April 25, 2008 | 3:05 pm

If Satanists wanted their own license plate

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

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Prompted by the previous post about a Christian-themed license plate, Mr. Bloggish shows why some Christians might not want to open the door to faith-based vehicle tags.

April 25, 2008 | 11:30 am

Florida considers Christian-themed license plates

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

MIAMI - Florida drivers can order more than 100 specialty license plates celebrating everything from manatees to the Miami Heat, but one now under consideration would be the first in the nation to explicitly promote a specific religion.

The Florida Legislature is considering a specialty plate with a design that includes a Christian cross, a stained-glass window and the words “I Believe.”

Rep. Edward Bullard, the plate’s sponsor, said people who “believe in their college or university” or “believe in their football team” already have license plates they can buy. The new design is a chance for others to put a tag on their cars with “something they believe in,” he said.

If the plate is approved, Florida would become the first state to have a license plate featuring a religious symbol that’s not part of a college logo. Approval would almost certainly face a court challenge.

This story from the AP is what I like to call religious-controversy in a can. There is an exact formula to reporting these kneejerkers out. Introduce the “major news” (these are CNN standards), followed by a supportive quote about how Christians just want equal rights and then the contrarion view from Americans United, the ACLU or Michael Newdow. My vote’s for contestant No. 2:

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April 25, 2008 | 10:22 am

The Israel lobby for doves

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

“Theyâ€(tm)re trying to be the un-Aipac.”

They is J Street, a new pro-Israel lobby organization that won’t be quite so “reflexive” in its support. I saw something about J Street a few days ago, but today’s New York Times picks up on the new outfit.

The executive director of the new venture, Jeremy Ben-Ami, said in an interview that “a large number of American Jews and their friends have dropped out of the discussion about how to bring peace to Israel and its neighbors because they donâ€(tm)t have a home politically.” He argued that there was a need for an alternative to the traditional groups who say, “to oppose any Israeli policy is to be anti-Israel.”

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April 24, 2008 | 5:14 pm

Gonzo journalist goes on Christian retreat; says ‘Jesus made me puke’

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Rolling Stone‘s gonzo political reporter, Matt Taibbi, who has been called a latter-day Hunter S. Thompson (over and over again), has a new book about his “tales from the evangelical front lines.” Taibbi is a great reporter and a fantastic writer, but he doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy who would be inducted into GetReligion’s hall of fame. Not with writing like this.

“The Great Derangement,” his cynically named book, does, however, offer a number of interesting windows into life in the Rev. John Hagee’s “apocalyptic mega-ministry.” It is with Hagee’s Cornerstone Church that Taibbi attends a weekend retreat through which he tells his tale.

So here I was, standing in the church parking lot, having responded to church advertisements hawking an “Encounter Weekend” — three solid days of sleep-away Christian fellowship that would teach me the “joy” of “knowing the truth” and “being set free.” That had sounded harmless enough, but now that I was here and surrounded by all of these blanket-bearing people, I was nervous. When most Americans think of the Christian right, they think of scenes from television — great halls full of perfectly groomed people in pale suits and light-colored dresses, smiling and happy and full of the Holy Spirit, robotically singing hymns at the behest of some squeaky-clean pastor with a baritone voice and impossible hair. We don’t get to see the utterly batshit world they live in, when the cameras are turned off and their pastors are not afraid of saying the really dumb stuff, for fear of it turning up on CNN. In American evangelical Christianity, in other words, there’s a ready-for-prime-time stage act — toned down and lip-synced to match a set of PG lyrics that won’t scare the advertisers — and then there’s the real party backstage, where the spiritual hair really gets let down. I was about to go backstage, to personally take part in the indoctrination process for a major Southern evangelical church. Waiting to board the bus for the Encounter Weekend, I had visions of some charismatic ranch-land Jesus, stoned on beer and the Caligula director’s cut and too drunk late at night to chase after the minor children, hauling me into a barn for an in-the-hay shortcut to truth and freedom. Ridiculous, of course, but I really was afraid, mostly of my own ignorance and prejudices. I had never been to something like this before, and I didn’t know how to act. I badly wanted to be invisible.

Taibbi, of course, fails to remain inconspicuous. How could he after fabricating his “wound”—a concept, which Taibbi calls “schlock biblical Freudianism,” from John Eldredge’s “Wild at Heart”—as being the abused son of an alcoholic circus clown?

