May 13, 2008 | 12:05 pm

Obama’s Jewish campaign

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

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The New York Times this morning recycles a lot of news you’ve seen here in the past few weeks. The story is about Barack Obama’s push to attract Jewish voters and alleviate their fears; it mentions his interview with Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic and his congratulations to Israel on turning 60.

Nothing new, except for a reference to an op-ed Obama wrote for the Sunday edition of Israel’s largest paper, Yedioth Ahronoth. I, however, can find no trace of this online.

May 13, 2008 | 10:33 am

Einstein found the Bible ‘primitive, childish’

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

As a teen, I was told several times by fellow Christians that Charles Darwin recanted his theory of evolution on his deathbed. This 125-year-old legendwas believable because it played into the idea that no matter how wicked a life someone had led—and we believed Darwin to be a vile man—God would welcome them back, even in their final moments.

For Albert Einstein, who I will admit is one of my heroes, nearing the end did not make him a more religious man. His vague language on God had long been interpreted by the faithful that Einstein was a fellow believer. But, in a letter being auctioned in England, Einstein was quite critical of religion and the Jewish people, of which he was a proud member. From The Guardian:

Einstein penned the letter on January 3 1954 to the philosopher Eric Gutkind who had sent him a copy of his book Choose Life: The Biblical Call to Revolt. The letter went on public sale a year later and has remained in private hands ever since.

In the letter, he states: “The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this.”

Einstein, who was Jewish and who declined an offer to be the state of Israel’s second president, also rejected the idea that the Jews are God’s favoured people.

“For me the Jewish religion like all others is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything ‘chosen’ about them.”

Avoiding Einstein’s frank review of his people, I disagree with his interpretation of the Bible. Yes, Jesus spoke highly of a childlike faith, but does that mean the Bible’s stories are “primitive” and “childish?”

Hardly. Even if you don’t believe its accounts of Jewish history, the Gospels and the epistles, the complete book, covering 4,000 years from the Beginning to the End, is the greatest literary work ever.

It’s more enjoyable, though, if you believe it.

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May 13, 2008 | 1:30 am

The new Muslim smear for Obama

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

I made a mistake Monday morning. I should have read that Edward Luttwak op-ed on Barack Obama the Muslim apostate that I linked to here but didn’t discuss. As the day dragged on, my Google Reader filled up with a few RSS feeds attacking the bankruptcy of Luttwak’s argument that Obama, as an apostate who purportedly was born a Muslim and converted out to Christianity, could not be tolerated by other Muslims and might even be killed for it.

Here is what Luttwak wrote:

As the son of the Muslim father, Senator Obama was born a Muslim under Muslim law as it is universally understood. It makes no difference that, as Senator Obama has written, his father said he renounced his religion. Likewise, under Muslim law based on the Koran his mother’s Christian background is irrelevant.

Of course, as most Americans understand it, Senator Obama is not a Muslim. He chose to become a Christian, and indeed has written convincingly to explain how he arrived at his choice and how important his Christian faith is to him.

His conversion, however, was a crime in Muslim eyes; it is “irtidad” or “ridda,” usually translated from the Arabic as “apostasy,” but with connotations of rebellion and treason. Indeed, it is the worst of all crimes that a Muslim can commit, worse than murder (which the victim’s family may choose to forgive).

With few exceptions, the jurists of all Sunni and Shiite schools prescribe execution for all adults who leave the faith not under duress; the recommended punishment is beheading at the hands of a cleric, although in recent years there have been both stonings and hangings.

Obama, in fact, is not the son of a Muslim father. This belief comes from that rumor that he’s a closet Muslim. Secondly, Luttwak’s argument is not original, having first been made last summer in FrontPage magazine, courtesy of the man leading a battle against peaceful Islam, Daniel Pipes.

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May 12, 2008 | 9:42 pm

The pink gorilla and me

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

That’s me on the ...

It’s difficult to explain to a big pink gorilla why as a journalist you don’t want to mug for the camera, so I indulged Zack Sher last week at UC Irvine. He and his fellow Anteaters for Israel were celebrating the Jewish State’s 60th anniversary with iFest, a week long festival that preceded and partially overlapped Palestinian awareness week, for which I’ll be heading down south again this week.

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May 12, 2008 | 5:08 pm

The lost members of the tribe in Cuba

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

I think there are less Jews in Cuba than at Langer’s at any given time, but this small community (it’s actually numbers about 1,500) has spent the past decade on the rebound. Here’s what led to the decline in numbers so small that the synagogue, which still has no rabbi, couldn’t form a minyan, courtesy of Cox News Service:

when Castro’s government adopted communist ideals and began confiscating private businesses and properties, most Jews fled, many to the U.S.

“But they didn’t leave because of anti-Semitism,” [Adela] Dworin said. “In Cuba the behavior of the people toward the Jews was always very nice. There was never any persecution. I decided to stay because I always felt like a Cuban, proud of being born here, very Cuban and very Jewish.”

The long years that followed were difficult, but Dworin remained optimistic. When Castro met with religious leaders in the 1990s and reversed the state’s discouragement of organized religion, Dworin and others, including Dr. Jose Miller, began seeking out Cubans with Jewish roots.

