July 3, 2009 | 1:39 pm

Palin resigns to run for president

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is resigning to focus on a run for the Republican nomination for the 2012 presidential race. From NYT:

“We know we can affect positive change outside of government,” she said in making the announcement.

Known as Sarah Barricuda when she played basketball in high school, Ms. Palin used point guard analogy in explaining her decision, saying she knows “exactly when to pass the ball so the team can win.”

She said that she planned to hand over the reins of the state government to Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell, who would be sworn in at the governor’s picnic in Fairbanks on July 25.

“This decision came after much consideration,” Ms. Palin told reporters gathered at her home, and added, “I really don’t want to disappoint anyone with this announcement.”

Is this the end of the beginning for Palin or the beginning of the end for the Republican Party?

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July 3, 2009 | 1:09 pm

LA’s Jewish mayor for the weekend

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Former Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg made a good run for Los Angeles mayor. And while he’s no Marano, Antonio Villaraigosa is a proud supporter of Israel and friend of the Jews and even honorary member of the tribe. Thus far, though, Los Angeles, which has one of the largest Jewish communities in the world, has not sworn in a Jewish mayor.

But that doesn’t mean a Jew hasn’t acted as LA mayor. That’s Council President Eric Garcetti’s duty every time Villaraigosa leaves the country.

This weekend, though, Villaraigosa will be in Africa. And with Garcetti, whose mother is Jewish, also out of the country, LAObserved reports that the “the barely existent duties of acting mayor” will fall to Jan Perry, who was recently sworn in as president pro tem.

The weekend in charge may very well make Perry, who represents the council district running from downtown through South Los Angeles, the first black Jewish woman in charge of a major metropolis.

The Jewish Journal profiled Perry, who converted to Judaism in the early ‘80s, when she was elected to the City Council in 2001. An excerpt:

The almost blanket dearth of mention of her Jewishness during the campaign may have something to do with the makeup of the 9th District electorate, which includes the cash-strapped downtown core and some business-improvement districts like the Central City Business District, the Fashion District and the Jewelry Mart.

It is hard to imagine that her conversion would have widespread voter appeal to the people who live in the district, although it probably didn’t harm her attempts to establish ties to business elites.

Perry, who is married to Westside litigator Doug Galanter and mother to their daughter, says she didn’t bring it up because, notwithstanding her support for faith-based social programs, she believes staunchly in the separation of church and state. “I never ran on a Jewish ticket,“ she says. “It’s just not something I generally do.“

Read the rest here.

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July 3, 2009 | 10:31 am

Pope to address economic crisis in encyclical

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Pope Benedict XVI will release his third encyclical Tuesday. A day before the G8 meets, the pope’s teaching document will address the economic crisis and how he believes Christians should use globalization to assist the needy.

The AP reports:

The document, entitled “Charity in Truth,“ is expected to be published soon.

The pope has said his third encyclical will outline the goals and values that the faithful must defend to ensure solidarity among all peoples.

Benedict has frequently spoken out on the financial crisis, urging leaders to ensure the world’s poor don’t end up bearing the brunt of the downturn even though they are not responsible for it. He has said the downturn shows the need to rethink the whole global financial system.

According to an Italian newspaper, the pope’s third encyclical, “Caritas in veritate,“ will contain this:

“Without truth, without trust and love for what is truthful, there is no conscience or social responsibility, and the social action falls under the control of private interests or logics of power, with destructive effect on society, even more on a society on the way to globalization, in difficult moments like the current ones.“

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July 3, 2009 | 9:46 am

Madoff the music video

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

If Weird Al spoofed REM’s “Losing My Religion” with a tribute to Bernard Madoff, and if the classic Jewish lyrical satirist was completely tone deaf, he might sing a song like the one above.

The actual performer is Rafi Kohan. Lyrics are after the jump:

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July 3, 2009 | 6:32 am

Celebrating Shabbat at Hollywood Park

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

My contribution to this week’s list of favorite Jewish spots in Los Angeles was a short piece about Hollywood Park. That’s right: the casino where I play poker each week.

You’d be surprised, or maybe you wouldn’t, with how many of my fellow poker players are Jewish. Sometimes I look around my table and think that we’d have a minyan if only the dealer and I were Jewish too:

With so much money-changing and passing poker chips back and forth, the scene at Hollywood Park is not generally a place for the pious — though the occasional Chasid can be found playing no-limit during the week. And Inglewood hasn’t been a place that large numbers of Jews have called home in half a century.

But every Friday night, the casino that now accompanies the old Hollywood Turf Club, founded by Jack Warner and a handful of other Jewish Hollywood heavy hitters, bustles with Jews more comfortable with playing poker than lighting Shabbat candles.

Poker, of course, has a proud tradition of Jewish superstars. None more so than Stu Ungar. But there have been many others: Howard Lederer and his sister Annie Duke, Gabe Kaplan and Barry Greenstein, Mike “The Mouth” Matusow.

