March 15, 2012 | 5:57 pm

‘Jewish Stinginess’ and ‘Anne Frank’ cards in ‘Settlers of the West Bank’ board game

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

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I was never one for “Settlers of Catan,” and I certainly won’t be playing a rip-off called “The Settlers of the West Bank.”

The game, which allows players to use an “Anne Frank Card” to colonize the West Bank and a “Jewish Stinginess” card to gain resources, had been available on the Web site of the Dutch state-funded TV station VPRO. But not after the Simon Wiesenthal Center and others complained about the games casting of Jews.

A bit of the story about the game, before it was taken down, from the Jerusalem Post:

In the game, the user is a settler trying to expand his community and mine diamonds and Dead Sea mud while producing textile and bulldozers. Players can use the “Jewish stinginess” card to force competitors to hand over resources. The instructions refer three times to the “nation’s typical mercantile spirit.”

Terrorist attacks are described as a natural result of settlement expansion. “Saw wood, and you get wood chips: Not everyone’s happy with the Israeli settlements. Least of all the terrorist,” the instructions explain. “Terrorist attacks” cost players resources.

The settler may also use the “Mahmoud Ahmadinejad card” to avoid losing resources to a terrorist and simultaneously draw resources from other players. The Anne Frank House is a “winning point” for the settler.

The game first appeared on VPRO’s website for younger viewers and was prominently reposted last month. The network explained the reposting by saying: “It’s one of the items everyone loves to hate.”

Read the rest here.

Some are calling the game a satirical criticism of the settler movement—and there is plenty to criticize. But this game goes beyond that issue and takes aim at Jewish in general.

March 15, 2012 | 4:33 pm

Jason Segel on being the Jewish ‘oaf’

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

“I’m terrified of having kids; I’m afraid I’ll crush them like Lennie from “Of Mice and Men,’” Jason Segel told The Jewish Journal.

As someone who is usually afraid to hold his friends’ kids, I get where Segel is coming from. More about the Jewish identify of one of the stars of “How I Met Your Mother” and a few great comedic films, from the Journal’s Naomi Pfefferman:

Segel may be the most soulful of the Jewish comic-romantic leads, a list that also includes Ben Stiller and Paul Rudd, and for this he partly credits his childhood, which, like that of many comedians, had its share of strife. Segel’s father is Jewish, his mother is not, and while he was raised Jewish, he attended an Episcopal middle school, followed in the afternoons by Hebrew school at Kehillat Israel in Pacific Palisades.

“At Hebrew school they told me I’m not Jewish, because my mother is Christian, and at Christian school I was the only Jewish student, so they didn’t like me,” he recalled. “It was kids standing around me in a circle, jumping on my back and chanting, ‘Ride the oaf!’ ”

Then there was the matter of Segel’s bar mitzvah invitations: “I got called into the principal’s office, like I’d done something wrong, and he said, ‘Everyone is very excited about your little party, but they don’t know what a bar mitzvah is. Would you mind getting up in front of the school and explaining?” he recalled. “So there I was, standing in front of the assembly, voice cracking, puberty-ridden Jason Segel, croaking, ‘On Saturday, I become a man’ — and it literally direct-cut afterwards to me getting punched in the face.”

Read the rest here.

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March 14, 2012 | 10:42 pm

Atheist ‘slaves, obey your masters’ billboard torn down

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Yes, people should be offended by billboard from AmericanAtheists.org that featured a depiction of an African slave and quoted Colossians 3:22: “Slaves, obey your masters.” Erected in one of the most diverse neighborhoods in Harrisburg, Penn., the billboard was ripped down after a day.

RNS reports:

The atheists behind the sign said they were trying to draw attention to the state House’s recent designation of 2012 as “The Year of the Bible”—an action by lawmakers that the atheists have called offensive.

But there were concerns that erecting such a billboard is playing with fire.

