Seattle Jew

2011-02-27T10:14:00.000-08:00

In liberal Jewish synagogues across the country, women have achieved feminist success. They wear ritual garments. They read from the Torah. They are rabbis. But when you enter an Orthodox Jewish synagogue, you enter a gender time warp. Here, women do not count in a prayer quorum. They are not permitted near the Torah. In many cases, you would be hard-pressed even to figure out where the women are located, since they may be seated behind a curtain or wall, or upstairs in a gallery, far from the action. As Tevye the milkman would say, "Sounds crazy, no?"

In many synagogues, women cannot even hold a position of any meaningful leadership: The National Council of Young Israel forbids its 140-member Orthodox synagogues to elect a female president.
If a female synagogue president can be prohibited, imagine the Orthodox Jewish reaction to a female rabbi -- a woman with religious authority. Two years ago, a prominent Orthodox rabbi in New York, Avi Weiss of the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale, in consultation with Blu Greenberg, founder of the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance, bravely broke with conventional Orthodox tradition and ordained Sara Hurwitz. Since the mid-1990s, at least three other Orthodox rabbis had followed their conscience and quietly ordained individual women. But Weiss was the first to ordain a woman publicly.
Weiss never actually called Hurwitz "rabbi." Instead, Weiss coined a term, "maharat," an acronym of four Hebrew words -- manhigah, hilhatit, ruhanit and toranit -- which means a "female leader in Jewish religious law, spiritual matters and Torah." The word is cumbersome; it requires detailed explanation. Everyone with a passing familiarity of Judaism has at least some notion of the concept of "rabbi." But no one, not even those steeped in Orthodox Jewish culture and tradition, not even those of us immersed in the feminist world, can easily explain the definition or derivation of "maharat." When asked about the term, I typically reel off the Hebrew words that are its building blocks, then I translate them into English. I inevitably forget one of the terms, get confused and start again. The process is exhausting, confusing and off-putting.
More troubling, "maharat" connotes a secondary status. For this reason, I opposed the title the instant I heard it. Created for women alone, and designed to differentiate women rabbis from "real" rabbis, the title evokes the bridesmaid who is never the bride.
Last year, Weiss announced that Hurwitz had a new title: "rabba" (ra-BAH). This term, he said, would clarify that Hurtwitz is a full member of the rabbinic staff. A feminized version of the title "rabbi" made sense; Hurwitz has the same credentials as a male rabbi. She completed the same course of study required of male rabbis and works in the same capacity, with the same pastoral obligations.
True, Hurwitz was not being called "rabbi," which Orthodox feminists prefer, because the term conveys the same authority and respect that men enjoy. But in the Orthodox Jewish world, change comes slowly. "Rabba" was close enough -- and the implications obvious enough -- to make those of us active in Orthodox feminism feel triumphant. Moreover, Weiss announced that Hurwitz would head a new seminary for women, Yeshivat Maharat, educating a future pool of women for the rabbinate, so that she would not be the one and only "rabba."
So here you have a woman rabbi who cedes the status of rabbi to respect right-wing members of the Orthodox world. How did that wing react? By denouncing those with the audacity even to imagine that women could approach religious leadership. A March 2010 statement from Agudath Israel, an ultra-Orthodox organization of rabbis, threatened to expel Hurwitz's synagogue from Orthodoxy. The Rabbinical Council of America, one of the world's largest and oldest organizations of Orthodox rabbis, likewise pressured Weiss.
After several weeks, Weiss retreated -- somewhat. He agreed not to ordain women as rabbis at Yeshivat Maharat and not to confer the title "rabba" upon the graduates. Turns out that Hurwitz is indeed the one and only "rabba."
Last month, the most liberal Orthodox rabbinic group in the United States, the International Rabbinic Fellowship, which was founded three years ago by Weiss, together with Rabbi Marc Angel, voted down its first proposal to accept women as members of the organization. But at least the issue is on the agenda.
The current state of affairs is immoral and shameful. There is no halakhic (Jewish legal) prohibition against female rabbis. A "rabbi" is simply a teacher and master of Jewish texts and law. Therefore, some of us are taking matters into our own hands. We don't have the religious authority to ordain anyone. But we recognize the rabbinic status of the handful of women who have been ordained by Orthodox authorities.
We are also involved in independent prayer groups in which women and men lead together, even though they do not sit together. These groups are not egalitarian: women may not lead every part of the service. But women are encouraged to lead all parts for which there is no halakhic prohibition. In the independent prayer group I attend on the upper east side of Manhattan, Yavneh, women recite Hallel, one of the most beautiful songs of praise in the liturgy; women hold the Torah; women read from the Torah; women recite the blessing over the wine.
Like Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof, we struggle with the concept that sacred tradition is fixed yet flexible. Everyone involved in religion -- any religion, in any level of observance -- knows that the key is to find the balance between tradition and modernity.

