March 31, 2009 | 8:28 pm

Mother pleads guilty to starving son; insists on ‘resurrection clause’

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

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Terrifying and tragic:

A Maryland woman involved with a group described as a religious cult pleaded guilty in the starvation death of her son, but insisted that the charges be dropped when he is resurrected.

The mother

The condition was made a part of Ria Ramkissoon’s plea agreement, officials said. She entered the plea Monday in Baltimore, Maryland, to a first-degree felony count of child abuse resulting in death, her attorney, Steven Silverman, said Tuesday.

Ramkissoon, a member of a group called One Mind Ministries, believes Javon Thompson, her year-old son, will rise again, and as part of her plea agreement, authorities agreed to the clause.

“She certainly recognizes that her omissions caused the death of her son,” Silverman said. “To this day, she believes it was God’s will and he will be resurrected and this will all take care of itself. She realizes if she’s wrong, then everyone has to take responsibility ... and if she’s wrong, then she’s a failure as a mother and the worst thing imaginable has happened. I don’t think that, mentally, she’s ready to accept that.”

Under the plea agreement, Ramkissoon, 22, must testify against four other One Mind Ministries members who are also facing charges, including first-degree murder, in Javon’s death. At her sentencing, set for August, she will receive a 20-year sentence, which will be suspended except for the time she has already served behind bars, Silverman said. She must also undergo deprogramming and psychiatric counseling.

In court Monday, it was clarified that the “resurrection clause” would apply only in the case of Javon’s actual resurrection—not a perceived reincarnation, Silverman said.

March 31, 2009 | 7:21 pm

Jesus on tour

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

I spotted the Jesusmobile in Redondo Beach today. Much cooler than the Mystery Machine.

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March 31, 2009 | 4:55 pm

Red River’s embattled neighbors find hope in faith

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

From the 1997 flood

Fighting floods with faith. From the frontlines in Moorhead, Minn.:

Trinity Lutheran Pastor Steve Wold was ministering in Grand Forks, N.D., during the 1997 flood, when hundreds of homes were inundated and a fire ripped through downtown buildings. Wold returned to a church where water lapped onto pews and ornate wood carvings broke apart.

At a wedding soon after, a flower girl got locked in a portable toilet and stained her white dress with muck. For a wedding party initially reluctant to use the damaged church, he said, finding the girl put things in perspective.

“Suddenly, the sanctuary was filled with the joy of Jesus,” Wold told Trinity congregants, who held hands and swallowed hard.

Walker’s Rivershore Drive ranch house has a walk-out basement and a swath of green that deer and wild turkeys frequent. A 38-foot-tall earthen dike had protected it—until the Red River swelled to historic levels. Even with thousands of sandbags, she said, “the leaks were too much for the pumps we had.”

She fled her home last week, with water gurgling below her living room windows and her piano propped up on paint cans. The home probably could not be salvaged, she said.

Walker, 57, a medical technologist, has found herself praying in snippets.

“But you feel people’s strength, and that’s God,” she said, interrupted by parishioners offering hugs and help.

A friend of mine e-mailed Sunday to say “contrary to all the major networks reporting, Fargo-Moorhead is not under water.  2 dikes have leaked and damaged an elementary school and some homes in south Moorhead, but overall things are holding so far…praise God for that!”

Today he told me that though his house is off the river, the forecast of coming snowstorms could mean weeks before they are fully out of danger.

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March 31, 2009 | 3:08 pm

Spinka rabbi gets 24 months in prison

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

The Spinka tax fraud case, which skimmed money off donations for the ultra-Orthodox sect’s charities and schools, was uncovered in December 2007. Yesterday, the operation’s No. 2, Rabbi Moshe Zigelman, was sentenced in Los Angeles district court to two years prison time:

Speaking through an interpreter, Zigelman reiterated his admission of guilt and his desire for leniency prior to sentencing by drawing a parallel to Kol Nidre and teshuvah (atonement). “I understand I have sinned against the American government. Therefore, I accept and acknowledge my behavior. I have to make amends for what I did,” he said.