“If this had been Detroit, there would have been a riot,” said Aaron Selvey of Harrisburg, who visited the billboard site last Wednesday (March 7), the day after the sign was put up and later torn down.

“We don’t want things to escalate into violence or community tension, so we try to address situations like that right away,” added Shannon Powers, spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission. “We would not recommend tearing down because it could lead to escalation. It hasn’t, and we’re tremendously thankful for that.

Read the rest here.

This, of course, is not the first atheist billboard to raise a lot of ire. And then there was the Raelians “God is a myth” billboard.

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March 13, 2012 | 9:20 pm

Jeremiah Wright endorses ‘March to Jerusalem’

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Jeremiah Wright and Bill Clinton at 1998 White House Prayer Breakfast. Photo by Wikipedia

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright sure knows how to stop people from forgetting him.

You might remember Wright as a source of much controversy for Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential campaign. Then Wright returned to his old church and ranted against the media—then he took aim at “them Jews.”

Now he’s back. Sort of.

Wright, notorious for “God Damn America,” has endorsed the March to Jerusalem, which Arutz Sheva reports as seeking to end “Judaization” of Jerusalem. The ADL is not the only group to note the march’s anti-Semitic overtones.

Arutz Sheva reports:

It follows on the heels of the anti-Israel, anti-Semitic Doha Conference in Qatar on the Defense of ‘Occupied’ Jerusalem,” a two day long effort to demonize Israel and deny Judaism’s more than three thousand year connection to Jerusalem.

Both events are designed to reverse what their organizers call the “Judaization” of “occupied Jerusalem.”

The White House has refused to comment on Wright’s decision to endorse the “March to Jerusalem”, or the presence of State Department consultants at the so-called Doha Conference.

The National Conference of Jewish Affairs said “That the President’s long-time pastor and “spiritual leader” is now endorsing the Global March to Jerusalem, without a reaction from the White House, underscores President Obama’s failure to recognize the unalterable significance of Judaism’s multi-millennial connection to Jerusalem, which is the capital of the Jewish State, Israel.”

I’m not clear on why Obama would need to comment on Wright’s activities. The National Conference of Jewish Affairs mischaracterizes the president’s relationship with Wright. I have no idea whether Obama is still in contact with him, but Obama long ago left Trinity and Wright isn’t the pastor there anymore.

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March 13, 2012 | 12:14 pm

Report: Circumcision lowers prostate cancer risk

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

The World Health Organization has already recommended circumcision based on research showing that it lowers the risk of heterosexual men contracting HIV. And that wives and girlfriends of circumcised men are less likely to get HPV. Of course, a rare circumcision procedure, known as oral suction, carries its own very serious health risks in infants.

But now a new study indicates that circumcision lowers the risk of prostate cancer. Reuters reports:

The new study, published in the journal Cancer, jibes with those findings but falls short of actually proving that circumcision will reduce a boy’s future cancer risk, said Jonathan Writer, at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, who led the study.

“I would not go out and advocate for widespread circumcision to prevent prostate cancer,” Wright said. “We see an association, but it doesn’t prove causality.”

Although most U.S. men are circumcised, the procedure has become less popular over the past decade, and various groups have spoken out against it. In September, the Royal Dutch Medical Association discouraged the practice, calling it a “painful and harmful ritual.”

Read the rest here. The study is sure to provide new fodder for the circumcision wars.

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March 13, 2012 | 11:37 am

Is the media mad that Invisible Children got people to pay attention to Kony?

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Jon Stewart had a good insight into one possible reason for why the media has been rather critical of the “Kony 2012” video. It’s around the 3:20 mark, and it has to do with whom viewers are listening to. “Mainly, the media just seems annoyed that it took this guy”—Invisible Children’s Jason Russell—“to get people to listen.”