Jews still struggle to feel at home in Malmö

2011-02-25T22:26:00.000-08:00

Jews still struggle to feel at home in Malmö

Published: 16 Feb 11
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/32094/20110216/

A year after claims about an exodus of Jews from Malmö made global headlines, many Jewish residents still don't feel safe in southern Sweden, The Local's Karen Holst discovers.

Jews warned about visiting southern Sweden (16 Dec 10)
US Jewish centre seeks ban on Malmö mayor (14 Oct 10)
Jews flee Malmö as anti-Semitism grows (27 Jan 10)

The past couple of years have been turbulent for Malmö's Jewish community. A spike in anti-Semitic attacks in 2009 prompted a number of Jews to leave the city altogether, concluding they would never feel accepted there.

Controversial comments by the town's long-serving Social Democratic mayor Ilmar Reepalu also put Malmö in the spotlight, drawing criticism from within his own party, as well as from influential Jewish organisations aboard.

And in December 2010, the US-based Simon Wiesenthal Center issued a warning urging Jews to exercise "extreme caution" when traveling in southern Sweden.

While current statistics show a significant decline in anti-Semitic attacks in 2010 when compared to 2009, the nearly 3,000-member Jewish community in Skåne continues to shrink.

“People wonder if there will even be a Jewish community here in 10 years,” Fredrik Sieradzki, spokesperson for the Jewish Community of Malmö (Judiska Församlingen i Malmö), tells The Local.

Despite the decrease in reported attacks, as well as community efforts to ease racist rancor, many of south Sweden’s Jewish residents continue to feel dangerously threatened.

According to Sieradzki, many young Jewish families are relocating because they feel Skåne is not a safe area to raise their children. Coupled with an aging baby-boomer generation, there are few willing or present to take vacated leadership positions within many of the area's Jewish organisations.

“Some of us feel there is no hope and we are losing people because of anti-Semitism,” he adds.

Police reports show the number of anti-Semitic incidents nearly doubled in 2009 but have declined in 2010 by more than half.

“We believe the number of attacks increased in 2009 due to the Davies Cup and two big demonstrations against Israel. Now the statistics show hate-crime against Jews going down dramatically in 2010,” explains Susanne Gosenius, a hate crime coordinator for Skåne police.

Sieradzki argues, however, that the numbers may not reflect reality as many Jewish residents choose not to report every incident, such as intimidating slurs and other verbal attacks.

“Maybe the numbers are lower or maybe not. It doesn’t matter because the feeling is the same – many of us cannot and do not feel at home here,” says Sieradzki.

He points out that the severity of attacks is also intensifying.

Last October a group of about 20 teenagers attacked the Jewish community’s residential education centre during a youth retreat.

“The first night they shouted vicious, nasty slurs. The next night it escalated and they broke down the fence and were banging on windows and doors,” Sieradzki explains.

“It was quite frightening.”

Sieradzki, who applauded the nearby municipality of Vellinge for its swift response to the incident, also points out that the teenagers in the attacking group were not Muslim as many are quick to assume.

“These boys were not Arabs. They were all Swedish. And I assure you the Jewish people are not attacking anybody.”

Despite the year’s decline in reported attacks, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the largest international organization for Jewish human rights, nevertheless went ahead with its decision to issue a travel warning for Jews visiting southern Sweden.

