November 14, 2010 | 9:43 pm

Chronicling the fight for Soviet Jewry

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

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Gal Beckerman on the Fight to Save Soviet Jewry from Jewish Forward on Vimeo.

I was hoping to have given Gal Beckerman’s new book more of a read before writing this post. But the book didn’t arrive until Thursday and it’s been a busy weekend. I can tell you that two of my favorite Jewish authors and the preeminent American Jewish historian wrote quite the jacket blurbs.

The book, “When They Come for Us, We’ll Be Gone,” is about the fight for Soviet Jewry. And here is what Forward alum and The Atlantic all-star Jeffrey Goldberg had to say:

“Gal Beckerman has written the definitive account of what might be the most successful human rights campaign of our time. ... The movement to free Soviet Jewry will be studied for years to come as a model of non-violent civil disobedience, and Gal Beckerman’s book will be read years from now as the masterwork on the subject.”

Granted, it’s a jacket blurb and you never know whether the folks who write those actually read the book. But Goldberg is a boss, so I’m willing to take his word for it. “When They Come for Us” has been getting kind treatment in more neutral places too—The New Republic, The New Yorker, Tablet—and being discussed elsewhere.

Here, in a conversation with himself, Beckerman says the Soviet Jewry movement still matter today:

Many people look back to the Soviet Jewry movement with nostalgia as the last time that the American Jewish community was so united. Israel, ever since the Six Day War, has been too divisive to serve the same purpose. So there are lessons to be gained by looking at how the movement managed to bring together disparate forces of right and left. Saving Soviet Jews appealed to the most tribal instincts of Jews, but in responding to those instincts, it also linked up with larger, more basic human values of freedom. It’s hard to fathom this confluence today when human rights is consistently used to make an argument against the Jewish state. Nowadays there are many in the Jewish community who perceive these forces – the universal and particular – as somehow irreconcilable. But this story disproves that. The community was undeniably stronger when it was able to fight for a cause that had most of humanity on its side.

If you’re in Los Angeles, you can actually see Beckerman speaking with someone else Monday night. That someone being LA County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, who as a young man was a leader in the American movement. They’ll be talking and Beckerman will be signing his book at American Jewish University. Check them out.

November 14, 2010 | 3:57 pm

A new move in denying climate change

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

U.S. Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., is a leading contender to chair the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Why is this frightening? Because Shimkus is one of those global-warming deniers. And he is blaming God for his inability to come to terms with pretty simple science.

The above video shows Shimkus quoting Genesis and Matthew during a Congressional hearing. Here’s

The earth will end only when God declares it’s time to be over. Man will not destroy this earth. This earth will not be destroyed by a flood. I appreciate having panelists here who are men of faith and we can get into the theological discourse of that position, but I do believe that God’s word is infallible, unchanging, perfect.”

I too believe the word of God is infallible. But that doesn’t mean that rising carbon levels aren’t destroying our global ecosystem. For one thing, there is nothing irreconcilable about God saying He would never again course the ground or flood the Earth and man-made climate change doing just that.

Religion Dispatches has a transcript of the passages that Shimkus quoted.

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November 14, 2010 | 12:35 pm

From thug life to shomer Shabbos

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Once upon a time, Shyne was gangsta—one of then-Puff Daddy’s thugs—and served eight years in prison for his role in shooting up a New York City club. Prison reformed Shyne, and like many inmates he found God—YHWH to be exact.

Now he’s living in Jerusalem and living as a Hasidic Jew. Here’s the story from the Jerusalem Post:

“Everyone was always telling me to go to Israel, but to me it’s not just going to Israel, it has to really be the emet [truth], otherwise I won’t do it. And for some reason, my neshama [soul] wasn’t driving me there,” he said. “Then as Rosh Hashana approached, I was thinking, ‘How can I not go to Jerusalem?’ And by God’s good graces, I’m in a position where I can decide just like that to go somewhere, so that’s what I did.”

Saying that his time spent here since his arrival has surpassed all expectations, Shyne added that it wasn’t very difficult to do so.

“I’m a guy that has simcha [joy] and kedusha [holiness] in a prison cell with rats running – and walking – around. Under the most inhumane circumstances, I would daven with as much fervor as you can imagine. So to be at the center of the universe now, I knew that whatever I was doing in exile would be multiplied tenfold,” he said.

The New York Times did it’s own story here. I can’t verify, but Ben Plonie, who sent the JPost story, added this note:

Of course now that he is a Jew the hate is starting to come out. “I never liked him anyway… ” “He was ‘aight but now he sucks…” etc.

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November 14, 2010 | 2:38 am

Sarah Palin wigs for Orthodox Jews

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

These xtranormal videos have been gaining popularity. This one about becoming a lawyer was an instant classic. The above video is different. It’s from Frum Satire, and it does a bit of ribbing Sarah Palin.

The Sarah Palin wigs were hot in 2008. But I don’t think she has hawked them at Orthodox Jewish women. Yet.

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November 13, 2010 | 1:15 am

San Francisco may vote to ban circumcision

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

I’ve written before about the circumcision wars and adult circumcision and an odd Oregon case involving a parental dispute over circumcising their teenage son.

