May 25, 2008 | 6:31 pm

‘God, grant me peace’: the dark nights of a minor leaguer

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

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Odom

There must be many of long, prayerful nights when you are bumping around the Minor Leagues and, in addition to making something like minimum wage, have to deal with trials like this one dealt John Odom:

Odom is headed to the Laredo Broncos of the United League. They got him Tuesday from the Calgary Vipers of the Golden Baseball League for a most unlikely price: 10 Prairie Sticks Maple Bats, double-dipped black, 34-inch, C243 style.

“They just wanted some bats, good bats—maple bats,” Broncos general manager Jose Melendez said.

According to the Prairie Sticks Web site, their maple bats retail for $69 each, discounted to $65.50 for purchases of six to 11 bats.

May 25, 2008 | 1:04 am

Speaking with Hagee’s right hand about God’s plan for Hitler

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

You probably heard last week that John McCain wants nothing to do with the Rev. John Hagee, the indomitable supporter of Israel who really wants the Jews to get home so Christ will return. The impetus was recent revelations of this sermon, in which Hagee explains that Hitler and his band of evil murderers were God’s chosen “hunters,” divine agents whose atrocities were sanctioned for the greater good of driving European Jews to Palestine.

Well, I haven’t heard much from Hagee, but Shmuel Rosner of Haaretz traded e-mails with his No. 2, David Brog, which was published as a five-question interview. The most interesting bit ledes it:

1. The first question is an obvious one. Can you explain this quote in a way that will resonate with the readers:

“Then God sent a hunter. A hunter is someone with a gun and he forces you. Hitler was a hunter. And the Bible says - Jeremiah writing ? ‘They shall hunt them from every mountain and from every hill and from the holes of the rocks,’ meaning there’s no place to hide. And that might be offensive to some people but don’t let your heart be offended. I didn’t write it, Jeremiah wrote it. It was the truth and it is the truth. How did it happen? Because God allowed it to happen. Why did it happen? Because God said my top priority for the Jewish people is to get them to come back to the land of Israel.”

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May 24, 2008 | 4:33 am

Finkelstein picked up at Ben Gurion and banned from Israel

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Yesterday, I got a chuckle when I learned that Israel had denied entry to Norman Finkelstein, the son of Holocaust survivors who has made a living criticizing Israel and, recently, has been a cheerleader for terrorist organizations like Hezbollah. Good for Israel, I thought. I wouldn’t let him in my house either.

I’ve written about Finkelstein a few times recently—when he spoke at Cal State Northridge and drew the hisses of the Jewish Defense League and two weeks ago when, speaking at UC Irvine, he accused Jeffrey Goldberg of torturing Palestinians—but I didn’t feel this news was worth slowly spinning the cogs upstairs, so I let it sit. And I was rewarded. I just got back to my computer after an evening out, and I had a chain of e-mails back and forth from liberal Jews that began when Richard Silverstein published this post:

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May 23, 2008 | 11:16 am

Jewish Press: Obama’s ‘not some ogre’

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

There has been an obnoxious number of stories lately about Obama’s Jewish problem.

I found Jodi Kantor’s much-discussed NYT piece yesterday to be heavy on anecdotes and light on evidence. Last week, Jeffrey Goldberg published his interview with Obama, in which they discussed Israel, Hamas and the “kishke question,” a conversation that has had more traction than any in recent memory and to which the New York Times followed with this piece on Obama’s Jewish campaign.

Thomas Friedman added to the din this Sunday with “Obama and the Jews,” a good column about the whisper campaign against the Illinois senator, but, frankly, I’m a bit tuckered out:

I don’t want a president who is just going to lean on Israel and not get in the Arabs’ face too, or one who, as the former Mideast negotiator Aaron D. Miller puts it, “loves Israel to death” — by not drawing red lines when Israel does reckless things that are also not in America’s interest, like building settlements all over the West Bank.

It’s a tricky business. But if Israel is your voting priority, then at least ask the right questions about Mr. Obama. Knock off the churlish whispering campaign about what’s in his heart on Israel (what was in Richard Nixon’s heart?) and focus first on what kind of America you think he’d build and second on whether you believe that as president he’d have the smarts, steel and cunning to seize a historic opportunity if it arises.

I’ve argued before that the claim that American Jews need to choose between Obama and Israel is false. The right-wing Jewish Press agreed, and quoting from Goldberg’s interview ran this editorial:

Sen. Obama is very forthcoming about his commitment to the survival of Israel. This is not some ogre with a hidden anti-Semitic agenda. The devil, however, is in the details.

That’s where, of course, they question just what his commitment would look like. And I’d say that’s a fair exercise to do with any presidential candidate on any issues you as a voter care about. (Again, this is why I don’t vote for politicians based on their purported religious beliefs.)

(Hat tip: Bintel Blog)

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May 23, 2008 | 1:24 am

Protesting gay marriage

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Look beyond the kissing dudes to the folks protesting the ruling of California’s Supreme Court regarding same-sex marriage. The message reminds me of another guy nobody takes seriously.

By the way, it was nice to see Mollie at GetReligion shares my frustration with the poorly reported, knee-jerk news features about how Christians were struggling with and celebrating the court’s decision.