The move put Skåne to the same plane as countries that have experienced heinous, even fatal attacks and bombings on Jewish people, such as Turkey, Greece and Belgium.

“We made a very serious statement by putting Malmö on our advisory list,” Rabbi Abraham Cooper, Associate Dean of the Center, tells The Local.

“It’s a serious move and we hope to take serious measures to rectify it.”

But the warning rankled some members of Malmö's Jewish community, who claim they weren't informed about the move ahead of time, and surprised local authorities as statistics showed that attacks were on the decline.

“I can understand that Jewish people feel threatened in Malmö,” hate crimes specialist Gosenius explains.

“We have a huge population from the Middle East, West Bank and Gaza and most (Jewish) victims describe their perpetrators as young Muslim men.

“But I’m not sure the warning for Malmö fits. It’s a very drastic act.”

Sieradzki has mixed emotions about the Wiesenthal Center's "surprise" advisory.

While he understands the Center’s point, he argues the move may have been too severe and feels the Jewish leaders in Skåne could have helped moderate the message had they known about it.

“They should have talked to us first,” argues Sieradzki.

“We are trying to create an atmosphere in Malmö where we co-exist and I’m not sure that this travel warning is good.”

Rabbi Cooper rejects the idea that the Center's warning came as a surprise, pointing to a meeting in Stockholm prior to the advisory where prominent members of south Sweden’s Jewish community were in attendance.

“The analysis comes from the ground up,” says Cooper.

“Experiences from Jewish members in Malmö and a previous colleague there led to what we did.”

He stated that families should be able to go to any house of worship, whether it’s Fridays, Saturdays or Sundays, without fear of intimidation, violence or something worse.

“People of faith, or no faith, should be able to walk on the street and feel equally protected. There is a climate of intimidation in Malmö and we need to take steps to address it,” says Cooper.

In response to 2009’s hike in attacks, Malmö city officials created the Dialogue Forum to ease hostilities between Jews, Muslims, the Roma, and other victimized minorities.

As the Forum's one-year anniversary approaches, the Jewish community believes the dialogue has had little effect.

“It’s sad we have to have a group, and we do hope something good comes of it but there hasn’t been anything yet,” says Sieradzki, adding that the 6,000-member Islamic Centre, of their own initiative, recently invited members of the Jewish community to their mosque.

Mayor Reepalu, who was also singled out by the Wiesenthal Center last year for comments about the city's Jewish community in which he "blamed the situation on the Jews themselves as the community did not 'distance itself from Israel,'" according to the Center.

While Reepalu refused to be interviewed for this article, he has undertaken efforts in the last year to make amends and further understand the hostilities Jewish people encounter in Malmö through meetings with Sieradzki and other Jewish community leaders.

Since then the 15-year mayor has invited members from the Simon Wiesenthal Center to Malmö, although an exact date for the visit has not yet been set.

“I can confirm we are coming to Sweden and we are coming next month,” says Rabbi Cooper.

While the agenda for the meeting is still being hammered out, the focus will likely be on improving the situation in southern Sweden.

The meeting will be also accompanied by a seminar on anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.

"It’s good that something is happening," says Sieradzki.

"There are Jews is Malmö. We live here, we are here to stay and we won’t gain anything by attacking each other."

Karen Holst (news@thelocal.se/08 656 6518)

Huckabee

2011-02-21T09:04:00.000-08:00

Here is the beginning of my post. And here is the rest of it.

Mike Huckabee saw Orthodox Jews for the first time at Jerusalem's Western Wall. | AP Photo Close

By BEN SMITH | 2/18/11 10:52 AM EST

A parade of Republican presidential hopefuls is making its way to Israel, signaling the candidates’ seriousness about foreign policy and national security and their hawkish approach to terrorism. As POLITICO recently reported, “A stop in the Jewish state is becoming as critical as an early trip to Iowa or New Hampshire.”
But while Mitt Romney and Haley Barbour check the Israel box and move on, Mike Huckabee lingers. This month, the former Arkansas governor spent two weeks in Israel on his 15th trip to the Jewish state, during which his suggestion that the Palestinians go find their own state in some Arab country prompted a settler leader, Dani Dayan, to announce that he is praying Huckabee will be elected president.

