April 9, 2009 | 1:17 pm

A Jew for California governor

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

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I wouldn’t count on it. But Georges Marciano, an Algerian-born Jew and one of the founders, with his brothers, of the Guess? clothing company, announced yesterday that he’s going to run for California governor on the independent ticket.

From the Sacramento Bee’s Capitol Alert blog:

“Let’s dream again, let’s not give up hope instead we together can create jobs for the citizens of California instead of simply creating and imposing higher taxes for the average citizen and not the wealthy,” Georges Marciano said in a prepared statement. “All of which are wasted dollars put in the greedy hands of a wasteful government.”

His campaign spokesman, Rod Harrell, said that Marciano has been forced to deal with multiple government agencies in recent years and it has “come to light all the corruption in government and (the lack of) anyone actually caring about regular people.”

Asked how Marciano might finance his run, Harrell said: “He is Georges Marciano. So he obviously has some money.”

Indeed, in 2007 Marciano bought an 84.37 carat diamond at an auction for just under $16.2 million.

Marciano is not opting to run as part of a political party, Harrell said, because he “doesn’t want any ties to anybody in the old political machine.”

(Hat tip: LAObserved)

April 8, 2009 | 5:27 pm

Arkansas church to hold Easter service in bar

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Oh heavens no. An Arkansas church plans to hold Easter service Sunday in a Little Rock bar known as The Rev Room. Here’s the story from the AP:

A new Little Rock church called The River will hold both of its Easter services at The Rev Room, a bar and nightclub in the city’s River Market.

Pastor Shane Montgomery told KLRT-TV that it’s an effort to attract a new audience to his nondenominational ministry.

However, bar employees say it’s not yet clear if their liquor license will allow them to serve beer and booze during a Sunday morning service.

Ya know, this really isn’t news, or at least not a first. Examples are endless. I immediately think of Erwin McManus’ Mosaic church, which for years met in a downtown Los Angeles nightclub. As Ted Olsen of Christianity Today quipped:

“What will they think of next? Churches in movie theaters? Cord-less telephones?”

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April 8, 2009 | 3:39 pm

Is Barack Obama Jewish?

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Photo: AFP

Of course not. Though last year, Daniel Koffler gave then-Sen. Barack Obama “honorary wandering Jew” status.

But tomorrow night, Obama will make good on all those Jewish votes he received and will join millions of Jews across the country asking “why is this night different from all other nights.” In doing so, Obama will become what is believed to be the first American president to attend a White House Seder.

More from JPost:

The event was slipped onto the president’s public schedule Tuesday night with little fanfare, following a letter signed by Obama earlier in the day wishing Americans who mark the day a “peaceful and relaxing holiday.”

While presidential proclamations in honor of Passover have been common throughout the administrations of George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, this year’s Seder is believed to be the first of its kind.

“I’m really happy to hear about it,” said Steve Rabinowitz, who once led a staff Seder in the Clinton White House but didn’t know of any White House Seder in which the president had personally taken part before now. “It’s been an extremely open White House to all faith communities, certainly including ours.”

William Daroff, who runs the United Jewish Communities’ Washington office, recalled that former president Franklin D. Roosevelt snuck out the back door of the White House in 1943 to avoid seeing rabbis marching out front to demand US action to save European Jews from the Nazis.

“Sixty-six years later the President of the United States is spending Thursday evening with his friends and family celebrating the liberation and survival of the Jewish people,” Daroff noted, calling the event “a testament to how far we have come as a Jewish people in America.

“Jews are a vital component in the mosaic that is American culture and society. Our welcome through the front door, and the dining room door, of the White House speaks to the inclusiveness of today’s America and of President Obama,” he said. “This night is indeed different from all other nights.”

I wonder what parallels Obama will see the Passover celebration between the stories of the Israelites and African Americans. Last spring, in light of some tension between blacks and Jews in Los Angeles, I attended a joint Seder and came back with this:

“African Americans have always looked at the history of Israel as symbolic to our history,” said [SCLC local leader the Rev. Eric] Lee, who said he has celebrated Passover for years. “God doesn’t change. He has always been the God of the oppressed, who delivers from the oppressor.”

“Can you actually imagine,” Lee continued, “if we lived out the principles of the seder?”

