June 23, 2009 | 7:44 pm

More Jon & Kate drama; TLC to halt production

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

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Rumors are swirling about the fate of “Jon & Kate Plus 8” since Kate Gosselin filed for divorce yesterday. Yes, it’s getting ugly; no, it wasn’t always pretty.

The latest reports included the unsurprising news that TLC will halt production of the reality TV show that turned an evangelical Christian couple into rockstars. Slightly more shocking is a report that Jon and Kate lived apart for two years before moving to make their separation final.

Their divorce papers were supposedly sealed, but the Associated Press obtained a copy today, and reports that Kate believes their 10-year marriage is “irretrievably broken.”

She also says they have been unable to come to terms on how to divide their assets.

The Gosselins had portrayed themselves as happy up until the past few months, even renewing their wedding vows in Hawaii last year.

The saddest thing is not that Jon and Kate are ending their marriage, though that too is sad. It’s the unmistakable air of schadenfreude that accompanies an evangelical’s downfall. Think of disgraced evangelical pastor Ted Haggard being outed for his drug use and relations with a male prostitute or the surfacing of semi-nude photos of Carrie Prejean.

June 23, 2009 | 7:33 pm

Ghostbusters go kosher

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Liel Liebovitz, an interactive media producer for the latest Nextbook project, an online magazine called Tablet, had been looking to get away from the Jews after a long week working alongside them. So before Shabbat began he ran out and purchased the new Ghostbusters video game. What he found was that one of his early mission as Dr. Peter Venkman was to capture Slimer without disturbing the Rodriguez bar mitzvah.

Liebovitz writes:

As Venkman snuck us in through the kitchen, blasting everything in sight with his proton beam, my mind wandered. The Rodriguez bar mitzvah? Sure, I thought, there were probably Jews named Rodriguez, but why choose such an atypical name in a medium not usually given to nuance? Finally finding my way into the hall, I realized that their last name wasn’t the only thing that made the Rodriguez’s simcha unusual: there on the buffet table, right next to the wine bottles and the silver candlesticks, were a few huge chunks of honey-glazed ham.

I froze in my tracks. It was time, I realized, to make a major decision about my identity. Was I a Jew first and a Ghostbuster second? Or was it the other way around? Do I catch the ghost? Or do I take care of the treyf? My heart beat fast. Then, suddenly, I knew just what I needed to do.

Ignoring Venkman’s repeated pleas to help him with the manic Slimer, I walked decisively over to the buffet. I took my time, making sure my aim was just right. Then, I pressed the button, and blasted the offensive ham into smithereens. I stopped and smiled. But what happened next left me astonished: a bright-colored tag popped up on the upper left-hand corner of the screen. I had accomplished, the game informed me, one of its many hidden mini-missions, little puzzles meant to keep gamers on their toes and help them score more points. “Achievement unlocked,” read the tag, followed by one more unexpected word: “Kosher!”

And you thought video games were nothing but treyf. Wired, which I mentioned in my GetReligion 5Q+1 as a good source of religion news, confirms Liebovitz’s tale of unlocking kashrut righteousness.

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June 23, 2009 | 3:54 pm

The God Blog and GetReligion getting together

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Since I started The God Blog two years ago, I’ve contributed to a variety of other sites, Christianity Today, Beliefnet and Jewcy.

Now I’ve been invited to complement my daily God Blogging by joining the part-time staff of GetReligion, a blog that I’ve been reading since I started writing about religion. Yesterday tmatt published a 5Q+1 with me on the state of the Godbeat, and today I offered my introductory post, a reflection on my life as a Jew-ish journalist.

Here’s an excerpt:

I’ve always felt that if we reporters were going to ask such personal and private questions we should be willing to open windows into our own souls. For me, this has meant being willing to explain something that for most people doesn’t compute; I can still hear the security guard for El Al Airlines saying “but your name is Greenberg” when I said, during passenger screening en route to Israel, that I never became bar mitzvah and that my family celebrated that other December holiday.

It was also humorous when, covering a church-state issue in the city of Redlands, Christians who were opposed to removing a cross from the city seal assumed I was in bed with the ACLU because of my byline. Or when, as a reporter for the LA Daily News, sources would say, “Well, you understand. You’re Jewish.” Short answer sure; long answer no, with a but …

The truth is I grew up in a conservative Christian church and still attend Bel Air Presbyterian most Sundays. At the same time, I’ve never been able to walk past a Chabadnik without getting invited to put teffilin on. My name, my facial hair, my poor eyesight — each scream Jewish. So, too, do my cultural inclinations, which is why I like to tell people that I‘m Jewish in every way except for that whole Jesus thing — and he’s a kind of a dealbreaker.

You can read the rest at GetReligion, where three times a week I’ll be taking a look at the way religion is covered on the West Coast and in sports and entertainment.