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April 24, 2008 | 11:11 am

The Book of Pelosi

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Fun from the Bible Belt Blogger:

Maybe House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is quoting from the Howard Dean Version of the Holy Bible. You know, the one that has the book of Job in the New Testament. Or perhaps sheâ€(tm)s picked up some new-fangled, biodegradable, Australian Earth Bible, with the words of Al Gore in red. Or perhaps, as congressmen sometimes do, sheâ€(tm)s simply decided to “revise and extend” Hereâ€(tm)s what Pelosi said in an Earth Day press release this week: “The Bible tells us in the Old Testament, ‘To minister to the needs of Godâ€(tm)s creation is an act of worship. To ignore those needs is to dishonor the God who made us.â€(tm) On this Earth Day, and every day, let us pledge to our children, and our childrenâ€(tm)s children, that they will have clean air to breathe, clean water to drink, and the opportunity to experience the wonders of nature.” the book.

Turns out, thereâ€(tm)s no such passage in the Bible — New Testament or Old, several Christian Right activists are pointing out.

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April 24, 2008 | 10:44 am

Israel and Syria nearing peace agreement?

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

For 41 years, Israel has occupied land that has ideologically divided its own citizenry. The West Bank has its biblical landmarks and Gaza its squaller. (Comparing the two, it’s easy to understand why Israel removed troops and settlements from one and not the other.) The third is the Golan Heights, the mountain range stretching from the Sea of Galilee to Israel’s northern border and wedged between the Jewish state and Syria.

Often is left out of the discussion of the occupied territories Israel captured in the Six Day War, the Golan has a strictly strategic value: keeping Syria from firing down on its neighbor. When I was in Israel last summer, tensions between the two moved precariously close to war and everyone was ready for it. Israel even tempted Damascus with an air strike inside Syria a month later.

Could it be now that Israel and Syria are nearing a peace agreement that would include turning over the Golan?

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April 23, 2008 | 8:26 pm

Russian Orthodoxy now de facto state religion

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

The Soviet Union might be dead, but their old policy of harassing religious institutions—in this case, any not aligned with the Russian Orthodox Church—is alive and well. The plight of being Protestant, from The New York Times:

STARY OSKOL, Russia �” It was not long after a Methodist church put down roots here that the troubles began.

Russian Orthodox Church in America

First came visits from agents of the F.S.B., a successor to the K.G.B., who evidently saw a threat in a few dozen searching souls who liked to huddle in cramped apartments to read the Bible and, perhaps, drink a little tea. Local officials then labeled the church a “sect.” Finally, last month, they shut it down.

There was a time after the fall of Communism when small Protestant congregations blossomed here in southwestern Russia, when a church was almost as easy to set up as a general store. Today, this industrial region has become emblematic of the suppression of religious freedom under President Vladimir V. Putin.

Just as the government has tightened control over political life, so, too, has it intruded in matters of faith. The Kremlin�(tm)s surrogates in many areas have turned the Russian Orthodox Church into a de facto official religion, warding off other Christian denominations that seem to offer the most significant competition for worshipers. They have all but banned proselytizing by Protestants and discouraged Protestant worship through a variety of harassing measures, according to dozens of interviews with government officials and religious leaders across Russia.

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April 23, 2008 | 5:18 pm

Clinton carries Keystone Jews

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Hillary Clinton last night not only won the Pennsylvania primary, but carried the Jewish vote, 62 percent to Barack Obama’s 38 percent.

Her margin was similar among whites overall, winning 63 percent to 37 percent. Clinton’s performance among white Catholics was particularly strong, winning 70 percent to 30 percent.

“I think much of the Jewish vote voted for their comfort level, and they were more comfortable with Senator Clinton,” said Marcel Groen, a Clinton supporter and the head of the Montgomery County Democratic Committee, in an interview with JTA a day after the primary. “I just think generally from a Jewish perspective, Hillary Clinton was a known commodity.”

This news really shouldn’t be a surprise. When you talk about “comfort level,” Obama has had a lot of trouble convincing the Jewish community, and a few others, that he’s no sheepskin wolf.

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April 23, 2008 | 2:33 pm

Arab Israeli woman joins air force by mistake

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Women of the IDF

Remember that story yesterday about concern over Jewish “dual loyalty?” Well, a similar fear bars Israeli Arabs and Muslims from the Israel Defense Force’s elite units. That is, except for one Muslim woman allowed in by accident.

But after the mistake was discovered the unit’s commander was so impressed with the woman’s ability and achievements that he allowed her to stay, breaking all the rules.

The IAF’s elite Airborne Combat Search and Rescue Unit 669 is normally involved in sensitive and highly classified Israeli Defense Forces operations and is considered one of the Israeli military’s premier units.

Its main function is to rescue and extricate wounded soldiers from combat zones, under heavy enemy fire in most cases. The unit also often helps rescue civilians injured during various catastrophic incidents.