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April 8, 2009 | 2:33 pm

Israeli gets naked to protest the sale of leavened bread

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

The news report can be read at IsraelNationalNews.com, but Howard M. Friedman of the Religion Clause blog does a better job explaining the legal context that motivated an ultra-Orthodox yeshiva student to strip naked in a grocery store:

Passover begins tonight, and in Israel the dispute continues over how to interpret its Festival of Matzot (Prohibition of Leaven) Law, 5746-1986, (also known as the “Hametz Law”). Last year, a court held that its ban on the public display any leavened product for sale or consumption during Passover did not prevent the sale in a closed place of business of leavened products. (See prior posting.)

The Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) community is still distressed over the ruling. This week, according to Arutz Sheva, to protest the interpretation, yeshiva student Aryeh Yerushalmi entered a Tel Aviv grocery store, went to the bread section, and stripped naked (except for a sock over his private parts). He says Israeli law bans performing an indecent act in a public place, but if a grocery store is not “public” for purposes of the Hametz Law, its should not be for the indecent exposure law either.

When police arrived at the scene, the student put his clothes back on. A Tel Aviv district court judge put Yerushalmi under house arrest for a week.

Chag Sameach.

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April 7, 2009 | 4:36 pm

Cop killer believed Jews control the world

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Richard Poplowski

It’s easy to call cop-killer Richard Poplowski an extremist. Just how much of a nut was Poplowski, who on Saturday killed three in Pittsburgh? Salon has some answers. It wasn’t too hard to find them: Poplowski disseminated his racism and hatred online. Shocker: It turns out he wasn’t too found of Jews.

JTA has this:

Poplowski wrote that the “the federal government, mainstream media, and banking system in these United States are strongly under the influence of—if not completely controlled by—Zionist interest. An economic collapse of the financial system is inevitable, bringing with it some degree of civil unrest if not outright balkanization of the continental US, civil/revolutionary/racial war . . . This collapse is likely engineered by the elite Jewish powers that be in order to make for a power and asset grab.”

Poplawski, according to the ADL report, hoped that the “evil Zionists” and “greedy traitorous goyim” might have lost control and created “an unstoppable tidal wave of global backlash” that would “breathe much needed life into our movement.”  However, he feared that instead there might be a “slow, drawn out national demise” that would “allow the masses to remain asleep while the power at the top is consolidated.”

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April 7, 2009 | 4:13 pm

Obama says U.S. ‘Not a Christian Nation or a Jewish Nation or a Muslim Nation’

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Remember when then-presidential candidate John McCain said the U.S. was a Christian nation? Well, yesterday his old sparring mate, President Obama, said just the opposite at a press conference in Turkey:

“One of the great strengths of the United States,” the President said, “is ... we have a very large Christian population—we do not consider ourselves a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation. We consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values.”

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April 6, 2009 | 6:55 pm

Obama’s rabbi gets top honors from Newsweek

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Newsweek is back with its third-annual list of America’s top rabbi—and it’s with a new frontrunner: Rabbi David Saperstein of the Reform movement’s Religious Action Center. Here’s an excerpt from Jewish Journal’s story:

What mainly propelled Saperstein into the lead is his role as Washington insider, political powerbroker and friend of President Obama, said Jay Sanderson, CEO of JTN Productions and one of the three men who determine the rankings.

The complete list of 50 most influential rabbis can be found here.

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April 6, 2009 | 4:23 pm

Variety’s Peter Bart—Jewish, whether he likes it or not

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Longtime Variety editor-in-chief Peter Bart, once the most-feared man in Hollywood, was pushed “up and out” yesterday. What’s interesting about Bart, and what I sent Hollywood Jew blogger Danielle Berrin, is just how uncomfortable he is as a Jew.

Revealing details of that discomfort—self loathing?—come from an exhaustive 2001 profile Amy Wallace wrote for Los Angeles magazine. Here’s the PDF and here’s the Jewcy part:

Here are a few things Bart wouldn’t tell me: Both his parents were born in Austria. His mother, whose maiden name was Clara Ginsberg, arrived at Ellis Island in 1914. Her passenger record includes this notation: “Ethnicity: Austria (Hebrew).” There is no record of a Max S. Bart entering the United States through Ellis Island. Bart’s father may have traveled under another name. But there is a listing for a Moses Bart, which was the name of Bart’s paternal grandfather. Moses came to America in 1913, when he was 57 years old. His ethnicity: “Austria, Hebrew.”