Most of the island’s Jews by then had married outside the faith, stopped attending services and lost touch with Jewish traditions. With the help of American and international Jewish support groups, the small number of faithful in Cuba began rebuilding their membership and refurbishing their facilities.

“I cried a lot when we re-opened the big sanctuary in 2000,” Dworin said, noting that the extensive remodeling job was supported by American Jewish groups. “For so long we used the small chapel, but we grew so much we no longer had enough room for services there.”

The Forward originally did this article last September, which is where Cox seemingly found Dworin. Here too is a Web site dedicated to Cuba’s Jews.

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May 12, 2008 | 2:54 pm

Pope urges Israel to help Christians in Mideast

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Pope Benedict XVI on Monday asked Israel to ease travel restrictions for Mideast Christians, who in Gaza and the West Bank and places like Lebanon have been under attack.

Benedict has made concern over the future of Middle East Christians a
priority. Economic problems as well as violence in the Holy Land and Iraq have led Christians to emigrate from the region.

“I pray that, in consequence of the growing friendship between Israel and the Holy See, ways will be found of reassuring the Christian community that they
have a secure future in the region,” Benedict said.

He said problems facing Christians are related to Israel-Palestinian tensions.

The Holy See recognizes Israel’s legitimate need for security and self-defense and strongly condemns all forms of anti-Semitism, the pope said.

At the same time, he urged Israel to alleviate travel restrictions causing hardships for Palestinians.

The ambassador, in his remarks released by the Vatican, said Israel would do its utmost to help strengthen the Christian communities in Israel as their essential presence in the Holy Land is deeply rooted and historically self-understood.

This is a bit of a different tone from the Holy See than when the Vatican’s former ambassador to Israel said, “relations between the Catholic Church and the state of Israel were better when there were no diplomatic relations.”

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May 12, 2008 | 2:12 pm

Muslim creationist gets three years prison time

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Harun Yahya is the best-known creationist in the Muslim world. Author of the 12-pound, 800-page anti-evolution tome, “Atlas of Creation,” Yahya, AKA Adnan Oktar, has also been dogged by legal problems, which culminated Friday in a three-year prison sentence in Turkey “for creating an illegal organization for personal gain.”

Oktar had been tried with 17 other defendants in an Istanbul court. The verdict and sentence came after a previous trial that began in 2000 after Oktar, along with 50 members of his foundation, was arrested in 1999.

In that court case, Oktar had been charged with using threats for personal benefit and creating an organization with the intent to commit a crime. The charges were dropped but another court picked them up resulting in the latest case.

Oktar planned to appeal the sentence, a BAV spokeswoman said. No further details were immediately available.

(Hat tip: Science and Religion News)

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May 12, 2008 | 1:50 pm

Obama on ‘the kishke question’

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Jeffrey Goldberg, who made an appearance here last week, spent part of his weekend asking Barack Obama about being endorsed by Hamas (he didn’t care for it), Jimmy Carter’s portrait of Israel as an apartheid state (“I strongly reject that characterization”), whether Israel hurts the U.S. image abroad (“no, no, no”) and the lingering feeling among many Jews that he can’t be trusted.

Here is Obama’s response to “the kishke question”:

I think the idea of Israel and the reality of Israel is one that I find important to me personally. Because it speaks to my history of being uprooted, it speaks to the African-American story of exodus, it describes the history of overcoming great odds and a courage and a commitment to carving out a democracy and prosperity in the midst of hardscrabble land. One of the things I loved about Israel when I went there is that the land itself is a metaphor for rebirth, for what’s been accomplished. What I also love about Israel is the fact that people argue about these issues, and that they’re asking themselves moral questions.

Sometimes I’m attacked in the press for maybe being too deliberative. My staff teases me sometimes about anguishing over moral questions. I think I learned that partly from Jewish thought, that your actions have consequences and that they matter and that we have moral imperatives. The point is, if you look at my writings and my history, my commitment to Israel and the Jewish people is more than skin-deep and it’s more than political expediency. When it comes to the gut issue, I have such ardent defenders among my Jewish friends in Chicago. I don’t think people have noticed how fiercely they defend me, and how central they are to my success, because they’ve interacted with me long enough to know that I’ve got it in my gut. During the Wright episode, they didn’t flinch for a minute, because they know me and trust me, and they’ve seen me operate in difficult political situations.

The other irony in this whole process is that in my early political life in Chicago, one of the raps against me in the black community is that I was too close to the Jews. When I ran against Bobby Rush [for Congress], the perception was that I was Hyde Park, I’m University of Chicago, I’ve got all these Jewish friends. When I started organizing, the two fellow organizers in Chicago were Jews, and I was attacked for associating with them. So I’ve been in the foxhole with my Jewish friends, so when I find on the national level my commitment being questioned, it’s curious.

In other Obama news (analysis), the Crunchy Con discusses the passages he found most interesting from the New York Times’ lengthy profile of Obama’s rise and on the op-ed page, Edward N. Luttwak argues that Obama is not going to be the miraculous American emissary to the Muslim world that some hope.

