May 5, 2008 | 5:22 pm

Sub teacher fired for ‘wizardry’

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

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I hope Jim Piculas was a bad substitute teacher, but the excuse his supervisor offered for firing him was a doozy.

Substitute teacher Jim Piculas does a 30-second magic trick where a toothpick disappears then reappears.

But after performing it in front of a classroom at Rushe Middle School in Land ‘O Lakes, Piculas said his job did a disappearing act of its own.

“I get a call the middle of the day from head of supervisor of substitute teachers.  He says, ‘Jim, we have a huge issue, you can’t take any more assignments you need to come in right away,’” he said.

When Piculas went in, he learned his little magic trick cast a spell and went much farther than he’d hoped.

“I said, ‘Well Pat, can you explain this to me?’  ‘You’ve been accused of wizardry,’ [he said]. Wizardry?” he asked.

(Hat tip: Pharyngula)

May 5, 2008 | 4:19 pm

Awkward introductions: ‘Call me God’

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Steve Kreuscher has let his status as a denizen of Zion (Illinois, that is) go to his head. He’s asked a judge to legally change his name to the motto that backs our money: In God We Trust.

Believe it. First name, In God. Last name, We Trust. The Daily Herald has a detailed story that is striking for its lack of lame jokes and offers other interesting name changes:

Santa Claus: Robert Rion of Mundelein, 1997

GoVeg.com: Karin Robertson of Virginia, 2003

Megatron: Michael Burrows of Washington, 2007

Optimus Prime: Scott Nall of Ohio, 2001

Pro-Life: Marvin Richardson of Idaho, 2008

Low Tax: Byron Looper of Tennessee, 1998

Jesus Christ: Jose Espinal of New York, 2005

My favorite funny name, though it may be apocryphal, is “Sh—head” (pronounced: Shah-TEED).

(Hat tip: DMN and BBB)

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May 5, 2008 | 3:52 pm

Remembering the ‘nakba’

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Mondoweiss has been fascinated lately with the term “nakba,” an Arabic word that means “catastrophe” and refers to the creation of Israel, including its appearance in mainstream American journalism like The New Yorker and New York Times. This got me wondering: How often has this term appeared in The Jewish Journal?

The answer, since our online archive began 10 years ago, is 14 (three more if you include the alternative spelling). This piece from 1998—the 50th anniversary of Israel’s modern statehood and before the Second Intifada—was the most interesting.

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May 2, 2008 | 6:18 pm

Last of failed Hitler assassins dead

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

The last living man who tried to kill Adolf Hitler, the 1944 briefcase bomber Philipp Freiherr von Boeselager, died Thursday. He was 90.

Von Boeselager was part of a group of officers who tried to kill Hitler on July 20, 1944, supplying explosives for the operation led by Col. Claus Graf Schenk von Stauffenberg.

The von Stauffenberg plot is the basis for the upcoming Tom Cruise film ‘‘Valkyrie’’ in which the American actor plays the aristocratic colonel.

Von Stauffenberg placed the bomb in a conference room where Hitler was meeting with his aides and military advisers but escaped the blast when someone moved the briefcase next to a table leg, deflecting much of the explosive force.

Almost immediately afterward, von Stauffenberg and many of his cohorts were arrested and executed in an orgy of revenge killings that saw some hanged by the neck with piano wire. Though many of those rounded up by Nazi officials were tortured in the hopes they would give up other conspirators, von Boeselager’s name was never divulged and he was never found out.

Still, he carried a cyanide capsule with him until the end of the war in case his secret was revealed.

Von Boeselager, who lived in Altenahr, near Bonn, was first recruited by von Stauffenberg coconspirator Maj. Gen. Henning von Tresckow in 1942, he told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in an interview three weeks ago that was published Friday.

He said he knew that Jews were being systematically killed and that Germany was waging a war of annihilation along the Eastern Front with Russia and that he never considered declining taking part in the plot.

By 1942, he said that ‘‘It was no longer about saving the country, but about stopping the crimes,’’ the newspaper quoted him as saying.

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May 2, 2008 | 3:16 pm

Lord Hameed: suicide bombings ‘un-Islamic’

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

No kidding. Maybe someone should share Lord Hameed’s recent speech with those young American Muslims who think Islam sometimes justifies suicide attacks ... on civilians:

Many now viewed and with scepticism Islam’s message of peace and compassion, for if this were true, why, they asked, is it associated with violence and intolerance towards non-Muslims and the poor treatment of women?  The answer is that both Muslims and non-Muslims use the Quran selectively. The events of 9/11 in New York and 7/7 in London and in Spain, Bali, and other places, were despicable acts committed by misled youths wrongly in the name of Islam. My Lords, Islam prohibits not only the killing of the innocent but is also most severe on the act of suicide. There is a clear Quranic instruction against taking ones own life. I therefore have no problem, my Lords, in stating from the August floor of your lordships’ House for all to hear, specially my co-religionists from the Muslim world, that exploding bombs as an act of suicide to kill innocent people in buses, bazaars, aeroplanes, trains, schools, places of worship or anywhere else, is totally un-Islamic and against the teachings of the Quran. All Muslims, therefore, must do everything to stop this evil depravity.