Now there is a push in San Francisco to outlaw circumcision. Here’s something short from the San Francisco Examiner:

A proposed ballot measure for the November 2011 ballot – when voters will be electing the San Francisco’s next mayor – would amend The City’s police code “to make it a misdemeanor to circumcise, excise, cut or mutilate the foreskin, testicle or penis of another person who has not attained the age of 18.”

Doing so would result in a fine of up to $1,000 and up to one year in jail, according to the proposed measure submitted to the Department of Elections.

The measure was submitted by San Francisco resident Lloyd Schofield, who has spoken up on this issue in the past.

The local CBS affiliate says a comment from Schofield and some man-on-the-street stuff.

I’m not really sure how effective such a ban would be. I mean, San Francisco isn’t that big of a city, and it’s surrounded by other cities. Seems like any parent who still wants to circumcise their boy would just take them over to Berkeley or Oakland or Marin County.

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November 12, 2010 | 1:25 pm

Holiday wishes from your friendly neighborhood atheists

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Remember when Richard Dawkins put up those “There’s Probably No God” bus ads? I wonder if a similar reaction will be spurred by an American holiday anti-God campaign, reported here by The New York Times:

Four separate and competing national organizations representing various streams of atheists, humanists and freethinkers will soon be spreading their gospel through advertisements on billboards, buses and trains, and in newspapers and magazines.

The latest, announced on Tuesday in Washington, is the first to include spots on television and cable. This campaign juxtaposes particularly primitive — even barbaric — passages from the Bible and the Koran with quotations from nonbelievers and humanists like Albert Einstein and Katharine Hepburn.

The godless groups say they are mounting this surge because they are aware that they have a large, untapped army of potential troops. The percentage of American adults who say they have no religion has doubled in the last two decades, to 15 percent, according to the American Religious Identification Survey, conducted by researchers at Trinity College in Hartford and released in 2008. But the ranks of the various atheist organizations number only in the tens of thousands.

That is one reason for the multiple campaigns: the groups are competing with one another to gain market share, said Mark Silk, founding director of the Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life, which is also at Trinity College.

“There’s a competitive environment for ‘no religion,’ and they’re grabbing for all the constituents they can get,” Mr. Silk said.

Read on. It’s an interesting story and the latest iteration in an ongoing atheist evolution.

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November 10, 2010 | 2:39 pm

Is Esther really observant?

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

I know it’s the question everyone wants answered: Is Esther Petrack from this season of “America’s Next Top Model” really an observant Orthodox Jew?

A little while back, I posted a clip from the show that popped up on YouTube. On it, Esther sold out the Sabbath and then flashed her 30G boobs.

I consulted my wife, and she informed me that Esther is no longer in the running to be America’s next top model. But for those wondering, Esther’s mother wrote on Rabbi Fink’s blog that Esther hadn’t sacrificed Shabbos. Instead, she said, her daughter’s words were manipulated by the evil hand of Haman and the show’s editors:

The fateful words “I will do it” in an answer to the question about working on shabbat were the result of editing. Esther never meant or said that she would give up shabbat for the show, neither did she do it. These words were taken from a long conversation about the principles and laws of shabbat and how Esther was planning to observe them. The producers cut out these 4 words to create a more scandalous storyline; judging from the amount of reaction, they were quite successful!

So there you have it. Then again, mother’s tend to hear and believe what they want to. So while it’s fully believable that the show’s editors were a bit loose with the context of Esther’s answer—I think we can all appreciate that “artistic editing” is basically the only thing that makes reality TV entertaining—it’s also worth taking her mother’s interpretation with a grain of salt.

Then again ... I can’t imagine anyone was losing sleep over this.

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November 9, 2010 | 1:00 pm

Supply Side Jesus

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Don’t confuse Supply Side Jesus with the misguided Gospel of Wealth. He’s much more concerned about consumer spending, economic growth and moral hazard than personal luxury.

Thanks for the Al Franken sketch, Dennis. It reminds me of the “Margaritaville” episode of “South Park,” which aired a few years after the sketch was published. Margaritaville? Here’s a refresher:

Kyle, “the young Jew,” was cast in the role of Jesus—“perhaps he is the economy’s only son, sent to save us”—complete with a sermon on the mount in which he proves that just about anyone can qualify for a credit card these days. His audience cowers when he whips out the platinum AmEx card he applied for only the day before. But he tells them not to fear. Instead, they should spend money and have faith:

“Faith is what makes the economy exist,” he says. “Without faith it is only plastic cards and paper money.”

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November 9, 2010 | 11:19 am

Federal judge blocks Okla. anti-sharia law

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

A week after Oklahomans approved a ballot measure to ban sharia law from being applied in the state’s courts, a federal judge blocked the law. It’s not all that surprising. Here’s the word from the WSJ law blog:

Oklahoma City federal Judge Vicki Miles-LaGrange, set a Nov. 22 hearing to consider whether the Save Our State Amendment violates the U.S. Constitution. Until then, she issued a temporary restraining order preventing the state Election Board from certifying State Question 755, which passed by 70 percent last week.

