November 30, 2009 | 1:11 pm

Demjanjuk trial starts in Germany

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

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JTA previewed this story last week, the day of reckoning has come for John Demjanjuk, the former auto worker accused of being Ivan the Terrible from a Nazi concentration camp.

Wearing a blue baseball cap, the bespectacled Mr. Demjanjuk arrived in the courtroom in a wheelchair pushed by a German police officer. His eyes were closed, and he was covered from his dark sneakers to his neck by a sky-blue blanket. His appearance followed arguments by his lawyers and family that he was too sick to stand trial, suffering from a variety of ailments including bone marrow disease. But doctors have concluded that he is fit to stand trial, provided that hearings are restricted to two 90-minute sessions a day.

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Prosecutors say they are confident that they can convict Mr. Demjanjuk of the accessory counts based on an SS identity card and the orders sending him to Sobibor from the Trawniki training camp for Nazi guards. But Mr. Demjanjuk’s lawyers question the authenticity of the documents.

Because Sobibor was an extermination camp — devoted almost entirely to killing — rather than a concentration camp, work as a guard there meant assisting in mass murder, prosecutors will argue.

“When a transport of Jews arrived, routine work was suspended and all camp personnel took part in the routine process of extermination,” according to the indictment. The unloading of the trains proceeded “with loud cries, blows and also shots. If people refused to come out, the Trawnikis entered the cars and forced those who hesitated, with violence, out of the train and onto the ramp.” The proceedings, which could last until next May, have been described as the last major Nazi war crimes trial, but new cases keep surfacing as research continues into the systematic murder of European Jews during the Holocaust.

Tom Teicholz has written a lot in the past about Demjanjuk, including a book about his prosecution in Israel two decades ago.

November 30, 2009 | 12:26 pm

Florida students suspended for ‘Kick a Jew Day’

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Somethings never change. Take anti-Semitism. It’s just too easy to attack Jews.

I’ve heard many a stories about high schoolers going Jew fishing. Offensive as that anti-Semitic game is, it pales in comparison to Kick a Jew Day. Ten students at a Florida middle school were suspended for a day after participating:

Rabbi James Perman, of Temple Shalom in North Naples, called the situation “alarming.”

“I can tell you this: I haven’t seen anything like it in my 17 years in Naples. No child deserves this kind of treatment,” he wrote in an e-mail Monday. “Their parents are understandably outraged. So far it seems that the school system has taken appropriate measures and we applaud their efforts. At this point, teaching sensitive awareness is more important than punishing anyone.”

Perman said how the situation is handled is of concern to those at the Temple because it involves children.

“Beyond that, there are critical issues for the entire Jewish community and beyond. ... These are not new issues for us here in Naples,” he wrote. “These 10 kids did not invent anti-Semitism. They found a sympathetic response that was already there on some level.”

This follows a similar incident last year at a St. Louis school.

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November 29, 2009 | 5:47 pm

CSM says first Pilgrims ‘were a suprisingly worldly, tolerant lot’

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Yes, Thanksgiving has come and gone—quietly, thankfully. But that doesn’t mean I can’t take a moment to highlight one of the turkey day stories I read this weekend. His a bit of historical analysis from the Christian Science Monitor:

The first Pilgrims of the first American Thanksgiving in 1621 were unusually devout – even by Puritan standards. They crossed the ocean on a conviction that “the Lord has more truth and light yet to break forth out of his holy Word,” as pastor John Robinson said before they sailed from the Netherlands.

Yet the Pilgrim band that braved the Mayflower and shared deer and turkey with native Americans were also some of the most cosmopolitan and tolerant among the Puritan groups willing to brave the wilds of a new world.

Before going to Plymouth, the Mayflower group lived 11 years in the Dutch city of Leiden. Those years of exile in Leiden, where the Pilgrims worked, worshipped, and debated – amid hefty clashes of civilizations and belief in Europe – profoundly influenced their sensibilities in ways that have not been widely recognized.

The Pilgrims – unlike British Puritans who wanted to turn Massachusetts into a theocracy – sharply advocated church-state separation. They heretically believed that women should be allowed to speak in church. They were far more tolerant of other faiths and open to the idea that their theology, like all human dogma, might contain errors.

Read the rest here.

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November 29, 2009 | 1:21 pm

USC’s defender of the faith

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

It was an ugly UCLA-USC football game last night. The game was painful enough to watch—no offense for either team, blown opportunities for the Bruins, a lot of posturing minus any action—so I have no interest in blogging about the game.