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May 1, 2008 | 9:14 pm

‘Between the pulpit and pews, a gulf on Obama’s ex-pastor’

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

LUMBERTON, N.C. — The Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., under fire for statements that have embarrassed Senator Barack Obama’s campaign, has found staunch support in the pulpits of black churches around North Carolina. The people in the pews, however, are far less accepting.

In interviews at churches in cities and towns including Charlotte, Greensboro, Lumberton and Goldsboro, ministers expressed the view that Mr. Obama and Mr. Wright had been attacked by a superficial and biased news media. Many said they were teaching Mr. Wright’s sermons in Bible study classes. They are delivering lectures on the roots of Mr. Wright’s style of ministry and preaching against what they see as attempts to make Mr. Wright a divisive figure.

“People get fired up when they see people trying to scapegoat a presidential candidate because of a pastor,” said the Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, the pastor of Greenleaf Christian Church in Goldsboro and the president of the state branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. “And No. 2, the fact that you’re beating up on someone that’s very profound and very prophetic.”

But many parishioners are not nearly as sympathetic to Mr. Wright, saying they are disappointed with him for taking a personal dispute public with little concern for the harm it would do to the Obama campaign. (This sentiment is particularly strong among younger voters.) Others call Mr. Wright arrogant and untrustworthy, and still others say he is fighting old fights.

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May 1, 2008 | 2:09 pm

Tribal Affairs: Boxing’s Golden Boy was Jewish

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

There is a long history of Jewish fighters who embraced Irish names and boxing as vehicles out of the LES ghetto. Art Aragon wasn’t one of them, at least not until later in life.

Boxing’s “Golden Boy”—a sports celebrity on par with Joe Namath, though never a world champ—was raised Catholic in East L.A. But his second wife was Jewish, and Aragon converted so he could marry her (and presumably his third wife, who also was Jewish; his fourth, however, was not). From a short appreciation I wrote about Aragon for this week’s paper:

“My grandfather wouldn’t let my mother marry him because he was a real swinger,” Aragon’s son, Brad, recalled recently. “So he offered him $100,000 to just leave. And my dad said, ‘I can’t be bought.’ Then my grandfather said, ‘Well, Irene, he’s not Jewish.’ So he converted.”

Aragon, who died last month at his Northridge home after suffering a stroke, was buried at Mt. Sinai Memorial Park, a worthy resting place for someone who shrank his conversion certificate so he could be a “card-carrying Jew.” He was 80 when he was buried on April Fools’ Day.

“Everybody expected, because he was such a joker, him to wink his eye and say, ‘Just kidding,’” Brad Aragon said.

Julian Eget, the EVP of the World Boxing Hall of Fame, which inducted Aragon in 1990, told me that the Golden Boy might not have been an observant Jew, except for enjoying the food, but he was certainly a proud one.

“It was incredible for me,” Eget said. “It just doesn’t happen; most of the time it goes the other way, people changing their names and trying to hide from being Jewish.”

Aragon was so proud of his heritage that Eget believed had made the rare Abrahamic decision to receive an adult circumcision.

“No. That’s not true,” Aragon’s son assured me, offering some details I left out of the story. “My dad had his sh—clipped when he was a kid.”

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May 1, 2008 | 1:17 am

Islam’s ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’—sort of

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Jeffrey Fleishman is pretty much the only remaining reporter at the LA Times whose stories I have to read when I cross his byline. He carried the Column One Tuesday with a piece about an Iranian film that critically casts Jesus as a prophet and Christianity as a sham. (Click here to read about Jesus as a talk radio host.) Fleishman’s article was titled “Jesus through the lens of Islam,” and it delved into far more than just entertainment:

Jesus sat and peeled an orange as his companion, Nader Talebzadeh, began to speak, precisely, so as not to be misunderstood on a matter so sensitive. The Iranian director’s new film is based on the Islamic version of the life of Jesus, depicting the man Christians believe to be the messiah and son of God as a tormented Judean prophet foretelling the coming of Muhammad, the founder of the Muslim faith.

One might imagine such a tale may not screen well in the red states of America. The film, nearly 10 years in the making, draws on the Koran and the putative Gospel of Barnabas, considered by many Western scholars a medieval fable. The premise of “Jesus, the Spirit of God” is that Jesus was compassionate and performed miracles, but was not crucified or resurrected from the dead. The message implies that Christianity, a faith of 2 billion people and the core of much Western philosophy, is based on a falsehood.

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May 1, 2008 | 1:04 am

More from the Rev. Wright files

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

I am completely bored with continuing coverage, seemingly nonstop coverage, of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, which is why until now I didn’t even bother mentioning the story that was on the cover of every major American paper Wednesday. Today’s NYT attempts to pinpoint Barack Obama’s breaking point with is former pastor. Yawn. ...

Read on if you like hearing the same info over and over.

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