Bart has kept even his closest friends confused about his past. “He was brought up a Quaker, wasn’t he?” asks Evans. It’s an honest mistake. You can’t spend more than an hour with Bart without hearing about his attending Friends Seminary and Swarthmore College—both Quaker institutions.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Bart says of his religious heritage, as one of his knees begins bouncing up and down. “I resent people’s militancy on these issues. Everyone wants to peg everyone else because everyone is predictable. And I’m not.”

Over several months he will volunteer that he has never once dated a Jewish girl, never attended a seder, and has been inside a synagogue only once, for the bar mitzvah of then-agent Michael Ovitz’s son. (“I wanted to see what one was like.”) “Listen, I got berated by the vice president in charge of business affairs at Paramount,” he says, “because I did not take off Jewish holidays. And I was affronted. I basically told him to mind his own damned business.”

At one point he tries to explain his discomfort by comparing himself to his longtime assistant, a light-skinned black woman: “She struggles with this, too. She feels she’s a black person. But she’s about as black as Felix [Bart’s Siamese cat]. I feel she is a bit victimized by, again, that need to identify with some subculture that will help you.

“You talk to a lot of the better-educated, wealthy black people. You know, they’re not very black. The big distinction is between the people they call ‘niggers’—who are the ghetto blacks, who can’t even speak, can’t get a job, and bury themselves in black-itude—and those people who are better looking, better educated, smarter, and who own the world: the black middle class,” he says. “A lot of people in Hollywood—let’s say if they happen to be Jewish people who come from Brooklyn—they are most comfortable with those people. Which is fine. It just doesn’t happen to describe me.”

A few minutes later he asks, “Can you and I make a deal about this whole thing about religion? I would love it if we could dodge it in some way that you don’t think is dishonest.” He will repeat this request more than once.

Before I move on, I should note that Bart was temporarily suspended after this article appeared because of comments that were seen as—and I would agree—abjectly racist. But what about Bart’s Jewish identity?

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April 6, 2009 | 12:56 pm

No top of the morning in Catholic churches

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

I hardly think being too informal isn’t the biggest issue affecting the atmosphere at Catholic churches. Nonetheless, a few priests in the Diocese of Leeds in England came to the conclusion that it’s inappropriate to say “good morning” after standing in front of the congregation and making the sign of the cross. So they’ve decided they’re no longer going to do it.

Mass isn’t social hour, I guess the reasoning goes, so sit down and shut up:

A spokesman for the diocese said: “The review of the liturgy is looking at whether there are elements of the service that have become a bit too distracting.

“People might argue that if you go in to a house, you say ‘hi’, but the priest is not going in to a house. He is going in to a sacred service. We need to emphasise that the priest is president of the community and is presiding at the service.

“It is a debate that has been going on in the Church for a long time – are we doing a cabaret or are we actually celebrating the Eucharist?”

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April 6, 2009 | 12:43 am

Reagan tried to turn Gorbachev

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Well, there was more than one way to win the Cold War. And before President Reagan spent the Soviet Union into oblivion, a new biography, “The Rebellion of Ronald Reagan,” suggests he tried to convert Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev:

The new biography tells of the leaders final summit meeting in Moscow in 1988. During the summit Reagan told the story of a World War II Russian soldier who turned to God just before dying of his wounds, despite being raise as an atheist in Soviet Russia.

Gorbachev had already told the President that he had been baptised as a Russian Orthodox by his mother, but added that he himself had no faith.

A presidential aid at the meeting noted that the President told Gorbachev wished to convert his son, who was also an atheist.

A declassified set of minutes of the meeting said, “The president concluded that there was one thing he had long yearned to do for his atheist son. He wanted to serve his son the perfect gourmet dinner, to have him enjoy the meal, and then to ask him if he believed there was a cook.”

Reagan, however, swore the minute-takers to secrecy due to the potential for political embarrassment should the conversation be leaked.

Rudolf Perina was one of those recording the conversation. In the biography he is quoted as saying that Regan tried to convert Gorbachev, “Reagan thought he could convert Gorbachev or make him see the light.”

Read the rest, from Christian Today, here.