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June 23, 2009 | 1:50 pm

Jon and Kate say divorce isn’t great

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Happier days

This may come as a shock, but Jon and Kate Gosselin, of “Jon & Kate Plus 8” fame, filed divorce papers in Montgomery County, Penn., Monday. This ends the great evangelical fishbowl experiment; it hadn’t been going as well as some Christians wanted to believe.

Now divorce is something we Christians are told we cannot do. Marriage is forever, and if we’re not willing to stay married until death do us part, then we shouldn’t get hitched in the first place. Paul makes this clear in his letters, and our wedding vows remind us of as much. But studies have found that those who profess to be Christians are just about as likely to separate from their spouse as non-Christians.

Still, I found Kate’s choice of words a bit surprising.

“I’m not very fond of the idea, personally,” she said. “But I know it’s necessary because my goal is peace for the kids.”

Fond—as in, I’m not very fond of running on a treadmill, but I know it’s good for my heart.

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June 23, 2009 | 1:25 pm

Who is Neda?

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Photo: LAObserved

The Los Angeles Times does a remarkable job of profiling Neda Agha-Soltan, the 26-year-old Iranian who was shot and bled to death Saturday on the streets of Tehran. Her death has, in the words of a Time reporter, “changed everything.” Now we know who she was, not just what she’ll be remembered for.

From Borzou Daragahi, one of the Times’ few great remaining foreign correspondents:

“She was a person full of joy,” said her music teacher and close friend Hamid Panahi, who was among the mourners at her family home Sunday, awaiting word about her burial. “She was a beam of light. I’m so sorry. I was so hopeful for this woman.”

Security forces urged her friends and family not to hold memorial services for her at a mosque and asked them not to speak publicly about her, associates of the family said. Authorities even asked the family to take down the black mourning banners in front of their house, aware of the potent symbol she had become.

But some insisted on speaking out anyway, hoping to make sure the world would not forget her.

Neda Agha-Soltan was born in Tehran, they said, to a father who worked for the government and a homemaker mother.

They were a family of modest means, part of the country’s emerging middle class who built their lives in rapidly developing neighborhoods on the eastern and western outskirts of the city.

Like many in her neighborhood, Agha-Soltan was loyal to the country’s Islamic roots and traditional values, friends say, but also curious about the outside world, which was easily accessed through satellite TV, the Internet and occasional trips abroad.

The second of three children, she studied Islamic philosophy at a branch of Tehran’s Azad University until deciding to pursue a career in tourism. She took private classes to become a tour guide, including Turkish-language courses, friends said, hoping to someday lead groups of Iranians on trips abroad.

Travel was her passion, and with her friends she saved up enough money for package tours to Dubai, Turkey and Thailand. Two months ago, on a trip to Turkey, she relaxed along the beaches of Antalya, on the Mediterranean coast.

She also loved music, especially Persian pop, and was taking piano lessons, according to Panahi and other friends. She was also an accomplished singer, they said.

But she was never an activist, they added, and she began attending the mass protests only because she was outraged by the election results.

According to Agha-Soltan’s friends, they hadn’t even joined the protest when she was shot. You can read the rest here.

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June 23, 2009 | 4:04 am

Bruno and the Jews

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Bruno isn’t quite the rabid anti-Semite that Borat was, and I don’t expect the second film showcasing Sacha Baron Cohen’s altar egos to be as funny as the 2006 flick, but Danielle Berrin has identified the top five Jewish moments in “Bruno,” which opens next month. One of those moments, not surprisingly, deals with Hollywood:

Bruno and his manager, desperate to land celebrity interviews, consult a chart they have made of top actors.  There is “Wilhelm Schmidt” (Will Smith), Adolf Pittler (Brad Pitt) and lastly, a man Bruno calls “Der Fuhrer.”  The camera pans to reveal the photograph of said star:  Mel Gibson.

Check out the other four, including Bruno’s attempt to bring fashion to an Orthodox community in Israel, at the Hollywood Jew blog.

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June 23, 2009 | 2:33 am

Latin American Jews reluctant to accept new converts

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

A convert shares his struggles

Latin America is notorious for it’s anti-Semitism; foreign-born U.S. Latinos are twice as likely to harbor “hardcore anti-Semitic beliefs” than their American-born counterparts. Hugo Chavez, no friend of the Jews.

And yet, there is a movement afoot in Latin America. Christians are increasingly converting to Judaism.

And yet, the Jewish community sees something wrong with this.

From JTA:

Luis Alberto Prieto Vargas appears to be a Jew.

He wears a kippah, he introduces himself as Jewish, and two years ago Vargas, a Christian by birth, underwent a conversion ceremony to Judaism following several years of religious study.

It all began seven years ago when Vargas, now 51, became part of a movement in Bogota, Colombia, of religious seekers.