Zigelman is the assistant to the Brooklyn-based Chasidic sect’s Rabbi Naftali Tzi Weisz; the pair were arrested Dec. 19, 2007, in Los Angeles on charges that they solicited millions of dollars in contributions for five Spinka charities with the understanding that the organizations would issue a receipt for the full amount and then secretly refund between 80 percent to 95 percent of the original contribution back to the donor.

According to the federal indictment, the scam started in 1996 and continued until 2007, laundering money back to donors through a network of Los Angeles businesses, including some in and around the downtown jewelry district, as well as through Tel Aviv-based United Mizrahi Bank and its Los Angeles branch.

Zigelman, whom many described in letters to the court as an experienced fundraiser focused on charitable giving, helped solicit more than $8 million in 2006, of which $750,000 was kept by Spinka charities.

You can read the rest of the article here.

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March 31, 2009 | 9:44 am

ShamWow pitchman and alleged hooker beater, born in Israel, former Scientologist

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Who knew the ShamWow guy, seen after the jump saying “you’re gonna love my nuts,” was born in Israel? Not that surprising when learn that his name is not Vince the Pitchman but Vince Offer Shlomi.

Vince Offer was arrested last week for allegedly beating a prostitute to a pulp. Gawker did some digging and found that Offer also used to be a member of the Church of Scientology but got booted for making “The Underground Comedy Movie,” which, with an IMDB rating of 2.3 stars, has to be among of the worst movies ever.

Here’s what Gawker found:

But according to accounts of Offer’s 2004 complaint against Scientology, church bigwigs took a dim view of the project and allegedly launched a campaign to kick Offer out of the cult and discredit him. He was brought up on charges by a Scientology court—which apparently included a 14-year-old as one of its judges—and declared a criminal (the nature of the specific charges isn’t clear—a press release announcing the suit says the allegations were never actually presented to Offer; Gawker is working on obtaining a copy of the complaint). From the press release:

[T]he Scientology sub-organization that recruits and caters to celebrities “Celebrity Center International,” located in Hollywood and whose motto is “To Create a Safe Space for Artists,” according to Offer recruited dozens of his Scientology friends, associates and actors that worked on Underground Comedy, to write false and malicious reports against him. If individuals refused to write these reports, they were threatened with condemnation and punishment that could be lethal to their careers.

After being convicted, Offer became a persona-non-grata in the church. His business, which depended on Scientology connections, dried up, and he lost financing to complete the movie.

Less than two years later, in 1999, the church reversed itself on appeal and cleared Offer of any wrongdoing.

Offer sued the church in 2004 in “a quest to expose the human cruelty and destructive practices committed, still to this day, by the Church of Scientology’s leadership helmed by David Miscavage.” The suit was dismissed. Offer’s celebrity/notoriety, on the other hand, hasn’t skipped a beat.

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March 30, 2009 | 8:54 pm

A Haggadah for Christians

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

What makes this Haggadah different from all other Haggadot? Jesus. And The Forward reports that a Jewish anti-missionary group isn’t happy about it.

The group, Outreach Judaism, convinced Barnes and Noble to reclassify “Passover Family Pack: Everything You Need to Enjoy a Passover Seder Dinner,” which states on its cover that it is the “Messianic Passover Haggadah,” as Christian. (A little background on Messianics here and here.) Here’s more:

If you judge a book by its cover, “Passover Family Pack: Everything You Need To Enjoy a Passover Seder Dinner” looks like a traditional holiday starter kit. A festive drawing adorns the front of the package, which includes a Seder plate, a Kiddush cup, two copies of the Haggadah and a cassette tape of music, all for $39.99.

But a few pages into the Haggadah, it becomes clear to observant Jews that something is fishy - and it’s not the gefilte. The guide recasts the story of Passover as a mere setup for the arrival of “Yeshua the Messiah”: The text says the wine represents the blood of Jesus; the matzo represents his body; the three matzot represent the Christian Holy Trinity, and so on.

“They’re taking the traditions of the Jewish faith and using them as a blunt instrument to convert Jewish people to the Christian faith,” said Rabbi Tovia Singer, director of the anti-missionary group Outreach Judaism and host of a radio talk show in Jerusalem.

