February 22, 2008 | 12:48 pm

‘Jews should chill out’

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

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Jewish organizations, like the ADL and AJC, were on edge last year after the pope announced he was softening restrictions on the Tridentine Mass, which before the Second Vatican Council had called for the conversion of “perfidious Jews.” This op-ed in The Forward  calls for an end to the “Tridentine Mass hysteria.”

In this day and age, Jews should not be overreacting to Pope Benedict XVI’s revision of the Good Friday prayer calling for our people “to acknowledge Jesus Christ the Savior of all men.” A very small minority of Catholics saying these words in 2008 is very different in its threat to Jews than every Catholic saying these words in 1668.

Of course, it would have been wise and surely more comforting to Jews — not to mention educative to Catholics — if the pope, in permitting this prayer and rewriting it, had also recalled the historical violence that such prayers and attitudes evoked throughout history. But Jews should chill out rather than turn this into one more drama of how the world hates us.

February 22, 2008 | 12:26 pm

Rick Warren On Faith

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

I wish I had a viral marketer to send my best blog posts out in press releases. The folks at The Washington Post and On Faith do, and their publicist just sent me a plug for a taped interview with Rick Warren, who you might know as “founding and senior pastor of the largest Christian church in California, best-selling author and influential evangelical leader Rick Warren.”

I’m having problems embedding the video, but here is a link to the highlights, in which Warren talks about why Jesus couldn’t have been “a good man,” why music is a proof for God’s existence and why atheists don’t believe.

A lot of times our morality tends to dictate our theology. And that is, well, like I said to Sam Harris. I said, Sam, if there was a God, would you have to change your lifestyle? And he said, ‘yeah’ and I said, ‘Well, I think really, Sam, you just don’t want a boss. The bottom line is you don’t want a solving God who tells you this is right or this is wrong. And, you want to live a kind of life where you make your decisions rather than God saying this is what I want you to do with your life.

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February 22, 2008 | 2:32 am

Which religion will usher in an era of peace?

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

One scholar’s answer makes that question seem like a trick. It can be found in the new issue of the Atlantic Monthly, which follows the November issue of The Economist and asks the question, “Which Religion Will Win?” Inside are articles on “The Contest for Africa,” “America’s Evangelical Future” and “The Coming Religious Peace.”

The last piece is what really caught my attention. I wondered, How could this be? How could we be primed for religious peace after a history of warfare, from David collecting the foreskins of 200 slain Philistines to the 500-year-long and mostly bloody war between Catholics and Protestants to the hatred between Sunnis and Shiites (and Kurds for that matter) preventing Iraq from creating a cohesive society?

The answer, according to scholar and scribe Alan Wolfe, is simple: None.

Consider what is occurring within the growing American evangelical movement. It has built megachurches that meet the needs of time-pressed professionals by offering such things as day-care centers, self-help groups, and networking opportunities. Its music owes more to Janis Joplin than to Johann Sebastian Bach. Its church officials learn more from business-school case studies than from theological texts. And its young people—well, as the children of parents who have gone through a born-again experience, they are not likely to be as obedient as the evangelical leader James Dobson wants them to be. Having opted to grow on secular terms, American evangelicalism is becoming less hostile to liberal ideas such as tolerance and pluralism. New efforts to take it in directions sympathetic to environmentalism and social justice are a direct result of the maturing of the faith, which followed from earlier decisions to make the movement more appealing to large numbers of Americans, especially the young.

Does the pattern hold outside America? After all, it is often said that the promulgation of secular values and lifestyles, one result of globalization, is prompting a reactionary religious backlash. There is some truth to this argument, but it misses the bigger picture. Most of the religious revivals we are seeing throughout the world today complement, and ultimately reinforce, secular developments; they are more likely to encourage moderation than fanaticism.

Agree or disagree with the prediction, there is logic to Wolfe’s argument, one he borrows from Marx and Freud and Weber.

Wolfe writes, “When God and Mammon collide, Mammon usually wins,” which is a bit too broad but often rings true. Nowhere is there more Mammon for most than in the United States, and religion has responded to the many demands placed on our lives in the pursuit of Mammon by making participation more convenient and more entertaining.

But, at the same time, the churches that are hiring the MBA-carrying applicants, the churches that are growing, are also the churches less tolerant of the tenants of secularism. Whereas the churches that are more traditional, the churches that are dying, are on the liberal end of the Christian spectrum.

If you look at the graph below from the magazine, based on data from Pew, it’s incredibly clear that the United States is anomalous for the religious devotion of its denizens.

But does this mean American religion is destined for a “bubble burst,” so to speak? I don’t think so. The talk of the U.S. going the way of Europe—of empty churches and godless worldviews—is overblown. Especially when considering the fact that right now Mammon is becoming a lot harder to come by.