But it’s worth mentioning the write up one of the Trojans’ star defenders got in The Jewish Journal earlier this month. The headline wasn’t “Funny, Taylor Mays Doesn’t Look Jewish,” but that’s probably the first thing most readers thought when they saw his photo:

A projected first-round draft pick and Jim Thorpe Award finalist, Mays is described as tough, smart, talented and a leader.

USC’s 6-foot-3, 230-pound defensive back has a love of football that can be traced back to his February 2001 football-themed bar mitzvah party.

“That party was crackin’,” said Mays, whose mother, Laurie, is Jewish.

Mays, a Seattle native, has a reputation for being one of the most devastating safeties in the NCAA, but in person he’s polite, kind and has an easy smile. Clearly driven, he’s quick to reference his close family ties and solid upbringing when discussing his goal to play pro ball — an opportunity he recently turned down in order to complete a degree at USC.

Mays attended Sunday school starting at a young age and continued with Hebrew school twice a week. Although he attended a Catholic high school, he identifies with being Jewish and cherishes the holidays he spent with his maternal grandparents. “We celebrated Chanukah, Passover and Yom Kippur always,” he said.

“I have good examples in my life, people who have worked hard and accomplished things, and made me want to work hard and accomplish things,” said Mays, whose mother is an executive vice president at Nordstrom and whose father, Stafford, is a former NFL defensive lineman turned Microsoft executive. “I’m trying to provide the right example, do things right all the time and take advantage of every opportunity I have to get better.”

Read the rest here. And start praying now for a better Bruins football season next year. Basketball too.

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November 27, 2009 | 3:19 am

Mr. T pities the procrastinator

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Speechless after watching the UCLA Bruins get stomped on by the Portland Pilots. (Hey, that’s a Jesuit school.) Now I’ve got to hit the books, lest I face the wrath of Mr. T.

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November 27, 2009 | 12:14 am

Remembering Mumbai and giving thanks

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

I’m thankful for a lot of things. A lot of things. But this year I’m exceptionally thankful that I didn’t need to spend much of turkey day updating a story like the Mumbai terror attacks.

A year ago today, terrorists launched a three-day siege of the historic Indian city that left 173 dead. Among the terrorists’ targets was the Mumbai Chabad house.

That weekend, I attended a memorial service for the Chabad rabbi and rebbetzin who were murdered in the attack. Here’s a reflection:

I spoke with a Chabad rabbi who went to school with Gavriel back in New York and with a scholar who had celebrated Shabbat at the Mumbai Chabad house the Friday before the attacks, but most the people there were simply grabbed by the power of the Holtzbergs’ story, by the personal mission that caused the young couple to relocate after marrying in 2003 to a foreign land—to, as one speaker said, “the spread of good and the destruction of evil.”

Despite the circumstances, the mood at the memorial was upbeat. And I was surprised to hear so many times the exhortation that Jewish men put on tefillin to honor Gavriel’s legacy and that they create a kosher house for Rivkah. I’m still amazed with how Rabbi Holtzberg and his rebbetzin have come to serve as the public faces of this tragedy. From everything I’ve heard about the couple, I think they’d be a bit embarrassed by all the attention. But so many Jews, and non-Jews too, felt like the attacks were an attack on them personally; when one suffers, we all suffer.

“All of the Jewish people are connected. They are part of us,” Marilyn Greenberg, 71 and of no relation, told me at the service. “A young family, doing work for Klal Yisroel—and they were killed because they were Jewish. There wasn’t any other reason.”

With that in mind, it’s been nice to have a quite Thanksgiving—and to just be able to give thanks.

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November 25, 2009 | 11:01 pm

Israeli-Iranian peace in the NBA

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Casspi, left, with Haddadi

Sports—truly the great equalizer. See that handshake? That’s a handshake between two men whose homeland’s are locked in their own rhetorical and existential battles. On the left, Omri Casspi, the first Israeli to play in the NBA. And on the right, Hamed Haddadi, the league’s first Iranian.

I imagine Jordan Farmar appreciates the company.

Casspi and Haddadi met at center court Monday night when the Sacramento Kings played the Memphis Grizzlies. Though Haddadi didn’t get into the game, the handshake was symbolic nonetheless:

There are players in the NBA from Turkey and Senegal, but both those nations have diplomatic relations with Israel. Iran is the world’s only predominately Muslim country that has an NBA player and does not recognize Israel.

