October 27, 2008 | 3:38 pm

The Sarah Palin wig

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

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You think Tina Fey looks good doubling as Sarah Palin? Well, now you too can have the beehive-with-bangs look. Seriously? Yep:

The ‘Sarah Palin Wig,’ based on the hairstyle of the Last Frontier State governor and GOP vice presidential candidate, is the latest head covering to go on sale at Sheitel.com, a Brooklyn wig shop and Web site for Orthodox Jewish women who maintain modesty by concealing their natural hair.

“One of our stylists thought it would make a good style, so we produced it,” said Boruch Shlanger, one of Sheitel.com’s owners, in an e-mail to The Shmooze. “It is very easy to maintain, and is a very classic look, yet fashion forward!”

I can’t understand why the Palin wig would be popular with Orthodox women, but if you’re interested, here’s the link.What does such style cost? A mere $695, roughly the equivalent of two or three haircuts in Los Angeles.

October 27, 2008 | 2:32 pm

Vote Finger

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

I watched “Saturday Night LIve” over the weekend. I mean, I actually watched the entire show, not only the sketches mocking Sarah Palin. (I don’t recall any this Saturday, unlike her appearance last weekend.) No, it wasn’t very funny. Except for flashes of brilliance here (”Iran So Far”) and there (”Lazy Sunday”), it hasn’t been good since I was in high school. But the above campaign ad wasn’t bad. Yeah, it was pretty obvious where the joke was going as soon as the spot pointed to Butts, N.Y. Still I got a good laugh.

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October 27, 2008 | 10:57 am

Bill Donahue reads The God Blog

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

I would have been less surprised if PZ Myers had e-mailed me. But there it was Friday: A message from Catholic League President Bill Donahue. He’d come across the post I wrote about Jews controlling Hollywood, and he wanted to clarify my characterization of a comment he made years ago on “Scarborough Country.”

(It’s still a gem. If you’re not familiar, Donahue said, “Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular ... I like families.  I like children.  They like abortions.”)

In his e-mail, Donahue wrote:

Hey, Brad, give me a break. I never objected to Jews having such a prominent role in Hollywood—they made the most respectful movies about Catholics at one time. My complaint is simply that today, and for quite a while now, the secular mindset which permeates Hollywood has become increasingly hostile to Catholicism. Secular Jews, obviously, play a big role in that. Non-Jewish producers, writers, directors, studio personnel, et al. who entertain a secular bent are just as guilty. It’s the mindset, not the ancestry that counts.

Fair enough. I was just glad Donahue didn’t do to me what he did to those two Jews on “South Park’s” Easter special a year ago (after the jump). Oddly, Donahue’s personal e-mail left me feeling a bit guilty for past criticisms I’ve directed at the Catholic League.

In general, I think the Catholic League, much like the Anti-Defamation League at times, draws wider attention to obscure offenses. Though while think it was foolish to get involved in the PZ Myers affair—that was when the rabid atheist professor desecrated a communion wafer—I did like when Donahue told Mike Huckabee to stop selling his Christian creds like a car salesman. And I understand the point he is making about Hollywood’s secular values. It’s an opinion shared by many conservative Christians, not to mention Muslims, Orthodox Jews, Mormons and others.

I don’t agree, but it’s a sincere perspective.

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October 27, 2008 | 5:29 am

Evangelical voters and the presidential election

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Biola mural

The times they are a-changing. Younger religious voters, even evangelicals, harbor more liberal values than their counterparts in years past. They’re also less tied to the Republican presidential nominee.

Just take a look at Biola University—that name began as Bible Institute of LA, and the school’s student “contract” underlines its conservative foundation. The Los Angeles Times explains:

Biola University has long been a Republican citadel, helping its La Mirada precinct deliver 93% of the vote in each of the last two elections to George W. Bush, the president’s best showing in any Los Angeles County polling area that cast more than 20 ballots. But change has come this year to the 95-acre campus on the border of Los Angeles and Orange counties, and not without turmoil.

For the first time in memory, a Biola College Democrats club has formed, marking campus walls with slogans such as “You are the change you hope for” and “If you want peace in the Middle East, you’re a Democrat.” After GOP groups protested that the content was “offensive,” the posters came down. Joint debate-watching parties with the Republicans were nixed after some political invective was aimed at Democrats at an early gathering.