Who I am ...

2011-02-20T17:28:00.000-08:00

Last Xmas, the genome company, 23andMe had a sale! $100 for a genome. My wife and I ordered our done and the results are in!

I am a VERY weird bird!

Paternal side: Locations of haplogroup R1b1b2 circa 500 years ago, before the era of intercontinental travel. R1b1b2 is the most common haplogroup in western Europe, where its branches are clustered in various national populations. R1b1 was confined to Iberia and southern France during the Ice Age. R1b1b2a1a2b is characteristic of the Basque, while R1b1b2a1a2f2 reaches its peak in Ireland and R1b1b2a1a1 is most commonly found on the fringes of the North Sea.[/caption]

Lets start with the paternal side. Paternal Haplogroup:R1b1b2a1a2d. By family stories, I knew we were from Andalus, that is pre 1492 Spain. . That story is confirmed here.

What is surprising is that we "begin" .. that is start ... from a few ancestors only 17,000 years ago .. the time of the last ice age. We have origins from the North Sea. Sounds like some Viking got to some ancestor and passed on his genome. The other fun idea is that we may be related to the Cro Magnons, the first modern people in Europe and believed by some to be the direct ancestors of the Basque!
,
The Maternal Haplogroup, U1b, is part of Haplogroup R. R arose in southwest Asia not long after humans first expanded beyond Africa. It eventually spread throughout Eurasia, giving rise to most of the major haplogroups of Europe as well as one – haplogroup B – that was involved in the migration of people from Siberia into the Americas.[/caption]
Mom's genome is VERY different. We appear to be related to the first folks who left Africa, 60,000 years ago!

Of course this raises an intriguing question. If my genome is half Viking and half African, if some of my closest relatives are indigenous to South America, South African, and my paternal family name is Negri, am I now legally a Hispanic or an African-Australian-American?

Egtypt: SuperBowl Sunday

2011-02-06T09:40:00.000-08:00

Egypt on THE-Ave.US

Wouldn't it be wonderful if we are seeing the dawn of the first Arab democracy?

There is an historic irony here. Islam's explosion out of Arabia under Umar, was more than a military conquest. The Byzantine empire was a rotten relic of Rome. It fell to a more rational, more "modern" system inspired by the Prophet's time as the chief magistrate of Medina. From the beginning of the conquest, the forces of Islam, brought the rule of a law and a sense of classlessness quite alien to the Bishops and Bureaucrats of Roman Christendom. Islam offered a system based on equality and opportunity, at least for those willing to accept the Prophet's new religion.

For many Muslims, including Malcom X, that sense of community, that sense of fairness is Islam itself. As flawed as Iran is, Khomeini's vision was to build a modern democratic state on the principles of Medina. Is al Qaeda's reticence the result of their fear of true democracy arising in Egypt?

I have never been to Egypt and am sure that the Egyptians I have met represent a very special sample of the population. Still, there is something Jeffersonian about what is happening in Egypt.

by Bruce Riedel at Daily Beast

There is a famous Arab saying that the dog barks but the caravan moves on. In Egypt, the caravan of change has moved fast this winter, but one of the dogs most expected to bark has been silent so far. Al Qaeda’s number two, Ayman Zawahiri, who has spent his life fighting Hosni Mubarak and calling for a revolution in his homeland, has yet to comment in public on the momentous events in his native land. His silence is probably temporary. But it shows al Qaeda’s top leadership is under significant pressure in Pakistan today from the American counter-terrorism offensive ordered by President Obama two years ago.

read more

SuperBowl Sunday: Egypt

2011-02-06T09:33:00.000-08:00

CAIRO — Sunday's meeting was the broadest representation of Egypt's fragmented opposition to meet with the new vice president since the protests demanding the immediate ouster of longtime President Hosni Mubarak began on Jan. 25. The regime agreed not to hamper freedom of press and not to interfere with text messaging and Internet. The opposition groups represented included the youthful supporters of leading democracy advocate Mohamed ElBaradei, who are one of the main forces behind the protests.
The outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's largest opposition group, and a number of smaller leftist, liberal groups also attended the meeting, according to footage shown on state television.