Due to the sensitivity of the unit Muslims and Arabs are prevented from joining. Israel fears a conflict of loyalties should Israeli-Arabs serve in Palestinian areas or fight Muslim states.

Most Israeli-Arabs, apart from the Druze, a schism of Shiite Islam who defected during the 11th century, are not required to undergo the compulsory military service that Jewish youngsters are.

This story is from the Middle East Times. Oddly, I’ve seen no coverage of this in Israeli media. The unidentified Muslim woman, from an Arab village in northern Israel, was allowed into Unit 669 after acing her medical training, and before anyone realized she wasn’t an Israeli Jew.

“Contrast this Arab woman�(tm)s zeal to perform her duty as a citizen with an ever-expanding number of Israeli Jews seeking to avoid their compulsory army service; not to mention those Orthodox Jews studying in yeshivas who also avoid service,” Richard Silverstein wrote.

Her service, however, does not signal a sea change.

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April 23, 2008 | 10:16 am

China’s penis restaurant: clean or unclean?

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

DISCLAIMER: I saw this video last month but previously had no worthy excuse to blog about it. Please, don’t watch the above video, starting at 1:57, if you are prone to nausea, pregnant or may become pregnant.

Before there was The Law, there was Passover. After the Exodus came the transmission of Torah to Moses and all the mitzvot included in Levitical code. God only knows why he gave the Israelites all the instructions he did; this is apparent over and again when you read through Leviticus (or A.J. Jacobs’ “The Year of Living Biblically”).

One of the questions I’ve heard before, and heard again at Bible study last week, is: Why did God, creator of all, deem some animals clean and others unclean? What was so bad about the coney or the owl or the, gulp, weasel? Why would He give the Israelites such seemingly strange commands in Leviticus 11?

I am the LORD your God; consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am holy. Do not make yourselves unclean by any creature that moves about on the ground. 45 I am the LORD who brought you up out of Egypt to be your God; therefore be holy, because I am holy.

Oh right. Because He’s God. If you don’t like His commands, build your own universe.

Oddly, though, the food laws offer no prohibition (that I know of) against what I would consider the most defiled delicacy. For the rest of this story we head to a restaurant in China, via The Times of London, where all they serve filleted penis and such drinks as deer-penis juice, which the reporter calls “the vilest concoction I’ve ever had the privilege to imbibe. It’s as sour as a smacked lemon and as bitter as neat quinine. My face freezes in an agonising spasm, and Lord knows how I manage to keep from throwing up.”

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April 22, 2008 | 6:33 pm

Bad news for Jews: American accused of spying for Israel in ‘80s

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

The United States arrested an 84-year-old American on Tuesday suspected of giving Israel secrets on nuclear weapons, fighter jets and missiles in the 1980s, in a case linked to the Jonathan Pollard spy scandal that rocked U.S.-Israeli relations.

The arrest of Ben-Ami Kadish indicates that Israeli spying revealed by the Pollard case, still an irritant to the U.S. alliance with Israel, may have spread wider than previously acknowledged.

“It was bigger than we thought, and they hid it well,” said former U.S. Attorney Joseph diGenova, who prosecuted Pollard.

Kadish acknowledged his spying in FBI interviews and said he acted to help Israel, according to court documents.

This is, of course, bad news from Reuters. The reason being that for the past 60 years diaspora Jews have been looked at suspiciously by some neighbors who worry about their dual loyalty. Are they American Jews or Jewish Americans? (Google jewish dual loyalty and the top hits are for the Web site of David Duke.)

Obviously, they are both: patriotic Americans, or Frenchmen or South Africans, largely dedicated to Israel as their eternal home. This typically does not pose a problem. But, then again, people typically don’t get involved in international spy rings.

Rosner’s Blog for Ha’aretz has a link to the court docs. And Mondoweiss, a liberal Jewish blog, notes a decade-old GAO report that claimed Israel “conducts the most aggressive espionage operation against the United States of any U.S. ally.”

Pollard, a former Navy intelligence analyst who copped to spying for Israel, though what he gave up has yet to be revealed, remains in prison.

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April 22, 2008 | 5:26 pm

The secret ingredient in Israeli Coca-Cola

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

I’ve never been one to enjoy soda, definitely not latke or Christmas ham flavors, not even that dark brown syrup known as cola. But when I was in Israel last summer, I fell in love with Coca-Cola. I assumed there was some romance to drinking from the classic glass bottle in the Holy Land. I was wrong.

Turns out the good stuff in Israel is made from real sugar and not that awful corn syrup substitute. The Hebrew version is kosher for Passover, and according to this post via LAObserved, it’s harder to find than the missing matzo.

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