“For some reason, here on campus they think you can’t be a Christian and a Democrat,” said Biola Democrats president Athena Fleming, 24. “We have to act with the utmost diplomacy.”

This year’s presidential race has been generally polarizing. But political friction on the Biola campus reflects a deeper tension as the onetime Bible school feels its way to the modern ideals of pluralism, while striving to preserve its conservative core values.

Biola today is an accredited university offering advanced degrees and preparing 5,900 students from across the nation for a wide array of secular occupations, from business to archaeology. Minority students now make up 39% of the school’s undergraduate student body of 4,800, and President Barry H. Corey has made social justice and diversity centerpieces of his administration. Students from “mono-cultures” of suburban or rural Christian high schools or home-schooling are encouraged to take an “urban plunge” to study inner-city churches and schools.

At the same time, Biola does not admit nonbelievers, and there is no drinking or dancing allowed on campus. Students agree to abide by what they call “the contract,” prohibiting premarital sex and homosexuality. The college also posts a “doctrinal statement” condemning “abortion on demand.”

Pete Menjares, Biola’s associate provost for diversity leadership, acknowledged that navigating the shoals of modern pluralism has been difficult.

“One of the concerns we have is the level of isolation a number of our students have grown up in,” Menjares said. “Diversity is much more complex than racial diversity. It’s gender diversity and idea diversity. It requires change at a deep level.”

Students, both Republican and Democratic, said they embrace the school’s diversity mission. Still, the Democratic Club’s recent debate-watching party in a Biola classroom began as a lonely vigil by Fleming. Of the few students who showed up, several identified themselves as independents or Libertarians.

OK, so maybe the Times jumped the gun on this story. It isn’t quite the changing-of-the-guard that the headline made it out to be. And you can find outliers in any sample pool. But, anecdotally, many more of my Christian friends are voting for Barack Obama than did for Al Gore or John Kerry. There is no uniform transformation occurring in American evangelicalism, but I have certainly seen and read about shifting priorities across the board.

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October 27, 2008 | 12:41 am

Gallup: Obama grabs 74 percent of Jewish vote

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

So last season

Another day, another poll. And this one is full of good news for Barack Obama.

For months he has been struggling with Jewish voters. Polls by Gallup and the American Jewish Committee indicated that he was poised to become the second Democratic presidential nominee since FDR to receive less than 60 percent of the Jewish vote. But as the election enters its final week, Obama’s lead, nationally, despite an apparent outlier last week, and with Jewish voters, continues to grow.

Gallup’s latest poll found that 74 percent of American Jews expect to vote for Obama—on par with the proportion that voted for John Kerry in 2004.

It looks like all the commotion drew a desperate action from a low-level GOP staffer in Pennsylvannia, who sent out an e-mail to 75,000 Jewish voters intimating that a vote for Obama could lead to Holocaust II:

“Jewish Americans cannot afford to make the wrong decision on Tuesday, November 4th, 2008,” the e-mail reads. “Many of our ancestors ignored the warning signs in the 1930s and 1940s and made a tragic mistake. Let’s not make a similar one this year!”

A copy of the e-mail, provided by Democratic officials, says it was Paid for by the Republican Federal Committee of PA - Victory 2008.

It warns “Fellow Jewish Voters of the danger of a second Holocaust due to the threats to Israel from its neighbors” and touts Republican presidential candidate John McCain’s qualifications over those of Obama.

State Republican officials disavowed the e-mail and said the strategist who helped draft it had been fired.

The rest of that report from Ha’aretz can be read here.

Deborah Lipstadt, the American Jewish historian who was sued unsuccessfully by Holocaust-denier David Irving, writes that “some people think that all you have to do is mention the Holocaust and Jews lose their brains”:

We saw the same thing when McCain and Palin both referred to a “second Holocaust” in reference to Iran having nuclear weapons. Believe me, the last thing I want is Iran to have such weapons. And as readers of this blog know, I am no fan of Ahmadinejad.

However all these references to the Holocaust are distasteful and are something that should be opposed. You can express absolute opposition to Ahmadinejad having a bomb without linking it to the Holocaust.

It simplifies what the Holocaust truly was and it makes it sound like all you are doing is fishing for Jewish votes.

Agreed. Language loses its meaning when it’s thrown around like f-bombs in a Matt Taibbi article. And if I recall correctly, hasn’t John McCain’s campaign been accused once before of “exploiting the Holocaust?”