Miracle of the Fried Host

2011-01-24T17:29:00.000-08:00

(Paolo Uccello, The Miracle of the Desecrated Host, 1465-69, panel 2. A Jewish pawnbroker has bought a consecrated host from a venal priest and is frying (i.e. torturing) it in a pan. Transubstantiated blood from the host is dripping from the pan and seeping under the door.)

Is This Where I Turn the Other Cheek?

2011-01-11T23:52:00.000-08:00

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE ELECT JEWS
The Jews Killed Christ! They Have Never Repented!
Only the Elect Jews Will Repent, Mourn & Be Sealed and Delivered

Rev. Fred Phelps, Westboro Baptist Church

This message is for the elect Jews still alive on this earth. All the nations are going to fight against Israel and persecute the Jews like never before in their history, until the indignation of the Lord is fulfilled. The elect Jews will be called, sealed and sanctified. These things must shortly come to pass and will happen fast. Listen up elect obedient Jews! You will have the seal of the living God soon!

The fullness of the Gentiles is almost complete! The Antichrist Bloody Beast Obama is going to become king of the world. Obama-the-Muslim is a monstrous sinner before God, promoting abortion, sodomy, proud sin and blasphemy. He is fixated on making Israel yield to his demand for a two-state solution. Israel is a savage hypocritical nation of filthy sinners before God, disproportionately engaged in sodomy, abortion, pornography and idolatry, while claiming to be the chosen people. They are armed with nuclear weapons; and God has caused them to have a deep hatred for the Palestinians from eternity past. Israel has had the bully doomed-america running interference for her for decades; that is coming to an end! Then Obama will lead the nations against Jerusalem to battle, Zechariah 14:2.

We have the promises of God that these events must come to pass; and when they do – when we see “Jerusalem compassed with armies” – those who fear and obey God will lift up their heads knowing their redemption draws nigh. See Luke 21:20, 24 and 27. It is time for the elect Jews who have a heart to know their God to mourn and rejoice. The Scriptures say they shall look upon Christ “whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him,” Zechariah 12:10 and John 19:37. “Hath God cast away his people? God forbid!” Romans 11:1. He started a work and he’s going to finish it, by calling out his elect Jews from among a doomed world and doomed Israel, upon whom the wrath is come to the uttermost (1 Th. 2:14-16).

Revelation 7 and 14 describe it. From twelve tribes, 144,000 children of Israel will be sealed; then shortly thereafter they will be standing in heaven, having been redeemed from the earth, being the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb, singing a new song that no man can learn but them! At Westboro Baptist Church we watch for the sealing of our Jewish brethren, who will be called, authenticated and delivered in a most amazing way. When that day comes we will rejoice! SO COME OUT FROM AMONG HER ELECT JEWS, and join the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ! We are your friends and brethren, we are eager to meet you; to oppose the Wicked with you; and to join Christ in the air with you, when he comes in power and glory to claim his own and punish the disobedient! See 2 Th. 1:8.

Turning the other cheek, II

2011-01-09T11:40:00.000-08:00

Again, at HA, a commenter asks

"Really SJ? I thought you professed to be a secular (rational) jew. Please help me understand.

I have never claimed to be a secular Jew.

Despite the efforts of Christians to paint us as a religion, we are not now and never have been a religion.

For the last 3500 years we have been a people .. like the Chinese, the Hindus, or the French.

We are an ancient people, perhaps the oldest of all the world's peoples that have a continuity of culture and tradition.

Part of our tradition is a religion, Judaism. That is as old as we are, and has evolved as much as we ourselves have evolved. The traces of our origins in the Torah are nothing less than a magical viewing glass into the origins of our people and our belie.

In the 3000 or so years since the Torah was written, a lot has happened and we have had many wonderful teachers. Some of these are recorded as the prophets of our scriptures. Later we had teachers like Hillel, the great Pharisee whose teachings seem ti be the basis for the good parts of the words attributed to Jesus.