“As I did, most of the people involved came from Christian roots,“ he said. “And we found in Judaism an answer to our inquiries.“

But Vargas’ conversion hit a key snag: Jews.

First, Orthodox Jews in Colombia refused to accept Vargas and 200 or so others as would-be Jews, vehemently disavowing association with them and refusing them access to the community’s mikvahs for conversion.

The group, which calls itself Maim Haim—Hebrew for “living waters”—turned to religious authorities in Israel for training and, they hoped, eventual conversion, but it was stymied when Colombia’s Orthodox Jewish leadership contacted rabbinic authorities in Israel and warned them against accepting the would-be converts.

Main Haim eventually found a rabbi in Israel willing to teach its members, and in 2007 the rabbi and two colleagues convened a Jewish religious court, or bet din, and converted 104 of them including Vargas.

Still, many Jewish institutions in Colombia refuse to accept them as members.

The plight of Main Haim underscores the difficulty many converts and would-be converts to Judaism have in Latin America, particularly those who convert as a group or come to Judaism on their own rather than in concert with local Jewish authorities.

Local Jewish communities are concerned about being overwhelmed by mass converts, and many have questions about whether the converts’ motivations are genuine. In Israel and in Colombia, the converts often are viewed skeptically—as émigrés-in-waiting more interested in obtaining Israeli citizenship, which is available to all Jews, than Judaism itself.

Approximately 70 percent of Maim Haim members have filed petitions for aliyah with the Jewish Agency for Israel. Their petitions are being held in abeyance while Israel’s Chief Rabbinate makes a determination as to their Jewish credentials.

“There should be a filter,“ said Colombia’s chief rabbi, Alfredo Goldschmidt.

Read the rest here.

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June 22, 2009 | 4:57 pm

Voting irregularities admitted, protests continue; Iranian student: ‘We are a peaceful nation’

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

The big news out of Iran today was an admission of some voting irregularities, namely that “the number of votes cast in 50 cities exceeded the actual number of voters.” Yeah, that’s kind of a biggee.

Protests in Tehran continue. Here’s an excerpt from a call one Iranian student made CNN’s “American Morning. He spoke with John Roberts:

Roberts: Mohammad, we have been talking this morning about what the students are fighting for and whether the students are fighting for something different than the older more established political candidates like Moussavi. Are the students seeking regime change? Are they looking to bring down the Ayatollah and completely change the form of government there in Iran? Or are you looking for – as has been suggested – more civil rights, more freedoms within the context of the existing regime?

Mohammad: Yes. Let me tell you something. For about three decades our nation has been humiliated and insulted by this regime. Now Iranians are united again one more time after 1979 Revolution. We are a peaceful nation. We don’t hate anybody. We want to be an active member of the international community. We don’t want to be isolated… We don’t deny the Holocaust. We do accept Israel’s rights. And actually, we want — we want severe reform on this structure. This structure is not going to be tolerated by the majority of Iranians. We need severe reform, as much as possible.

Roberts: Interesting perspective this morning from Mohammad, a student demonstrator there in Tehran.

Mohammad: Excuse me, sir. I have a message for the international community. Would you please let me tell it?

Roberts: Yes, go ahead.

Mohammad: Americans, European Union, international community, this government is not definitely — is definitely not elected by the majority of Iranians. So it’s illegal. Do not recognize it. Stop trading with them. Impose much more sanctions against them. My message…to the international community, especially I’m addressing President Obama directly – how can a government that doesn’t recognize its people’s rights and represses them brutally and mercilessly have nuclear activities? This government is a huge threat to global peace. Will a wise man give a sharp dagger to an insane person? We need your help international community. Don’t leave us alone.

Read the rest here.

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June 22, 2009 | 2:51 pm

SEC sues Stanley Chais and four others

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Stanley Chais, the 83-year-old Beverly Hills investor manager, keeps getting bad news. Last month he was sued by the court-appointed trustee liquidating Bernard Madoff’s bogus investment company; the trustee, Irving Picard, claimed Chais “knew or should have known that they were reaping the benefits of manipulated purported returns, false documents and fictitious profits.”

Today the Securities and Exchange Commission followed suit with a its own civil lawsuit (PDF) claiming Chais and four others willfully participated in the biggest Ponzi scheme in U.S. history:

In a complaint filed in federal court in Manhattan, the Securities and Exchange Commission claimed that Cohmad Securities Corporation; its chairman, Maurice J. Cohn; his daughter and the firm’s chief operating officer, Marcia Beth Cohn; and a broker at the firm, Robert M. Jaffe; actively marketing Madoff investments while “knowingly or recklessly disregarding facts indicating that Madoff was operating a fraud.”