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October 26, 2008 | 8:04 pm

Al Qaeda and McCain: ‘The Endorsement from Hell’

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

I remember hearing last week that we could expect an “October Surprise” from Al Qaeda if for no other reason than to tip the election to John McCain. Why McCain, you ask? The vote of confidence seems counterintuitive. McCain is the hawk who has described Islamic fundamentalism as one of the primary threats of our time.

Because McCain (pictured at the Western Wall with Sen. Joe Lieberman) would prove better for future crops of young men pissed off about American boots on Muslim soil. The surprise came a few days ago. Nicholas Kristof explains:

“Al Qaeda will have to support McCain in the coming election,” read a commentary on a password-protected Islamist Web site that is closely linked to Al Qaeda and often disseminates the group’s propaganda.

The endorsement left the McCain campaign sputtering, and noting helplessly that Hamas appears to prefer Barack Obama. Al Qaeda’s apparent enthusiasm for Mr. McCain is manifestly not reciprocated.

“The transcendent challenge of our time [is] the threat of radical Islamic terrorism,” Senator McCain said in a major foreign policy speech this year, adding, “Any president who does not regard this threat as transcending all others does not deserve to sit in the White House.”

That’s a widespread conservative belief. Mitt Romney compared the threat of militant Islam to that from Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union. Some conservative groups even marked “Islamofascism Awareness Week” earlier this month.

Yet the endorsement of Mr. McCain by a Qaeda-affiliated Web site isn’t a surprise to security specialists. Richard Clarke, the former White House counterterrorism director, and Joseph Nye, the former chairman of the National Intelligence Council, have both suggested that Al Qaeda prefers Mr. McCain and might even try to use terror attacks in the coming days to tip the election to him.

“From their perspective, a continuation of Bush policies is best for recruiting,” said Professor Nye, adding that Mr. McCain is far more likely to continue those policies.

You might not agree with this logic. But Lawrence Wright, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “The Looming Tower,” has previously said Al Qaeda was on the fritz after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks: “Iraq brought it back to life.”

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October 26, 2008 | 4:04 pm

More football

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

I’m watching the Chargers game right now while trolling the Web for blog fodder, and it’s not going well—good offense, no defense. During a commercial break, though, I just saw the above spot featuring San Diego receiver Chris Chambers. I’m left wondering whether there was some creative computer work here. Chambers is pretty sick, but this video makes it look like he has velcro hands.

Reminds me of the LeBron Powerade commercial, except the ball never leaves the screen in Chambers’ ad.

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October 25, 2008 | 2:26 pm

Saturday sports video fun

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Because Tennessee plays Alabama today, and because this interview never gets old.

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October 24, 2008 | 9:51 pm

Obama attacks himself with negative ads

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Shocking (fake) news:

Complaining that John McCain and Sarah Palin are “making it way too easy for for me to win this election,” Barack Obama has decided to go negative – against himself.

One of the new commercials features the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s “God damn America” sermon intercut with footage of Obama smiling and nodding. Another brags about O.J. Simpson’s endorsement of Obama.

That mock news story is from Roy Rivenburg’s Fake L.A. Times.

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October 23, 2008 | 5:48 pm

How to make it as a Jew in Hollywood?

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

I think VideoJew Jay Firestone has outdone himself with this latest installment (above) to his guide to Los Angeles. Part Four focuses on making it in Hollywood, the surrogate Zion. The video includes Michael Bayesque special effects and Jay’s very own laugh track.

His tips include “getting arrested or following in the footsteps of Paris Hilton and Pamela Anderson and create a video everyone wants to see.” Really, Jay, I’m disappointed. How could you not mention with Paris and Pamela the one and only Dustin Diamond? We knew him growing up as Screech, the geek-cum-creep whose resurrected his career—ehem—with his own sex tape. (Sorry, this knowledge is a holdover from the I contributed to at the LA Daily News.

In other Hollywood Jew news, Danielle Berrin has a fascinating cover story this week for The Jewish Journal about writer-director Brett Ratner, a former yeshiva boy gone sort of bad. Ratner’s narcissism and come-ons to a reporter are disgusting, but they make for good color. The most interesting dialogue, though, is between Ratner and “Bugsy” writer James Toback. Both are under the impression that Jews no longer control Hollywood. Here’s a bit:

“Jews used to run Hollywood,” Toback chimes in. “But what we see now is the diminishing of Jews in power.”