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March 11, 2012 | 10:20 pm

Abramoff talks about the Talmud and bribing politicians

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Abramoff testifying before the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, Sep. 29, 2004. Photo by Wikipedia/indian.senate.gov

Jack Abramoff, the former superlobbyist who spent three and a half years in federal prison for conspiring to bribe lawmakers, is visiting American Jewish University in Los Angeles on April 1 to talk about political reform. No fools.

Abramoff has been making the rounds and promoting his new book, “Capitol Punishment.” The Jewish Journal‘s Jonah Lowenfeld caught up with the Beverly Hills High graduate recently. Here’s what he had to say:

Abramoff believes corrupt lawmakers — and the lobbyists who seek to influence them by improper means — don’t see anything wrong with what they’re doing. He should know — he didn’t think he was doing anything wrong, either.

“You’ll hear from Congressmen, ‘A $2,000 contribution isn’t going to buy my vote.’ ‘A meal isn’t going to buy my vote,’ ” Abramoff said, the table between us bare but for his laptop computer. “But we learn, in fact, from the Talmud that they’re wrong.”

Abramoff, 53, has been an observant, Orthodox Jew since he was 12, so it’s not surprising that he points to a talmudic source as part of his new campaign against bribery of public officials. But while he was showering legislators with gifts, Abramoff believed he wasn’t on the wrong side of Jewish law, as the Torah restriction on bribery focuses only on judges.

“Legislators,” Abramoff said, “I never thought or considered them to be judges.”

He later found Jewish commentators who do equate bribing lawmakers with bribing judges, but Abramoff said that, generally speaking, it’s difficult to pinpoint why what lobbyists do is wrong. Even those who don’t live and work inside the Beltway, he said, shrug their shoulders at the thought of a lobbyist buying a meal for a lawmaker.

“But having a restaurant where congressmen can come and eat sushi to their hearts’ content, drink wine and then leave without a bill? Over and over again?” Abramoff asked, rhetorically. “Put him on a Gulfstream, fly him to Scotland to play St. Andrews and Carnoustie and all these places, you know? Raise a bunch of money for him? I think we’re getting into the trouble zone here.”

Ya think? Read the rest here.

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March 11, 2012 | 1:36 pm

Army sergeant suspected of killing 16 Afghan civilians

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

After more than a decade, the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan might have its My Lai moment.

Reuters reports:

One or more U.S. soldiers shot dead 16 civilians, including nine children according to Afghan officials, in Afghanistan’s south on Sunday in what witnesses described as a massacre.

NATO said they had detained one U.S. soldier in the killings. U.S. officials said the soldier was a staff sergeant.

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Afghan officials gave varying accounts of the number of shooters involved in the incident. Karzai’s office released a statement quoting a villager as saying “American soldiers woke my family up and shot them in the face.”

Minister of Border and Tribal Affairs Asadullah Khalid said a U.S. soldier had burst into three homes near his base in the middle of the night, killing a total of 16 people including 11 people in the first house.

A spokesman for NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said the U.S. soldier “walked back to the base and turned himself into U.S. Forces this morning”, adding there had been no military operations taking place in the area when the incident occurred.

More here, including a statement from President Obama and a description of “blood-spattered walls.”

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March 11, 2012 | 12:37 am

Pat Robertson: Time to legalize marijuana

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Pat Robertson in Metairie, La. February 12, 2006. Photo by Wikipedia/Paparazzo Presents

For once, televangelist Pat Robertson says something not crazy. Via the New York Times:

“I really believe we should treat marijuana the way we treat beverage alcohol,” Mr. Robertson said in an interview on Wednesday. “I’ve never used marijuana and I don’t intend to, but it’s just one of those things that I think: this war on drugs just hasn’t succeeded.”

Legalizing and taxing marijuana, like the U.S. government does with alcohol and tobacco, would not end the war on drugs—nor should we legalize meth or cocaine or heroin.

But Robertson certainly has a point about the effects of marijuana prosecutions. And it’s not like there aren’t already a lot of loopholes to get marijuana legally, at least under various state and municipal laws (though those run afoul of federal law).