Since Hillel, we have had Akiba, Maimonides, Halevy, Abravanel, Spinoza, Marx, Ricardo, Weizman, Gompers, Einstein, Rabin, ... and many more whose ideas stem from the root of the ancient Torah.

If you do not mind Jewish pride, I see part of our history as being one of the great roots from which the tree of knowledge has grown.

Oh yeh, and the prophet David Goldstein of HA, is one of the fruits on that tree. Eat him!

Turning the Other Cheek, I

2011-01-09T11:20:00.000-08:00

Over at HA, a comment on the thread about Gabby Shabbat Massacre in Arizona, notes ...

"I’m fascinated by the fact that it was a liberal, MBS @34, who first pointed outh that “an eye for an eye” was explicitly overturned by “turn the other cheek.”

This is yet another example of the intrinsic antisemitism of Christians. The Roman Bible did not "overturn" the Torah.By the time "the cheek" quote was supposedly at least 1500 years had passed.

The context, by7 the way, was that we, the Jews, were split. Some of us wanted to NOT turn the other cheek and fight back at our Roman oppressors. Others said we should turn the other cheek. The same debate occurred two centuries later when many of us went willingly into Auschwitz.

Giving the Roman bible credit for "overthrowing" Judaism is as disgusting as Christian claims to have brought civilization to he slaves of Africa.

Washington is National Football Champion

2011-01-08T07:24:00.000-08:00

=

The EWU Eagles celebrate the national championship game win over Delaware. They brought along a section of their red turf for luck.

2011-01-03T08:59:00.000-08:00

David Noble Dies
(from Toronto Star)
........ The professor made headlines in Toronto in 2004 when he handed out a memo listing the names of directors of the York University Foundation, the school’s fundraising arm, and their links to pro-Israel organizations.
After a bitter war of words with York, Noble, who is Jewish, sued the school for defamation. The case was due to go to trial next year.
In 2006, he filed a complaint with the Ontario Human Rights Commission against York for its longstanding practice of cancelling classes on Jewish high holidays such as Yom Kippur, saying it discriminated against non-Jewish students.
York changed its policy before the case was heard.
“Most people think Dave was just some kind of reckless angry man but there was so much to him,” said Doug Noble, his twin.
“As a father, brother, friend, he was everyone’s rock,” he said, adding his brother believed in fighting for injustices that were “right where he lived. He couldn’t tolerate any wrong.”
The two were very close and chatted almost every day, he said.

Forgive the Christians

2010-12-29T11:05:00.000-08:00

Judaism is very different from Christianity but, under the sobriquet of "judeo-Chrsitianity" we too get blamed for the religious inolerance of American society.

Christian reformers, liberals, see that America is flawed by intolerance. coming from Christianity, these reformers assert that the problem is not intrinsic to Christianity buy afflicts all religions. Combine the idea of "Judeo-Christianity" with the bizarre idea that Christians have of forgiving themselves then Jews somehow share the blame for the evils of slavery, evangelism, etc.

As a non Christian growing up in this society, my Paul on the road to Tarsus moments came when I realized that my own tradition really was not responsible for the evil side (or for that matter the good side) of Christendom.

That epiphany is a major reason that I reject meaning laden efforts to lump Abrahamic religions or create a Judeo-Christian common faith.

A Medal of Some Honor, an Accolade

2010-12-27T18:20:00.000-08:00

This is an essay about an accolade I received from Thehim, a priggish liberal, self described as being Jewish by descent.   I am , I suppose honored.

Thehim hates me and showed that hatred, ironically in a thread devoted to free speech. He did this by deleting comments I made about why our buses SHOULD carry ads from a group opposed to Israel. The irony is comical but I decided to use this example of liberal censorship to write about bigotry, Jewish bigotry within our own community.

Jews have always had people like Thehim. At the Passover Seder we discuss how to explain our traditions of freedom to "the son who knows too much." Some are just too smart to see the lessons of the exodus as a universal lesson we, as the Jews, an offer all mankind.

