “unavoidable” that some elements of Islamic Sharia law eventually will be adopted in England.

“Nobody in their right mind,” the archbishop told the BBC, “would want to see in this country the kind of inhumanity that sometimes appears to be associated with the practice of the law in some Islamic states — the extreme punishments, the attitudes to women as well.”

But equally, he said, “I don’t think we should instantly spring to the conclusion that the whole of that world of jurisprudence and practice is somehow monstrously incompatible with human rights simply because it doesn’t immediately fit with how we understand it.”

Some are now calling for Williams’ resignation. The archbishop is claiming that the comment was taken out of context, but Tom Heneghan at FaithWorld isn’t buying it:

The archbishop’s statement about some aspects of sharia being”unavoidable” is so clear that it is hard to argue in his defence that it was taken out of context or hardened up by headline-hungry hacks. This is not like Pope Benedict’s ill-fated Regensburg speech in 2006, where the pontiff quoted a Byzantine emperor slamming Islam and later said he didn’t mean to say he agreed with it. Williams talked about accommodating some aspects of sharia law and spoke in detail about this.

His main complaint seems to be summed up in this passage late in the speech: “One of the most frequently noted problems in the law in this area is the reluctance of a dominant rights-based philosophy to acknowledge the liberty of conscientious opting-out from collaboration in procedures or practices that are in tension with the demands of particular religious groups.” His example for this is the case of Catholic adoption agencies in Britain that have been told they must stop refusing to provide children to gay couples or risk being shut down. The law should allow opt-outs for cases of conscience, he argues, something that is already allowed for doctors who refuse to perform abortions. He also notes that Orthodox Jews have their own courts for some religious issues. So his argument seems to be that opt-outs are needed and Muslims need to have theirs.

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February 8, 2008 | 12:08 pm

ZOA expands its enemies list

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Speaking of the Bintel Blog, they’ve got an interesting post about a pair of university presidents who have made the Zionist Organization of America’s hit list.

The right-wing group is criticizing Hillel for inviting two university chiefs — Amy Guttman, president of the University of Pennsylvania, and Michael Drake, chancellor of the University of California at Irvine — to speak at a summit that it’s is holding on universities and the Jewish community. According to the JTA, the ZOA is calling for the pair to be disinvited.

Guttman, the ZOA says, is an inappropriate invitee because in 2006 she posed for a picture at a Halloween party with a student dressed as a suicide bomber. The ZOA’s issue with Drake is that U.C. Irvine has been the site of “anti-Semitic speakers and programs” that have caused “Jewish students to feel threatened, harassed and intimidated.”

Never mind that Guttman has said that she didn’t grasp the nature of the student’s costume as the photo was being taken, and that she later called it “clearly offensive.” Even if one is skeptical about her explanation, only an extremely ungenerous person would assume that she’s guilty of anything worse than a momentary lapse of judgment.

In Drake’s case, it is true that the main Muslim student group at U.C. Irvine has repeatedly held viciously anti-Israel events on campus — events where the rhetoric often crosses the line into antisemitism (not to mention anti-Americanism). And some have argued that U.C. Irvine’s administration could be more sympathetic to Jewish concerns on this matter. But ultimately, there’s also a free speech issue in play, so it’s not as if the university can simply prohibit such events.

The irony is that the ZOA wants Hillel to effectively boycott two individuals who have actually weighed in against campaigns to boycott Israeli universities. Guttman and Drake are both signatories to an American Jewish Committee-sponsored statement strongly condemning anti-Israel academic boycotts.

Hillel, for its part, has declined to follow the ZOA’s advice.

 

I plan on attending the Hillel event. The ZOA letter should make for good conversation with the accused.

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February 8, 2008 | 9:25 am

LA Mayor Giuliani

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Patt Morrison did a little devil’s arithmetic to come up with the next mayor of Los Angeles in case Hillary Clinton is elected president.

She’s got a Cabinet to fill. And who’s her California main man? Who was there for her way back, before Obamamania, bringing in Latino votes in sheaves?

Antonio Villaraigosa. Mr. Future Secretary of Education or Labor or HHS Villaraigosa. Instead of running for reelection in 2009, he’s out of the Getty House and off to the Beltway. Adios, City of Angels and psychotic traffic; hola, City of Lobbyists and cheap taxi rides.

But what happens to us? L.A. will need a mayor, pronto.

I have just the man.

The mastermind mayor, the man who can whip a civic entity into shape faster than Richard Simmons on crack. He’s tanned, he’s rested and he’s ready for some Hollywood prime time—Rudy Giuliani!

What’s that? Is he available? Not long ago, he was reeling in six figures for a single speech. Two weeks ago, he couldn’t entice a hundred people out to hear him talk for free in Florida.

Of course he’s available.

The reasons why she thinks he’d be great—he’d increase parking-ticket revenue, he’d stop ex-New Yorkers from talking about how great things were in the city they left, he’d pick fights with Cardinal Mahony   —are more digs at transplangelenos than exultations of Giuliani. I do, however, know quite a few people who would be thrilled. I’m not one of them.

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February 7, 2008 | 3:21 pm

VideoJew: Jews Choose 2008

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

This is awesome! Jay Firestone doing his best NBC Nightly News impression, some of the most patriotic graphics I’ve seen, not to mention a great score and my political expertise telling people to “do the math”—watch and enjoy.

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February 7, 2008 | 12:28 pm

The perils of media descriptions

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Compare these two paragraphs, both of which refer to publications I write for:

The Web site of Christianity Today, the leading evangelical journal, declared Wednesday that the election results “exposed divides between evangelical voters and their spokesmen.”

A California Jewish newspaper dubbed it the “Jewish primary,” but the Super Tuesday contest in California might be more accurately called the Hispanic primary.

Notice the different treatments of Christianity Today and The Jewish Journal. One is called the leading evangelical journal (it is) while the other is simply “a” California Jewish newspaper (it is, in fact, the largest outside of New York). Now, can you guess which reporter works for The Jewish Week and which for the New York Times?

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February 7, 2008 | 11:57 am

Strange debate on State of Israel

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

The Jewish Chronicle, via the Bintel Blog, has a strange story about an even odder resolution passed by Britain’s oldest debating society, the Oxford Union.

The motion last Thursday, “This House believes that the State of Israel has a right to exist”, was passed by more than 100 votes, but not before the antics of some of the participants caused raised eyebrows in the union’s debating chamber.

American academic Norman Finkelstein, fresh from a tour of Britain backed by the Federation of Student Islamic Societies, spoke in favour of the motion but voted against it, while Ted Honderich, professor of philosophy at University College, London, joined the two anti-motion speakers — Palestinian academic Ghada Karmi and Israeli professor Ilan Pappé — but voted in favour of the resolution.

One member of the audience decried the “absurdity” of the debate. “I didn’t think it was a question we asked any more,” she said.

Finkelstein, the son of Holocaust survivors, is the author of “The Holocaust Industry” and “Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History.” He seems to generate controversy most places he visits, and next week he’ll be at Cal State Northridge.

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