Bradford R. Pilcher profiled a few of them in this article for the now defunct American Jewish Life magazine:

The question is begged, not only by Stu Ungar but the litany of Jewish notables in the poker stratosphere, what the hell a bunch of Hebrew tribesmen – and women – are doing foregoing med school for the green felt?

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Jewish Big Brothers charity tourney

Nevertheless, if ever there was a world perfectly crafted for Jewish competitors, it’s high-stakes poker. Seriously. Not that plenty of members of the tribe have made their way in professional athletics, but it’d be foolish to pretend the Jewish community has rewarded athletic achievement as much as cerebral exploits. When you sit down with a stack of clay chips and a couple of hole cards, nobody’s going to make you run the hundred-yard dash, but you better have a little skill with numbers and an eye for behavioral science.

I once played in a charity poker tournament for Jewish Big Brothers Big Sisters at Hollywood Park. But that was on a Tuesday, I believe. Tell me that isn’t a Jewy looking table.

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July 2, 2009 | 4:19 pm

Vatican to launch inquisition?

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

I’ve heard several complaints today about a story from The New York Times about a new “inquisition” into U.S. nuns. Not The Inquisition, but an inquisition.

Written by the excellent Laurie Goodstein—really, she’s one of the best religion reporters out there—the article opens:

The Vatican is quietly conducting two sweeping investigations of American nuns, a development that has startled and dismayed nuns who fear they are the targets of a doctrinal inquisition.

(skip)

Some sisters surmise that the Vatican and even some American bishops are trying to shift them back into living in convents, wearing habits or at least identifiable religious garb, ordering their schedules around daily prayers and working primarily in Roman Catholic institutions, like schools and hospitals.

“They think of us as an ecclesiastical work force,” said Sister Sandra M. Schneiders, professor emerita of New Testament and spirituality at the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley, in California. “Whereas we are religious, we’re living the life of total dedication to Christ, and out of that flows a profound concern for the good of all humanity. So our vision of our lives, and their vision of us as a work force, are just not on the same planet.”

Out of character for Goodstein, this story comes off as one-sided and skeptical, at best, of the Vatican’s intentions. Which is where the story gets interesting. See, there are plenty of people who think the Vatican has been delinquent in its oversight of its stateside sisters.

For a great analysis of the story behind the story, read Rod Dreher’s blog. He writes:

How hard would it have been to have contacted well-informed orthodox Catholic sources to explain what many heterodox nuns have been up to for decades, without eliciting so much as a peep from Rome? Why was there no mention of Sr. Laurie Brink’s 2007 keynote address at the Leadership Conference for Women Religious confab? Excerpt from the address:

The dynamic option for Religious Life, which I am calling, Sojourning, is much more difficult to discuss, since it involves moving beyond the Church, even beyond Jesus. A sojourning congregation is no longer ecclesiastical. It has grown beyond the bounds of institutional religion. Its search for the Holy may have begun rooted in Jesus as the Christ, but deep reflection, study and prayer have opened it up to the spirit of the Holy in all of creation. Religious titles, institutional limitations, ecclesiastical authorities no longer fit this congregation, which in most respects is Post-Christian.

Sr. Brink praises Catholic nuns’ orders that have made this “courageous” choice. Gee, you think that this sort of thing being said as the keynote speech at the convention of the major US nuns’ organization might cause the Vatican to wonder what in the hell was going on with American nuns?

Don’t be fooled: This is a big brewing story. Whether you agree with Sister Brink or not, there is nothing Catholic (big “C”) about her call to move “beyond Jesus.“

The rest of Dreher’s commentary is here. My new colleague at GetReligion, tmatt, also touched on these developments back in April.

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July 2, 2009 | 4:12 pm

The Kavorka

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

There have been a string of great “Seinfeld” re-runs on lately. Right now, TBS is airing “The Conversion,“ in which George converts to Latvian Orthodoxy for a girl and Kramer tries to rid himself of the kavorka. Enjoy.

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July 2, 2009 | 11:58 am

Mark Sanford is not King David

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, who for some reason thinks it’s God’s will that adulterers pray together, said he was not going to resign from office because of his indiscretions. That, he decided, was another mandate from God. After all, look how bad King David screwed up—and yet God used him for amazing things.

Well, governor, you’re no king. And though you may think awfully highly of yourself, you’re not a character from the Bible either.

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July 2, 2009 | 9:32 am

Can’t buy Brad Braxton love

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Remember that Manhattan pastor who was unsuccessfully sued by a faction of his church that was unhappy with his pay and compensation package of as much as $600,000?

Well, the air never really cleared for the Rev. Brad Braxton. Monday, only nine months into one of the most distinguished pulpit appointments in the country, Braxton resigned.

“The consistent discord has made it virtually impossible to establish a fruitful covenant between the congregation and me,” Braxton wrote in an email to his congregation.