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May 12, 2008 | 10:08 am

A world of hurt

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

If God is good, why does He let bad things occur? I know we try to answer that question, but some days it just seems so difficult. Today is one of those days.

I opened my computer this morning and the first headline I saw screamed, “Thousands Feared Dead in China Quake.” At first I thought the copy editors had made a mistake. That disaster was in Myanmar, and, frankly, it was sort of old news by now.

But then I realized Myanmar had been slammed by a massive cyclone, not earthquake, and when I scanned down the New York Times home page I saw that the death toll there had been raised to 32,000.

And, oh yeah, at least 22 people were killed yesterday by tornadoes in Georgia, Missouri and Oklahoma.

So as we begin a new week, religious leaders around the world will no doubt be asked for a rhyme and a reason for the suffering they are seeing. No answer will likely satisfy, as this guy stated a few years ago.

“If there was a God, how come he let all that happen?” Tom Cotton, 51, of Pinion Hills asked while finishing a burger at a Carl’s Jr. in San Bernardino.

“If it’s his plan,” Cotton said, scanning the restaurant as if he was going to curse, “he’s sure got a messed-up plan.”

God only knows what that plan might be.

“If God is wiser than we, His judgment must differ from ours on many things, and not least on good and evil,’ C.S. Lewis, the Christian philosopher and children’s author, wrote in “The Problem of Pain.’ “What seems to us good may therefore not be good in His Eyes, and what seems to us to be evil may not be evil.”

Gary Stern, who recently wrote “Can God Intervene?—How Religion Explains Natural Disasters,” writes at Blogging Religiously:

There are no easy answers. Each religious tradition has its own way of looking at these things. And it’s complicated.

Yes, Buddhists in Myanmar and China will blame karma. Protestants in Missouri may blame Original Sin. Many people around the world, from many faith traditions, will wonder who is being punished for what.

But on a day like today, when children are buried and thousands of people (bodies?) are missing, what explanation can possibly be satisfying?

As one Catholic priest who advises the U.S. Bishops Conference, Father Thomas Weinandy, told me for my book:

  What gets preached from the pulpit and by the bishops is “Let’s support these people, take up a collection and do what we can to help them get back on their feet,”—rather than addressing the theological issues that may be raised. Part of the problem is that there is no simply answer. You can’t get up on a pulpit and say this is why this happened, other than to say that God has his purposes and ways and hopefully it will all become clear in heaven. What is there to say other than that we have to know that God loves us, that we have to trust in him, that he’s on our side in the end? Other than that, what can you say?

As much as I believe I serve a loving and just God, I’m not sure I will ever understand why natural disasters that leave tens of thousands in mourning come with the gift of life.

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May 12, 2008 | 12:02 am

‘Is there a God?’

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Michael Scott asked himself that question on an old episode of “The Office,” re-airing last night during an NBC marathon. Scott’s answer:

“If not, then what are all these churches for? And who is Jesus’ dad?”

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May 11, 2008 | 9:45 pm

Benny Morris slams Finkelstein as a ‘notorious distorter of facts’

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

After reading Norman Finkelstein’s claim that journalist Jeffrey Goldberg tortured Palestinians while serving in the Israeli military two decades ago, Gilead Ini from the pro-Israel media watchdog CAMERA sent me this story.

In it, Ini had referred to a speech in which Finkelstein’s misused Benny Morris, the dean of Israel’s New Historians, to validate Jimmy Carter‘s apartheid comparison. (Morris was, in fact, referred to several times Wednesday at UC Irvine.) Here was Morris’ reply to CAMERA, which sounds familiar:

Norman Finkelstein is a notorious distorter of facts and of my work, not a serious or honest historian.

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May 10, 2008 | 7:59 pm

The false claim: Obama or Israel

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

No matter what Barack Obama says —earlier this week it was, “We must never waver in our unshakeable commitment to help Israel achieve its goal of true security through lasting peace with its neighbors”—or how many Jews support his presidential campaign, quite a few believe he spells nothing but trouble for Israel.

John McCain tapped into this fear recently. And today, shortly after I received the above video from Obama’s office in which he congratulates Israel on 60 years, Israpundit emailed me his blog post arguing that Jews had to choose between Obama and Israel.

While most Jews favour Obama in a run off with McCain because he is a Democrat, they ignore how pro-Palestinian and anti-American he is.

Let me list the ways.

- Obama said “Nobody is suffering more than the Palestinian people,”

- Obama said “If there is an Arab American family [in the US] being rounded up without benefit of an attorney, those are my civil liberties!”

- Everyone on Obama’s foreign policy team, McPeak, Hamilton, Kurtzer, Brezezinski, are anti- Israel and The Israel Lobby. Their policies are closely aligned with Carter’s and Baker’s.

- Obama has been in bed with Jew haters and Islamic jihad for years. Farrakhan and his dear friend Reverend Wright, Obama’s spiritual guru, is a vile Jew hater.

Israpundit lists another nine bits of evidence against Obama, which he writes “cannot be characterized as a smear as they are all true.” Let’s take a second look, starting with these first four points.

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