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February 21, 2008 | 3:55 pm

UC Irvine student: ‘Israel will be wiped off the face of the earth’

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Fast forward to the 5:40 mark of the above video and you will see a number of Muslim students at UC Irvine interrupt a lecture by Daniel Pipes. After they are escorted out, the crowd marched through the dark, chanting:

“Anti-Israel!” “Anti-Israel!” “Anti-hate!” “Anti-Israel!” “Anti-racism!” “Anti-Israel!” “Anti-occupation!” “Anti-Israel!”

The crowd moved to a plaza and then quieted. After a few moments and a word from one student, another student thanked the protesters, claiming that it would depress the Zionists who witnessed the act.

“They are going to go out and try to make it look like they are powerful,” the young man said. “But they’re going to go home and go, ‘Crap, we are in the middle of America, in Irvine, at a public campus, and everybody hates our guts.’ They have no future, and it is just a matter of time before the State of Israel will be wiped off the face of the earth.”

The crowd rejoiced and shouted: “Allahu Akbar!”

The scene was captured by Reut Cohen, an Israeli-born student who graduated last fall. It serves as the closing scene of a story I have in this week’s Jewish Journal about anti-Israel rhetoric that has become synonymous with the UC Irvine brand. A report last week by a task force that was created by Hillel (and later cut loose) blames the administration for not doing more to prevent speeches by radicals like Muhammad Al-Asi and Amir Abdel Malik Ali; the report encourages Jewish students to attend other colleges. Religion aside, with my beard, curly hair and square, black glasses, I know I would.

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February 21, 2008 | 2:35 pm

Natalie Portman’s Israel

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Natalie Portman is really smart, wears t-shirts with skulls on them and looks cute no matter how her hair is cut. (My wife agrees.) She also has been in a few good movies and “Mars Attacks!”. And this week she really upped the stock of The Jewish Journal staff when she contributed her byline. Portman, who was born in Jerusalem, reflects on what Israel means to her in a short column under the paper’s “Israel@60” heading.

Israel is ...

Where I was born. Where I ate my first Popsicle and used a proper toilet for the first time. Where some of my 18-year-old friends spend their nights in bunkers sleeping with their helmets on. Where security guards are the only jobs in surplus. Where deserts bloom and pioneer stories are sentimentalized. Where a thorny, sweet cactus is the symbol of the ideal Israeli. Where immigrating to Israel is called “ascending” and emigrating from Israel is called “descending.” Where my grandparents were not born, but where they were saved.

Where the year passes with the season of olives, of almonds, of dates. Where the transgressive pig or shrimp dish speaks defiantly from a Jerusalem menu. Where, despite substantial exception, secularism is the rule. Where wine is religiously sweet. Where “Arabic homes” is a positive real estate term with no sense of irony. Where there is endless material for dark humor. Where there are countless words for “to bother,” but no single one yet for “to pleasure.” Where laughter is the currency; jokes the religion. Where political parties multiply more quickly than do people. Where to become religious is described as “returning to an answer” and becoming secular “returning to a question.”

Where six citizens have won Nobel prizes in 50 years. Where the first one earned an Olympic gold in 2004 for sailing (an Israeli also won the bronze for judo). Where there is snow two hours north and hamsin (desert wind) two hours south. Where Moses never was allowed to walk, but whose streets we litter. Where the language in which Abraham spoke to Isaac before he was to sacrifice him has been resuscitated to include the words for “sweatshirt” and “schadenfreude” and “chemical warfare” and “press conference.” Where the muezzin chants, and the church bells sound and the shofars cry freely at the Wall. Where the shopkeepers bargain. Where the politicians bargain. Where there will one day be peace but never quiet.

Where I was born; where my insides refuse to abandon.

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February 21, 2008 | 10:58 am

More than a bad feeling

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

AP, via the Bible Belt Blogger:

CONCORD, N.H. - The chief songwriter and founder of the band Boston has more than a feeling that he’s being ripped off by Mike Huckabee.

In a letter to the Republican presidential hopeful, Tom Scholz complains that Huckabee is using his 1970s smash hit song “More Than a Feeling” without his permission. A former member of the band, Barry Goudreau, has appeared with Huckabee at campaign events, and they have played the song with Huckabee’s band, Capitol Offense.

Scholz, who said Goudreau left the band more than 25 years ago after a three-year stint, objects to the implication that the band and one of its members has endorsed Huckabee’s candidacy.

“Boston has never endorsed a political candidate, and with all due respect, would not start by endorsing a candidate who is the polar opposite of most everything Boston stands for,” wrote Scholz, adding that he is supporting Democratic Sen. Barack Obama. “By using my song, and my band’s name Boston, you have taken something of mine and used it to promote ideas to which I am opposed. In other words, I think I’ve been ripped off, dude!”

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February 21, 2008 | 1:00 am

Islamic Jihad: Let’s have a bake sale

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

I wasn’t able to see Jeffrey Goldberg—the author of “Prisoners: A Muslim and a Jew Across the Middle East Divide” who had a great Atlantic cover story this month on the future nations of the Middle East— when he spoke at UCLA Hillel and Sinai Temple this month. But Jewish Current Issues has an interesting quote about the presidential election from his talk at the latter location.