(Hat tip: Holy Weblog)

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April 3, 2009 | 9:11 pm

Iowa and gay marriage

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Photo: ABC News

While I was away today, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled that a law limiting marriage to a man and woman was unconstitutional. Cathy Lynn Grossman has some religious reaction to the decision. Here is an excerpt from Christianity Today’s story:

In its opinion, the court addressed religious opposition to same-sex marriage, saying that a religious denomination can still define marriage as between a man and a woman, but civil marriage “reflects a more complete understanding of equal protection of the law.”

“While unexpressed, religious sentiment most likely motivates many, if not most, opponents of same-sex civil marriage and perhaps even shapes the views of those people who may accept gay and lesbian unions but find the notion of same-sex marriage unsettling,” the seven justices said in a summary of their opinion. “Civil marriage must be judged under our constitutional standards of equal protection and not under religious doctrines or the religious views of individual.”

The court said that its desire to protect religious freedom is consistent with preventing government from endorsing any religious view, which opponents found troubling.

“The notion that the only reason one could have an opposition to same-sex marriage is because of religion is pretty preposterous,” said John Eastman, dean of the law school at Chapman University in California. “And to discount religion or to say it’s not a legitimate part of the discourse is not only erroneous but dangerous.”

The justices referred to Iowa’s history on several landmark decisions in its opinion. “Since territorial times, Iowa has given meaning to this constitutional provision, striking blows to slavery and segregation, and recognizing women’s rights,” the justices wrote. “The court found the issue of same-sex marriage comes to it with the same importance as the landmark cases of the past.”

Iowa’s court case began in 2005, when six same-sex couples filed a lawsuit because a county recorder would not accept their marriage license applications. The decision still surprised many because it was the first state in the Midwest to approve same-sex marriage.

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April 3, 2009 | 9:05 pm

Cal Thomas isn’t defending Bernard Madoff but ...

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

... the conservative commentator thinks we shouldn’t be so quick to cast stones. Cal Thomas writes:

Here is the dirty secret about the Madoff tragedy. Madoff is us. Yes, he is. Do not throw down your newspaper in disgust. We are all potential members of “Swindler’s List.” Do you know why our gut reaction is so strong and so hostile to Bernard Madoff (“I hope he rots in jail,” said one of his “victims”)? It is because he mirrors the flaw in each of us. We instinctively react to such people because they strip away our facade and reveal what theologians used to call “sin,” before we became “dysfunctional” and in need of medication, not salvation. In extreme circumstances, we have crucified people who exposed our darkness to the light.

“It takes two to tango,” my mother used to say when someone’s affair was exposed. Madoff could not have prospered without willing participants. People who otherwise exhibited intelligence in their business and personal affairs were seduced by the old get-rich-quick scheme that has suckered humanity for millennia.

Everyone knows, don’t they, that a guaranteed return on such investments is impossible? Everyone knows, don’t they, that financial reports, with no audits or oversight, and coming from the one with whom you have invested, is a prescription for fraud? And yet the partners in this “tango” were all too happy to dance because their leading man held them tightly and played music they loved to hear. But Madoff’s crimes cut doubly deep because he robbed his own.

“No one since Julius Rosenberg has so damaged the image and self-respect of American Jews,” said Mort Zuckerman, who runs a charitable trust that lost $30 million to Madoff.

“It really is a shame we Jews don’t believe in hell,” writes Rob Eshman, The Jewish Journal. “What kind of world is it where Jews can’t trust fellow Jews? ... There’s a name for that kind of world – hell.”

“I’d like to believe someone raised in our community, imbued with Jewish values, would be better than this,” said Rabbi David Wolpe of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles.

So would I, but greed is greed, immorality is immorality and evil is evil.

Recall those who turned over the names of neighbors and colleagues to Joseph McCarthy. What about the Catholic Church that shielded pedophile priests? Slaves often gave up runaway slaves. The Spanish Inquisition had those whose ignominy helped it along. Evangelical Christians turn on Evangelical Christians. Protestants turn on Protestants. Recall the traitors in the Nazi death camps who turned in their fellow prisoners in order to curry favor with the guards they hoped would spare their lives.

That evil has its enablers does not excuse the Nazis, Catholics, the Inquisitors nor Madoff, but it should give pause to all of us who denounce Madoff in ways that make us feel superior to him and incapable of performing evil acts of our own.

Read the rest of his column here.

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