In the previous century, before Hitler and Stalin, Jews of Germany and Russia were truly patriotic. Once being of Jewish ancestry was accepted, Jews by descent were amongst the most liberals of the Russians and Germans. Some became leaders in Stalin's Russia. Trotsky died for his enthusiasms. In Germany, betrayed by the Nazis, these Germans had to flee or die along with those whose Judaism was an identity rather than a history.

Often today, Jews by descent are among our most liberal Americans. Some, like Alinsky and Gompers, led great social movements. Emmanuel and Axelrod are important figures in the Obama White House, the Passover Seder has become a new national tradition. Obama's own children attended Jewish preschools in Chicago and a cousin of Mrs. Obama is a prominent rabbi in that town. Three of the four liberals on the US Supreme Court are Jews. We, Jews by identity and Jews by descent, have good reason to be proud of our role in America.

David Goldstein, the editor of the Horsesass and its founder, is another Jew by descent. Unlike Thehim, Goldy is proud of his origins and sees Jewish liberalism as a Jewish trait ...   I spend a lot of time at his blog. Goldy writes insightfully about Washington State politics with a wit and challenge that is utterly missing from the rest of our media.

Sadly, Goldy, aka David Goldstein, allows Lee to post as an associate blogger.

"Sadly" is not because Lee can not write or, for that matter, because he hates me. That hate is a personal and unpleasant affair. My concern here is for Horsesass, David Goldstein's creation. Lee is no Goldy. Thehim can write.   Unfortunately, unlike Goldy, Lee has little breadth and seems to have deep knowledge of on;y two things ... Thehim's ego and the drug wars.

That mixture is toxic. Lee rarely posts on anything other than drugs . Withing the drug sphere, Lee is a devout with all the conviction of a religious fanatic.   Where Billy Graham and George Bush obsess about Jesus on the cross, Lee obsesses about the five fingered leaves of cannabis. He is obsessed with marijuana.

Lee supports legalization, like anyone with a rational knowledge of marijuana, But, Lee's support is a crusader. Give the platform of Horsesass , in Lee's priggish mind, marijuana is not just a recreational drug as much as it is salvational miracle. All opposition is evil, marijuana as far beyond science as the Eucharist is beyond the Big Mac.

In Lee's world, cops and docs persecute helpless marijuana "patients" as if pot smokers were Christians in the arena. Imagine the cruelty this fanatic sees when a hospital will not let a marijuana user smoke just because weed is full of carcinogens and not very effective as a drug! Or imagine his vision of a pack of gun toting cops, arresting some innocent person one and discovering pot farm intended to only as medicine! Must be a plant! (pun intended).

There is no other side to Lee's fanaticism. Lee went ballistic when I criticized Hempfest for featuring a medical student as if he were an expert scientist. This expert, against masses of evidence that the tars in MJ smoke are carcinogenic, claimed there were counteracting good in reefers because marijuana is a natural product. At first Lee insisted I was not at Hempfest until I posted a photo essay of my rather pleasant time at the festival. Of course Thehim was offended when I criticized the organizers for allowing kids to inhale carcinogen laden MJ smoke MJ good, anything else bad in lee's world.

Like any other religious fanatic, Lee's bigotry goes on and on. He was a highly vocal proponent of Washington's assisted suicide act, aka "Death with Dignity." I opposed the bill because it imposes huge costs for the benefit of a tiny number of people who qualify for its definition of right to die. Beyond mere money, the act, now the law, threatens the current informal process of assisting terminal patients to die. "Death with Dignity" requires a legalistic, expensive review. Anyone opposed to suicide hates the terminally ill. Others, especially Joel Connelly of the PI, defended the rights of physicians who take the Hippocratic Oath to mean that they can not assist in others' deaths. There are no exceptions to Lee's orthodoxy. Joel, an Episcoplan of Irish descent, must be a Catholic fanatic. Lee insists that unbelievers, Catholics especially, are all evil. So, like me, Joel became a target.
In short, Lee lives in a world where Nero rules and Lee nobly sides with those suffering under a mad ruler. Lee, clearly did not take psych 101.