“It’s a paradigm of this entire nefarious movement. They use subterfuge to lure Jews who would normally resist a more straightforward evangelical message.”

The publisher of “Passover Family Pack” says he’s not trying to trick Jews into worshipping Jesus.

“Of course not, that would be a terrible thing,” said Barry Rubin, author of the Haggadah contained in the Passover kit and president and CEO of Messianic Jewish Communications, a division of distributor Messianic Jewish Resources International. He notes that the cover of the kit identifies the Haggadah as messianic - which it does, in small letters below a larger Hebrew title.

“It looks like a regular Seder kit because it is…. There’s nothing deceptive at all about it,” said Rubin, who is the rabbi of Emmanuel Messianic Jewish Congregation in Maryland. He says he doesn’t believe that the Passover kit should be classified as Christian, as he considers himself a Jew. He thinks a good compromise would be for booksellers to establish a “Messianic Jewish” section.

In the absence of such a category, booksellers must choose whether to put such material in the Jewish section or in the Christian section.

Messianic Jews, who are really Christians, have been growing in numbers in recent years. While their practices can at times be deceptive, this doesn’t seem like one of those cases. What do you think?

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March 30, 2009 | 6:35 pm

About 100,000 Britons move to de-baptize

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Last summer, American atheists had a coming-out party in Westerville, Ohio—coincidentally the home of the Religion Newswriters Association. The event included the de-baptism of those wanted to publicly renounce the faith of their childhood. And it looks like the practice is becoming a trend. More of the same from the land of Richard Dawkins:

More than 100,000 Britons have recently downloaded “certificates of de-baptism” from the Internet to renounce their Christian faith.

The initiative launched by a group called the National Secular Society (NSS) follows atheist campaigns here and elsewhere, including a London bus poster which triggered protests by proclaiming “There’s probably no God.”

“We now produce a certificate on parchment and we have sold 1,500 units at three pounds (4.35 dollars, 3.20 euros) a pop,” said NSS president Terry Sanderson, 58.

John Hunt, a 58-year-old from London and one of the first to try to be “de-baptised,” held that he was too young to make any decision when he was christened at five months old.

The male nurse said he approached the Church of England to ask it to remove his name. “They said they had sought legal advice and that I should place an announcement in the London Gazette,” said Hunt, referring to one of the official journals of record of the British government.

So that’s what he did—his notice of renouncement was published in the Gazette in May 2008 and other Britons have followed suit.

Michael Evans, 66, branded baptising children as “a form of child abuse”—and said that when he complained to the church where he was christened he was told to contact the European Court of Human Rights.

The Church of England said its official position was not to amend its records. “Renouncing baptism is a matter between the individual and God,” a Church spokesman told AFP.

Child abuse ... give me a break. I understand the concept behind a de-baptism. In the same way that baptism for Christians is a public declaration that their life will now, in theory, be fully committed to God, de-baptisms state just the opposite. But claiming that it’s abuse to baptize a child, which is a common Christian practice though not one that I support, is ridiculous and it trivializes the trauma of true abuse.

You can read the rest of the AFP article here. Thanks for the link, Dennis.

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March 30, 2009 | 4:50 pm

LeBron James, king of basketball, student of Talmud

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

I’m not sure if LeBron James, like Dwight Howard, is a godly man, though it sure would explain his physical freakishness. Regardless, LeBron, who actually makes the NBA worth watching, is a man concerned with at least some godly pursuits.

When asked to nominate someone for the Time 100, King James selected Jay Schottenstein, the Ohio businessman and philanthropist who “supported the translation and elucidation of the Talmud Bavli into English, Hebrew and French. The Schottenstein Edition of the Talmud is now utilized by more than 2 million people worldwide.”

The news got Heeb’s Jewdar a bit hopeful:

Dare we dream that LeBron may be planning to join the Tribe? We hope so, as it’s been a looooong time since the NBA has had a black Jewish superstar—we don’t care what anyone else says—as far as we’re concerned, a guy named both Julius and Erving, who’s a doctor to boot simply has to be a Yid.

Dr. J wasn’t. Neither was Moses Malone. But back when the game was about set-shots, running hooks and understated lay-ups, basketball, like Hollywood and Wall Street, was a game dominated by Jews.