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May 22, 2008 | 10:27 pm

Ziman and Lee: the reconciliation continues

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

In a saga going on seven weeks, the Rev. Eric Lee has been accused by Daphna Ziman of parroting “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion;” apologized for “any misunderstandings;” acted like a contrite man; celebrated Pesach at Wilshire Boulevard Temple; been blasted by MLK’s former attorney; broken bread and held hands to heal the wounds; and as of today, co-written an op-ed with Ziman about how their ordeal was a microcosm of “a national racial storm.”

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May 22, 2008 | 10:11 pm

The God Blog gets a new look

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

For the past year, I’ve appreciated Blogger’s free hosting, but, then again, you get what you don’t pay for, and there have been a lot of bugs. So starting tomorrow, The God Blog should have a totally new look (and content management system).

The switch coincides with the launch of The Jewish Journal’s new Website. You may already be reading this post on the new site, which has the same address as the old blog. The blog archives also are now fully searchable through the Journal’s home page.

But there likely will be some problems with the launch, and I may have trouble posting during the next two days. My advance apologies.

Also, you will notice that, as of right now, comments are missing from posts less than a month old. This is because the designers of our new site made the error of migrating over all the blogs too close to our original launch date. I spent much of today moving over the 100 or so posts I’d written since then and over the next week will have to add the comments by hand. For once I’m glad comments here aren’t too numerous.

(Hopefully I can finally complete my registration on Technorati. Technorati Profile)

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May 22, 2008 | 10:02 pm

McCain rejects Rod Parsley’s support too

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Well, John McCain didn’t wait long to answer my question about what he would do with Rod Parsley.

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May 22, 2008 | 6:10 pm

McCain kicks Hagee to curb for Hitler remarks

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

It seems John McCain has tired of John Hagee, and rightfully so after it was reported that the leader of Christians United for Israel considered Hitler a divine agent, called by God to return the Jews to the biblical Land of Israel. Those six million butchered in the Holocaust? Collateral damage, I guess. Via CNN:

“Obviously, I find these remarks and others deeply offensive and indefensible, and I repudiate them. I did not know of them before Reverend Hagee’s endorsement, and I feel I must reject his endorsement as well,” McCain said in a statement to CNN Thursday.

He added that his relationship with Hagee did not compare with Obama’s lengthy association with Rev. Jeremiah Wright. “I have said I do not believe Senator Obama shares Reverend Wright’s extreme views. But let me also be clear, Reverend Hagee was not and is not my pastor or spiritual advisor, and I did not attend his church for twenty years. I have denounced statements he made immediately upon learning of them, as I do again today,” said McCain.

Now, what to do with Rod Parsley?

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May 22, 2008 | 1:48 pm

Court sides with polygamist families

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Breaking news in the Texas polygamy raid from the NYT:

A Texas state court of appeals ruled Thursday afternoon that the state of Texas had no right to seize more than 400 children from a polygamist ranch in Eldorado, in the western part of the state.

The ruling asserted that the state’s child protection agency not only acted hastily in removing the children from the Yearning for Zion Ranch in April but also failed to show that they were in immediate danger. According to the court, the state did not establish proper grounds to remove the children from their families, who belong to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or F.L.D.S. The F.L.D.S. broke off from the mainstream Mormon church after it had disavowed polygamy in 1890.

At news conference in San Angelo, the closest city to Eldorado, a lawyer for the sect said it was unclear when the families would be reunited, and that the team was reviewing the next legal steps in the process.

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May 22, 2008 | 11:46 am

Getting furry for the Omer

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Jay Firestone has given us a matzo taste test, shown the post-party perils of Purim and hit the streets to talk politics in Pico-Robertson, but this is by far his best video dispatch so far.

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May 22, 2008 | 12:24 am

ADL adds to literature on Kevin MacDonald

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

That image, which appears to have been

“borrowed” from The Journal

bought from the my photog, is now at the top of the Anti-Defamation League’s homepage. (I wanted to put a screen grab up but, as usual, Blogger had other ideas.) Accompanying the image is a long-awaited report, published today, by the ADL that is short, uncontroversial and includes no new information that I could find.

“Kevin MacDonald is someone who is hailed among the bigots not just for his beliefs about Jews, but because of his ability to lend to his anti-Semitism a scholarly veneer,” said Dr. Kevin O’Grady, ADL Orange County Regional Director.  “Because he is a tenured professor who couches his views as a form of academic inquiry, he defies the mold of more traditional anti-Semites like jackbooted neo-Nazis or robe-wearing Klansmen.”

MacDonald is a celebrated figure in the world of white supremacy because his views about Jews—many of which promote classical anti-Semitic conspiracy theories—are given added legitimacy by his ability to present them in a scholarly guise, according to ADL.  The League has added MacDonald to its definitive online guide to extremist groups and individuals in the United States, Extremism in America.

ADL says that MacDonald has evolved from a writer of books to a blogger and prolific contributor to anti-Semitic publications both in print and online.

A lot more info about MacDonald, whom I profiled for The Jewish Journal two weeks ago, can be found in a much more lengthy bio page the ADL created, which includes an overview of the man, his ideology and affiliations and his own words:

“[H]atred toward all things European is normative among a great many strongly identified Jews.”  

“Can the Jewish Model Help the West Survive?”

Jack London Literary Prize acceptance speech, October 31, 2004

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