There is almost this childish belief that on January 20, 2009 we will elect another president and that it will be Obama, or at least a woman, and the world will say “Oh great!  Now we can like you again!”

There is this level of childish certainty in that—that I find unfathomable.  Because the next American president will have to advance America’s interests around the world.  Some of those interests will have to be advanced in hard ways.

I predict that if Barack Obama becomes president, by late 2009 the stories in newspapers in Europe and on TV across the Arab world will be “Oh my God, this Obama is like Bush Lite!”

Why?  Because he’s had to take hard steps in Afghanistan.  Because he’s had to take hard steps in Pakistan.  Because he hasn’t actually pulled out of Iraq, because pulling out of Iraq is not as easy as it sounds when you are debating Hillary Clinton on a stage somewhere. . . .

Because the next president—whoever it is—is going to face the same set of enormous problems, and like any president is going to have limited maneuverability to deal with those problems.  And those problems are not going to go away.  The Islamic Jihad is not going to say “Well!  They elected Barack Obama!  I guess we should just have a bake sale or something.”

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February 20, 2008 | 12:04 am

Could God build a rock so big Romeo couldn’t lift it?

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

That is World’s Smallest Bodybuilder Aditya “Romeo” Dev being held aloft. He’s 2’9” and weighs less than 20 pounds, according to the story from London’s Telegraph. I know this picture looks Photoshopped, but based on the others at the Telegraph‘s site, Romeo is for real.

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February 19, 2008 | 8:56 pm

What’s the cure for ‘sudden-jihad syndrome?’

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

An old colleague of mine writes about terrorism for the Washington Times, and the other night I can across a month-old story referring to sudden-jihad syndrome, which sounds like the evil spawn of SIDS and a small-man complex

Sympathy for al Qaeda has produced “sudden jihad syndrome” in domestic terror cells unaffiliated with foreign terrorists and people seeking to carry out attacks in the U.S., a law-enforcement intelligence analysis says.

The Dec. 6 report by the Texas Public Safety Department’s Bureau of Information Analysis warns officials not to dismiss individual or homegrown terror cells as “wannabes,” saying they pose a credible threat to homeland security.

“Oftentimes, these attackers are dismissed as suffering from mental health issues, but their own words and writings reveal an affiliation with Islamic supremacy or an affinity for Islamic extremism,” said the report, which was distributed to federal, state and local law enforcement in Texas. “As a result, law enforcement should not be too quick to judge their attacks as having no nexus to terrorism.”

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February 19, 2008 | 4:03 pm

Lily Isaacs, from Jewish folk to Christian Gospel

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

The Baptist Press has a worthwhile profile of Lily Isaacs, the German-born Jew selling well as a Christian Gospel singer.

In retrospect, Isaacs said it was her parents’ Holocaust experience that was such an obstacle for her in coming to know Jesus as Christ. The horror of her parents’ ordeals as well as the Nazi murders of other family members created a powerful bond with her Jewish heritage that transcended any religious attachments.

“I grew up in a Jewish home,” Isaacs told Baptist Press. “But, I was more tied to Judaism through the Holocaust than I was the actual religion itself.

“We were not Orthodox. We weren’t very religious when we were growing up, but I was very tied to the Jewish cause simply because so many of my family were killed during World War II.”

(Hat tip: DMN)

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February 19, 2008 | 12:32 pm

30-day sex challenge

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

It feels like I read this story every six months:

A southwest Florida church issued a challenge for its married members: Hanky panky every day.

Relevant Church head pastor Paul Wirth issued the 30-day sex challenge to take on high divorce rates.

“And that’s no different for people who attend church,” Wirth said Sunday. “Sometimes life gets in the way. Our jobs get in the way.”

The challenge doesn’t extend to unwed congregants, however.

The accompanying video report, embedded above, is a joke. So trite. The reporter so obviously clueless. My favorite line: “Jarrett Haas says even if a sexy girl tempts him, he won’t break the challenge.”

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February 19, 2008 | 2:12 am

Molotov cocktail thrown at Valley Jewish center

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

There have been serious problems at JCCs in the San Fernando Valley before. Like Buford O. Furrow problems. On Monday, someone reportedly threw a Molotov cocktail at The New JCC at Milkin in the West Valley. No one was injured.

“In a city defined by unparalleled diversity, hate crimes of any kind will not be tolerated, and this incident will not go unanswered,” Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said in a statement. “In one voice, we must condemn this attack. As one city, we must work to ensure that no Angeleno is forced to fear for their lives or their safety because of their race, religion or ethnicity.”

The early Monday attack at the Milken campus in West Hills, which police were investigating as a possible hate crime, came a month after neighbors in upscale parts of Encino and Tarzana awoke to find swastikas and epithets like “F—- Jews” and “Burn Jews” spray-painted in front of four homes.

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