Toback proceeds to rattle off the names of media moguls.

“Rupert Murdoch, not a Jew; Bob Iger, not a Jew ....”

(For the record: Iger, head of The Walt Disney Co., is a Jew.)

“Walt Disney hated Jews,” Ratner says.

“Sumner Redstone is a Jew, but he’d probably like not to be, since his real name is Sumner Rothstein, but he is a Jew, so that’s one, but then Kerkorian—well, Kerkorian is out of the business now. There are so few f—-ing places with Jews left. Oh and Sony,” Toback adds.

I mention Amy Pascal, co-chair of Sony Pictures Entertainment.

“I’m talking about the corporate control,” Toback fires. “Amy Pascal is an employee—the people who can fire Amy Pascal.”

“The Jews have lost ownership of the movie business,” Toback claims.

Sony Pictures CEO and co-chairman, Michael Lynton, also is Jewish. Honestly, I’m not sure what Hollywood these two are talking about. Sure Laemmle and Thalberg and Wasserman are long since dead. But there are a lot of Jews still running the show in Tinsel Town. Not that there is anything wrong with that, Bill Donahue.

The rest of Danielle’s article can be read here.

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October 23, 2008 | 4:20 pm

The Yom Kippur sermon I heard at IKAR

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

There was a bit of discussion about just what I heard Rabbi Sharon Brous say during her Yom Kippur sermon at IKAR. Well, thanks to Esther Kustanowitz, I found a complete copy of Brous’ sermon republished at the Huffington Post. Here is an excerpt that relays why I heard Brous say: God is good. People are not. But we can do good, we can fulfill God’s will on Earth.

The discussion in the comments section was over whether I heard Brous correctly and whether my understanding of what she said really was similar to what I have heard in churches my whole life. I’m sure that I was partially predisposed to hearing Brous from an evangelical perspective, but it also turns out she quoted from a Christian minister in this portion of her sermon.

Here goes:

So here’s what I—a person of faith, an Exodus Jew—say to Bill Maher: Guess what? The God you mock is not my God. My God does not tell people to blow up buildings, oppress women, or even build gas pipelines. My God tells us to treat all people with dignity and love. My God does not advocate for the war in Iraq, or any other brutal conflict that separates people from their loved ones and treats human beings like “collateral damage.” No, the God I love demands that we pursue every possible path toward peace. My God does not make children sick, but gives them and their parents comfort and strength as they struggle with illness. Belief in my God does not free human beings to defer responsibility, it demands of us that we take responsibility. As the great Rev. William Sloane Coffin:

“It’s clear to me… that almost every square inch of the Earth’s surface is soaked with the tears and blood of the innocent, [but] it is not God’s doing. It’s our doing. That’s human malpractice. Don’t chalk it up to God. Every time people… lift their eyes to heaven and say, ‘God, how could you let this happen?’ it’s well to remember that exactly at that moment God is asking exactly the same question of us: ‘How could you let this happen?’ So [we] have to take responsibility.”

That most of the terrible heartache in the world is perpetrated by people—and often people who cloak themselves in religion—is a great travesty and a bruise on our shared humanity. But that is no reason not to believe. It is, rather, a reason to challenge, to reinvent. To search deeply within our traditions for the ikar, the sacred essence that is truly at the heart of our faith that compels us to engage one another not with condescension and brutality, but with respect and compassion.

My God is an Exodus God, devastated by the prevalence of hopelessness and despair, because this God is responsible for planting the message of the possibility of redemption into the human psyche. My God calls upon human beings to witness the pain of the afflicted, to agonize over the plight of the poor, to fight for the dignity of all human beings. My God insists that we give a damn—that we wake up to the suffering of the widow, the orphan and the stranger, that we recognize that the bond of human connectedness extends beyond our own dalet amot—our own immediate family and circle of friends. My God demands that we recognize that the religious life is fundamentally incompatible with apathy and complacency, just as it is with cruelty and brutality.

Thoughts?

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October 23, 2008 | 4:45 am

Getting down with G-DCAST

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Sarah Lefton’s long-in-the-works project to create a site with cartoons based on weekly Torah portions is up and running. It’s called G-DCAST, and the inaugural installment is above.

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