Still, can you imagine Robertson teaming up with NORML?

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March 9, 2012 | 4:45 pm

On Iran, Peres says Israel shouldn’t ‘start by shooting’

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

If you’re in Los Angeles, you probably heard that Israeli President Shimon Peres is in town. He’s been making his way across the United States, and finishing his visit out here. Last night at the Beverly Hilton (duh?), Peres advocated for patience on the Iran issue.

Jonah Lowenfeld reports:

“I don’t think anyone would suggest you start by shooting,” Peres told the over 1,000 Jews who gathered at the Beverly Hilton to welcome him on the first day of his four-day trip to Los Angeles.

Peres served three times as Israel’s Prime Minister before taking on the largely ceremonial post of president in 2007, and today he is both elder statesman and head of state. But if media coverage before and after his private meeting with President Obama on March 4 focused on how his message to the American leader might differ from what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu might be saying, Peres batted away any talk of a gap between the U.S. and Israel when it came to preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.

“While everybody is looking for differences, the basis is common and agreed,” Peres said, noting that there was support around the world for the current regime of sanctions against Iran, and said they should be given time to work.

“If we have to choose, let’s start with the nonviolent, [with] no war beginning, but saying very clearly that all other options are on the table,” Peres said, sounding—at least in those general terms—very much like both Netanyahu and Obama.

Read the rest here.

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March 9, 2012 | 10:41 am

Harold Camping calls his end-of-world predictions ‘incorrect and sinful’

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Truck with announcement of the of "End of the World" on May 2011, 2011 per the prediction of Harold Camping. Photo by Wikipedia/Bart Everson

Talk about a mea culpa: Harold Camping didn’t just say that his end-of-the-world predictions in 2011 was wrong—it was “incorrect and sinful.”

RNS reports:

“We have learned the very painful lesson that all of creation is in God’s hands and he will end time in his time, not ours!” reads the statement signed by Camping and his staff and posted on his ministry’s website.

“We humbly recognize that God may not tell his people the date when Christ will return, any more than he tells anyone the date they will die physically.”

The letter goes on to say that “though many dates are circulating,” Camping and Family Radio won’t be making any more predictions. Not after striking out twice last year.

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March 8, 2012 | 12:58 pm

‘Kony 2012’ and Invisible Children’s Christian roots

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

KONY 2012 from INVISIBLE CHILDREN on Vimeo.

Invisible Children didn’t just rise up this week with their viral video “Kony 2012.”

Invisible Children considers Joseph Kony of the Lord’s Resistance Army to be a war criminal of the highest order, and their hope is that “Kony 2012” will lead to his arrest and trial before the International Criminal Court. This is but the latest effort by Invisible Children to draw attention to Kony and the plight of African children he kidnaps into his militia. And it’s gotten a lot of attention, including some criticism, and prompted this response from Invisible Children.

Everything else aside, Invisible Children has its roots in the Christian community. And here is what I wrote about them in a Wall Street Journal op-ed two years ago titled, “How Missionaries Lost Their Chariots of Fire”:

Invisible Children’s media kit emphatically states that its founders “believe in Christ, but do NOT want to limit themselves in any way.”

Their motivation, though, certainly comes from a Christian place. “If you take that message—love another as yourself—and you apply that to kids in northern Uganda who are getting abducted, what does that mean? I knew, from that, that I had to do something,” says Ben Keesey, the CEO.

Read the rest here.

I’m not sure how central Christianity is today to the work being done at Invisible Children. But I know that their support still seems strongest, at least anecdotally, among young, educated Christians. Maybe I’m basing that too much on my Facebook feed, which is full of friends who, like me, were college friends with Keesey. Or maybe it’s that like Jewish World Watch in the Jewish community, Invisible Children is something that a lot of young Christians gravitate toward as their global-healing effort.

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