In a separate civil complaint in the same court, the regulators filed similar charges against Mr. Chais, an investment adviser and prominent philanthropist who oversaw three funds that invested all of their assets with Mr. Madoff. When the Ponzi scheme collapsed, the Chais investors’ accounts were valued at nearly $1 billion.

The S.E.C. complaint against Mr. Chais echoed a complaint filed by Irving H. Picard, the trustee pursuing assets for Mr. Madoff’s victims. Within moments of the announcement of the regulatory cases, Mr. Picard also sued Cohmad, mirroring claims made in Monday’s S.E.C. complaint.

Read the rest here.

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June 21, 2009 | 11:00 pm

Iran on the brink

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

"Neda" dies in Tehran

I was in Vegas playing poker all weekend, so I’m just now catching up on all the developments in Iran. And boy is it a lot to digest.

Let’s start with the visuals: Kevin at LAObserved says that if you watch one Iran video, it should be this one from the BBC, which caught protesters throwing tear gas canisters back at police. A video you may not want to watch but that has been passed around the Internet is the so-called Neda video.

“Some sites refer to her as ‘Neda,’ Farsi for the voice or the call. Tributes that incorporate startlingly upclose footage of her dying have started to spring up on YouTube,” Robin Wright writes for Time.com. “Although it is not yet clear who shot “Neda” (a soldier? pro-government militant? an accidental misfiring?), her death may have changed everything.”

If Neda changed everything, the arrest Sunday of five relatives of one of Iran’s most powerful cleric, who happens to support the oppositional leader, further polarized the Islamic Republic:

The moves against members of [Hashemi] Rafsanjani’s family were seen as an attempt to put pressure on him to drop his challenge to Mr. Khamenei — pressure that Mr. Rafsanjani’s son, Mehdi Rafsanjani, said he would reject.

“My father was in jail for five years when we were young. We don’t care if they keep her even for a year,” Mehdi Rafsanjani said in an interview, referring to the arrest of his sister, Ms. Hashemi.

Mr. Rafsanjani was deeply critical of Mr. Ahmadinejad during the presidential campaign, and is thought to have had a strained relationship with Mr. Khamenei for many years.

But he remains a major establishment figure, and the detention of his daughter, albeit briefly, came as a surprise. In his sermon on Friday, in which he strongly backed Mr. Ahmadinejad and threatened a violent crackdown on further protests, Ayatollah Khamenei pointedly praised Mr. Rafsanjani as a pillar of the revolution, while acknowledging that the two have had “many differences of opinion.”

(skip)

Mr. Rafsanjani, 75, heads two powerful institutions. One, the Assembly of Experts, is a body of clerics that have the authority to oversee and theoretically replace the country’s supreme leader. He also runs the Expediency Council, empowered to settle disagreements between the elected Parliament and the unelected Guardian Council.

The Assembly of Experts has never publicly exercised its power over Ayatollah Khamenei since he succeeded the Islamic revolution’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, in 1989. But the increasingly bitter confrontation between Mr. Khamenei and Mr. Rafsanjani has raised the prospect of a contest of political wills between the two revolutionary veterans.

Read more of this post

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June 19, 2009 | 12:02 am

HUC to close School of Communal Service?

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

The saga of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion’s budget woes may come to a painful close Tuesday. The Reform university’s board of governors is voting on a major reorganization that includes a plan to suspend admissions to the L.A. campus’ School of Jewish Communal Service.

“I think it is extreme shortsightedness, inserted there by people who don’t understand the importance of the School of Communal Service,“ Stanley Gold, a member of the HUC-JIR board and chairman of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, told me. “It hurts the college institution, the Southern California Jewish population and the LA campus.“

Gold, who said he will vote against the resolution if suspension of the School of Communal Service is included, added: “I don’t think that the resolution addresses the systemic problems that the college institution faces. It’s not really a plan. It’s a wish list and hopes, not a strategy.“

Gold’s comments are included in a story I just wrote for JewishJournal.com. Check it out here.

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June 18, 2009 | 7:20 pm

Elie Wiesel on Obama and Israel

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Elie Wiesel, the Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize winner, is tired of hearing folks say that President Obama harbors anti-Israel sentiments. After touring the Buchenwald death camp with Obama, Wiesel gave these reflections to Haaretz:

“I can say with complete certainty that Obama does not hate Israel,” said Wiesel, in response to rising criticism among U.S. Jews regarding the president’s policies on Israel and West Bank settlements. “It would be foolish to say he is anti-Israel.”

The Holocaust survivor and chronicler said that after spending a full day with Obama and conversing with him for hours, he was struck by the president’s demeanor as an “attentive and understanding man. He is concerned with the suffering of the Jewish people and by what is happening in Israel.”

According to Wiesel, Israel “can and should [work] with Obama” on reaching a peace agreement with the Palestinians.

Read the rest here.

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