(Creator’s note: Please read that last sentence with tongue firmly placed in cheek.)

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March 30, 2009 | 3:33 pm

Kosher tequila in time for Cinco de Mayo

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Tila Tequila, not kosher. Agave 99 is.

Passover is right around the corner, which means Jews around the world are busy kashuring their kitchens. (My colleague, Julie Gruenbaum Fax, has quite the first-person story about the dangers of this pre-Pesach practice.) But what about Cinco de Mayo? Are Jews getting ready to observe this goyische, except for Mexican Jews, holiday in religiously observant style?

Si, senor:

Martin Silver says Agave 99 will be on the market in time for the holiday that celebrates Mexico’s defeat of French forces on May 5, 1862.

Silver, president of Long Island-based Star Industries, says he wants to satisfy the craze for high-end tequila with one that observant Jews can drink.

Silver says a half-million cases of the 99-proof kosher tequila are being produced at a Mexican plant using methods certified by a rabbi. It will retail for $41.95 a bottle.

The product launch — with Mexican songs sung in both Yiddish and Spanish — is set for May 5, but it will also be sold earlier for Passover, which starts at sundown April 8 this year.

Who says Jews don’t drink?

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March 30, 2009 | 2:20 pm

Save Elie (Wiesel and his foundation)

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Remember how Wiesel and his foundation lost millions to Bernard Madoff? Well, an e-mail campaign has helped recoup, to this point, a small fraction. From JTA:

In recent months, small and large donations, totaling $400,000, have flowed into The Wiesel Foundation for Humanity. Some of the money was given directly to Wiesel and his wife Marion, but the couple turned everything over to the foundation.

“At any moment it would have been an amazing outpouring of generosity,” Marion Wiesel told Portfolio.com, “but specifically in these times it’s so amazing, and it continues.”

Among the donors are two alumni of Boston University, where Wiesel has taught for over 30 years, who launched an e-mail campaign to encourage one million people to each donate $6, in remembrance of the six million Holocaust victims.

Donations to the Wiesel Foundation, which supports after-school centers in Israel, international conferences and various humanitarian awards and prizes, have ranged from $5 to $100,000.

Many small contributions came from “people we don’t know, in places we’ve never been to,” Marion Wiesel said.

While Wiesel personally lost about $7 million, his Foundation for Humanity lost more than twice as much, or “substantially all” of its endowment.

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March 30, 2009 | 1:49 pm

Catholic bishop rewrites Holocaust, says Jews control world

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Bishop Grings

Forget Bishop Richard Williamson. Now Pope Benedict XVI and the Catholic Church have Bishop Dadeus Grings to worry about. On Friday, Grings, the archbishop of Porto Alegre, said “more Catholics than Jews have died in the Holocaust, but this is not usually told because Jews own the world’s propaganda.”

According to JTA, this opinion appeared in the Brazilian trade magazine Press & Advertising. Grings added:

“How many millions of Catholics were victims of the Holocaust? Twenty-two million? The Jews say they were the major victims but the major victims were the Gypsies, who were exterminated. And they don’t mention this.”

This was no first-time offense for Grings. I found this article from 2003.

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March 29, 2009 | 10:46 pm

Calling Christians ‘the Jews of our time’

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

In an interview with World magazine, which is like Time for evangelical Christians, Michael J. Horowitz, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and a Jew who has worked closely with evangelicals, says:

I started looking at [human rights] and I made an eerie discovery: In so many ways, Christians had become the Jews of our time—the scapegoats of choice for the thug regimes around the world. One hundred years ago, if you wanted to know whether there were human rights in a country you didn’t need a fancy human-rights survey, you’d go in the local synagogue and if the Jews were persecuted you knew that there was some dictatorship persecuting everyone else. Now, going into remnant communist countries or Muslim countries, you don’t need a fancy survey. Go to an Evangelical church, go to a house church, and if they are scared and if they’re getting arrested and persecuted you know no one else is free.

Horowitz’s interviewer was Marvin Olasky, World’s editor in chief and a Christian convert from Judaism.

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