The measure directs state courts to ignore “legal precepts of other nations or cultures” and specifically forbids consideration of “international law or Sharia Law.”

A Muslim activist in Oklahoma City, Muneer Awad, filed suit last week, alleging the measure violated the First Amendment, which forbids government from promoting an “establishment of religion” or interfering with “free exercise” of religion.

So why are we not surprised that Judge Miles-LaGrange ordered the injunction? Because constitutional experts seem to agree that the measure might have serious constitutional problems. “I would like to see Oklahoma politicians explain if this means that the courts can no longer consider the Ten Commandments,” said University of Oklahoma law professor Rick Tepker to CNN last week.

Here’s a little more from the AFP.

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November 8, 2010 | 7:26 pm

Georgia finally elects a Jew to statewide office

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Jews have made massive inroads in American politics—cue the comments about “The Israel Lobby”—and have become a staple of our representative democracy. But it wasn’t until last week that Georgia, the state notorious for the lynching of Leo Frank, voted in favor of a Jewish candidate in a statewide, partisan race.

His name was Sam Olens. And he will be the next Republican attorney general of Georgia.

From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

lens did it the hard way, some — not him — would say, as a member of a party whose Christian conservative base hasn’t always been tolerant of religious nonconformity.

The former chairman of the Cobb County Commission would just as soon see his accomplishment pass unnoticed. And in an interview at the state Capitol, before a meeting with Democrat Thurbert Baker, whom he will replace in January, Olens declared that geography worried him more than his faith during the campaign.

“There were four things against me,” Olens said. Yes, he was Jewish. But he was also a Florida native raised in New Jersey. He wasn’t part of the state Capitol crowd whose networks usually produce statewide candidates. Plus, he was from metro Atlanta.

“I think it is clear the Atlanta card was by far a bigger issue for me than any of the others,” Olens said. “I think we should take great pride in this state, in how little my religion played a part in the campaign.”

Turns out that Georgia actually had a Jewish governor way back in 1801. But David Emanuel, who may have later converted to Christianity, had only been elected as a Georgia state senator and merely fell into the governor’s mansion when the prior governor appointed himself to the U.S. Senate. The New Georgia Encyclopedia explains:

Emanuel is considered to be the first Jew elected to public office in the South and the first Jewish governor of any U.S. state, although he may not have been an openly practicing Jew.

Two centuries later, Olens has unquestionably broken this religion barrier.

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November 8, 2010 | 1:10 pm

Tebow penning memoir on ‘faith, family and football’

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Tim Tebow, the Broncos back-up, former Florida Gator great and Jesus Christ football star, is writing a memoir. I learned that this morning when I got my regular update from Tebow’s fan page on Facebook.

“Through My Eyes” will be published by HarperCollins. Here’s the story from Tebow’s foundation’s website:

Tebow’s much publicized life is one of most inspirational stories in American sports. He captivated the country with his relentless will to succeed on the field and his passion for others. The memoir will reveal how this remarkable young man constantly strives to be the best, has always overcome the odds and how he has managed to do so while remaining true to his faith and family values.

Tebow, the son of Christian missionaries, has a unique story to tell. From the circumstances of his birth, to his home-schooled roots, to his record-setting career as the most celebrated football player in Florida Gators history and his first round draft selection by the Denver Broncos, there’s been a lot said about Tim Tebow. Now he will have the chance to inspire readers with his own, first-hand account of his personal story.

“I am extremely excited about the opportunity to share my story of faith, family and football,” said Tebow, ‘”and look forward to taking readers inside my life, both on and off the field. As a kid, you always dream of becoming something great. Whether that dream is to become an astronaut, a famous musician, the CEO of a large company, the President, an NFL Quarterback or anything else, you will undoubtedly face all kinds of adversity on your journey. This is my story about how I was able to fulfill my dream and I hope it can inspire people of all ages that are aspiring to fulfill their dreams.”

Timmy!

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November 8, 2010 | 12:38 am

Baseball: That American Jewish pastime

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

You know I love Jews and sports. I write about them often. Basketball. Baseball. Football. Boxing. Weightlifting. Badminton—OK, not badminton. And right now a documentary is making the rounds titled “Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story.”

“Jews and Baseball” is coming to LA this month. I’ll have to check it out. Based on the above trailer, it looks like an, um, home run.

Edmon J. Rodman has a preview in JTA:

Narrated by the Academy Award-winning actor Dustin Hoffman, the feature-length production combines archival footage and more recent interviews to supply a decade-by-decade look at the contributions of Jewish players, coaches and owners, as well as the game-changing players’ union president Marvin Miller.

Highlights include a rare interview with Sandy Koufax, the greatest Jewish hurler of all time, and interviews with celebrities like talk show host Larry King and director Ron Howard. ...

The film makes the point, especially in the segment about the Dodgers abandoning Brooklyn, that the story of Jews and baseball is not just about the players, like Koufax, Hank Greenberg, Mo Berg and Al Rosen, or those who made their mark in the front office or owner’s suite. It’s also about generations of lovestruck Jewish fans.

That legacy and love continue. Koufax remains a major source of pride for me, and I can’t help but root for guys like Ryan Braun, Youk and Ian Kinsler.

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