But the discord was not just over his pay. In fact, that might have been more of a straw man for liberal, big-tent churchgoers who disapproved of their new Baptist-ordained minister. More on the theological battle from The New York Times:

According to dissidents, Dr. Braxton went about that by bringing elements of evangelical tradition into church services. They said he called on worshipers to come forward and bear witness to their faith, favored the gospel choir over the church’s traditional choir, and preached at times what they considered a Riverside heresy: that Jesus and only Jesus was the way to salvation.

Some members of the congregation may believe that, said Constance Guice-Mills, a member of the church. “But his focus on personal salvation, on the individual, was diametrically opposed to the tradition of Riverside. Here, we believe you achieve salvation by doing social justice. Out in the world. And we have people from all backgrounds. Buddhists.”

According to supporters like Ms. Schmidt, the council chairwoman, Dr. Braxton’s theological views were consistent with the Riverside culture. But he also recognized the great challenge facing liberal Protestants — the extraordinary growth of evangelical churches for 30 years.

You can read the rest of that that story here and my commentary on it here.

That an evangelical pastor could be ask to lead a congregation with a strong contingency of members who seem somewhat Unitarian is surprising. That those members could be so influential as to force the pastor to resign against the wishes of the church majority and its board is amazing.

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July 1, 2009 | 4:18 pm

Ethiopia to keep the Ark secret

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Last week I reported on some building anticipation that the Ethiopian Orthodox church was going to reveal the Ark of the Covenant, which it church claims they have kept in hiding since the ark holding God’s law disappeared from Jerusalem around 700 BC.

Today we learn that the Ark is not going to be moved to a museum for public viewing. It will remain in its secret shrine, accessible to only a few of the highest priests.

“I am deeply disappointed that the Italian media misquoted me and disseminated false information about me unveiling the Ark of the Covenant to the world,“ Patriarch Abune Paulos said at a news conference. “It is a fabrication, disinformation.“

Abune added: “I would like to confirm once again that the Ark of the Covenant and the sacred tablets containing the Ten Commandments that God delivered to Moses are in Ethiopia.“

Shocking development, I know.

This, obviously, only contributes to the mystery—myth?—surrounding Ethiopia’s claims to the Ark. But it’s probably for the best. We don’t need any scenes that those in the video above.

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July 1, 2009 | 3:55 pm

‘Who is Shmuley Boteach?‘

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

That’s a question you may be asking after seeing his name on this blog and far bigger news outlets in the wake of Michael Jackson’s death last week. Shmuley Boteach, the author of “Kosher Sex” who has said he wants to streamline Judaism into “the next Buddhism,“ may be a rockstar rabbi but he’s not universally known.

Fortunately, Slate answer that question with a profile of the iconoclastic rabbi eight years ago. The article opens by showing just how important the King of Pop was to Boteach’s rise in that kingdom and finishes with his vision for God’s Kingdom.

In explaining where Boteach came from and how he fell out of favor with Chabad, Benjamin Soskis wrote:

Though he had been brought up in a modern Orthodox home in Miami and Los Angeles, as a teen-ager he became increasingly involved in the ultra-Orthodox Lubavitch, or Chabad, movement. Founded in 18th-century Russia as an offshoot of Hasidic Judaism, the Lubavitch are dedicated to making Jewish ritual accessible to even unlearned Jews. When Chabad moved its base to Crown Heights, Brooklyn, after World War II, its emphasis on outreach to secular Jews intensified; the group founded schools throughout the country and outposts around the world, all in the belief that when all Jews embraced their religion, the Messiah would arrive. (The guys with the beards and dark suits who stop you on the street and ask, “Are you Jewish?“ and then hand you a pair of phylacteries are Lubavitchers.)

When Shmuley was 13, he met the movement’s charismatic leader, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, whom some considered then to be the Messiah and still do today, even after his death seven years ago. The Rebbe, as Schneerson was called, bestowed upon Shmuley a generous blessing—friends joked that perhaps Shmuley was the Messiah—and later dispatched him, at age 22, to Oxford to serve as a religious emissary. There Shmuley founded the L’Chaim Society, which he quickly turned into the university’s second largest club by recruiting high-profile speakers to address topics often only tangentially related to Judaism. Boy George spoke about redemption after drug addiction, and Argentinian soccer star Diego Maradona told of praying at the Western Wall in preparation for the World Cup.

As Shmuley’s stature on campus grew, his relations with the Lubavitch leadership began to fray. The L’Chaim Society attracted as many non-Jews as Jews—its president one year was an African-American Baptist—and his peers felt Shmuley was spending too much time courting gentiles, thereby diluting outreach efforts and possibly even encouraging intermarriage. Shmuley replied with what would become his signature defense: that broadening the visibility of Judaism to the general public would inevitably, if circuitously, attract Jews. “To get Jews interested in the Jewish world,“ he later said, “you have to get the non-Jews interested. The Jews will follow what the non-Jews are doing.“

You can read the entire article here. As you can imagine, not everyone agrees with Boteach—I’ve heard more than a few Jews call him a phony, though I guess some have said worse things about me.

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