“As one of the biggest cliches regarding the Israel-Arab conflict would say, ‘It’s not the people of Israel and Iran who hate each other, it’s the leaders,’‘’ said Eran Soroka, basketball writer for the Israeli newspaper Ma’ariv. “A lot of people emigrated from Iran to Israel during the last decades, and you can find Israeli and Iranian citizens dancing to the same music in clubs in, for example, Turkey. The NBA is also a frame which is completely different from the Middle East tension: Haddadi, for that matter, is an Americanized Iranian… He already accepted the challenge of playing for his country’s nemesis (the United States).’‘

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In 2006, Iranian president Mahmoud Admadinejad said he wanted to “wipe Israel off the map’’ and was said to have called the Holocaust, Nazi German’s extermination of 6 million Jews during World War II, a “myth.’’ He later denied he made comments that the Holocaust did not happen.

Haddadi has tried to steer clear of all this.

“I don’t want politics into sports,’’ said Haddadi, 24. “I think it should be separated.’‘

If only Ahmadinejad played footie.

After the jump, hear the commentary about Haddadi that got Clippers announcers Ralph Lawler and Mike Smith suspended:

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November 25, 2009 | 1:46 am

Celebrating 150 years of ‘On The Origin of Species’

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

The celebration of Charles Darwin’s “On The Origin of Species” began last year. Then Darwin turned 200—talk about survival of the fittest. And today marks the official anniversary of Darwin’s revolutionary theory of evolution.

Religion Dispatches carried several items today dedicated to “The Single Greatest Idea Ever.” This article included a photo of banana creation man Ray Comfort (video after the jump). Lauri Lebo writes:

Darwin’s theory of natural selection as an explanation of evolutionary processes is the foundation of all of modern biology. At its heart, the theory is elegantly simple: individual creatures with traits best suited to their environment are better able to survive and reproduce offspring.

And yet, it has been hailed as The Single Greatest Idea Ever: Darwin showed how the pieces of life’s amazing diversity fit together, and consequently, how we fit into that puzzle.

But, as Darwin clearly understood at the time of publication, Origin of Species would also challenge religious notions, not only of a 6,000-year-old world and a literal acceptance of Genesis, but about ideas of human exceptionalism.

Even though Darwin never raised the issue of human evolution in Origin (that would come 12 years later in his Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex), the underlying point was not lost on the public.

If man evolved from apes, how could we have been made in God’s image?

Lebo goes on, and she might want to be careful repeating that last line in front of Ms. Garrison. Also worth reading, this history of the debate over God and science.

Yes, creationists are the scientific community’s favorite target. There are, however, noteworthy scientist who believe in creation. Dr. Francis Collins, who I’ve written about here and there, comes to mind.

Even among evangelicals, 28 percent believe in some form of evolution—I’d include myself in that category—though I think many people who answer “yes” to this question are talking about only microevolution. I like to think of evolution as God’s creation tool.

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November 24, 2009 | 3:44 pm

The sex offender at the Seder

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

It’s not Passover yet—obviously—but I thought of this clip after seeing on Facebook that one of my classmates is attending “Hug Your Local Registered Sex Offender Day.” Might be a joke, but really not sure.

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November 24, 2009 | 3:33 pm

Vatican on ‘New Moon’: a ‘moral vacuum’

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

I guess not everyone is a “New Moon” nutjob. Not only is the new blockbuster in the “Twilight” series not high-art (duh), but it is, according to the Vatican, a “deviant moral vacuum.”

Monsignor Franco Perazzolo, of the Pontifical Council of Culture, said: ‘Men and women are transformed with horrible masks and it is once again that age-old trick or ideal formula of using extremes to make an impact at the box office.

‘This film is nothing more than a moral vacuum with a deviant message and as such should be of concern.’

The attack comes three weeks after the Catholic Church in Italy condemned Halloween as ‘anti-Christian and dangerous’ and urged parents not to dress their children as ghosts and goblins.

In the past, the Vatican has also attacked the Harry Potter books and films. Six years ago, Pope Benedict XVI criticised the ‘subtle seductions’ in J.K. Rowling’s stories, which could ’ corrupt the Christian faith’ in impressionable young children.

Amen

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November 23, 2009 | 11:38 pm

Meet Burka Barbie

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Barbie in a burka? You better believe it:

Wearing the traditional Islamic dress, the iconic doll is going undercover for a charity auction in connection with Sotheby’s for Save The Children.

‘I know Barbie was something seen as bad before as an image for girls, but in actual fact the message with Barbie for women is you can be whatever you want to be.’

Read the rest, and check out a few photos, here.

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November 23, 2009 | 2:10 pm

Top ghetto Jewish names

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

This video reminds me of a moment from my undergrad days, when a friend snapped my photo and then, unbeknown to me, used the and a fake quote for a feature in the Daily Bruin.  At least he gave me a fake name, too. It was the Jewiest thing that he, a gentile, could think of: Ezekiel Goldbergstein.

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