How did I become a target of Lee's ire? Most liberal Jews .by descent or history, are fervent supporters of Palestine. Extremists, generally who see their Judaism as only be descent, are fanatic on that subject, unable to see the fears of the Israelis or the unhidden legacy of the holocaust against the true sufferings of the Palestinian people.

Lees' righteousness on this issue, led him to invent SJ the bigot. After the onslaught of a Muslim terrorist on a Jewish office here in Seattle, I questioned what the man has been taught in Islamic school. Of course, this made ME a bigot.

SJ was stalking Lee, protector of the persecuted. Lee fantasized about masses of harassing emails. These visions culminated in his filing a (false) complaint against me at the UW, where (after an investigation cleared me) Lee was patiently told about the first amendment. Lee also instigated at threat against me that led to the UW and Seattle police asking if I wanted protection. I assured them that I did not think Lee was dangerous and that, other than Thehim, knew of no Muslim upset with me.

Lee's going ballistic is .. well .. pretty funny. He debates using names .. I became his favorite "douchebag" and he insisted over and over again that he wanted intercourse with me. I thrust back, suggesting that though not gay, I found his interest in sex with me flattering. Humor did not prevail.

When I made fun of Lee's obscenities, Thehim yelled at Goldy, the owner of the HA blog, complaining that I was stalking Thehim on the blog. So Goldy asked me not to post on Lee's threads.

Recently, in a lapse of judgment, I did comment in support of a criticism (by Lee) of King County. The county had ordered removal of an anti-Israel ads from the Metro buses, Lee, of course, took offense and deleted my post... what follow is Lee responding to a question someone asked about how Lee could support free speech AND censorship:

SJ’s banning is the equivalent of a restaurant owner refusing to serve someone who is not wearing pants and throwing his own poop. It has nothing to do with free speech. He’s free to say whatever the hell he wants on his own blog or in Goldy’s threads, but he lost his privilege to post here after numerous warnings. If you want more details, feel free to email me separately.

So, this is my accolade.

If Lee does read this he is more than welcome to free speech on my blog.

Another Lost Tribe.

2010-12-24T16:12:00.000-08:00

http://www.re-emergingfilm.com/Home_files/ReEmerging.jpg

Sofoklis Schortsanitis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

2010-12-24T12:31:00.000-08:00

Sofoklis Schortsanitis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "It was announced on August 5, 2010, that he signed a two year deal with the 5 time Euroleague champions, Maccabi Tel Aviv of the Israeli Super League."

Well at least this Hasmonean is not also a Syrian!

St. Barbara in Belarus

2010-12-19T05:29:00.001-08:00

AFP

Members of the Orthodox Church honored one of their most important saints on Friday -- the virgin martyr Saint Barbara, who died in Syria in 311 A.D. She's celebrated in eastern European countries on December 17, and part of the ceremony involves carrying a candle and an icon around to to neighboring houses. Here, a worshipper kisses a candle decorated with ribbons and paper flowers in the Belarus village of Bastenovichi, around 280km east of Minsk.

Kashrut v. Halal at McD!s

2010-12-19T05:24:00.000-08:00

Next? Imagine hte Pesadicher Big Mac! Two lamb patties between three wafers of matzoh, no cheese, horseradsh special sauce.

Or maybe a drive through Eucharist?

Place this quote:

2010-12-16T22:25:00.000-08:00

“The Jews, as a class violating every regulation of trade… are hereby expelled from the department within twenty-four hours from the receipt of this order.”

Link here.

Do lawyers even care about their appearance as untruthful, paid flacks?

2010-12-11T14:01:00.000-08:00

Mark Madoff, 46, Bernard Madoff's eldest son, Mark Madoff, 46, was found hanging from a ceiling pipe in the living room of his SoHo loft apartment as his 2-year-old son slept in a nearby bedroom.
Madoff, who reported his father to authorities, has never been criminally charged in the biggest investment fraud in U.S. history and has said he and his brother Andrew never knew of their father's crimes.

"This is a terrible and unnecessary tragedy," Madoff's lawyer, Martin Flumenbaum said in a written statement. "Mark was an innocent victim of his father's monstrous crime who succumbed to two years of unrelenting pressure from false accusations and innuendo."

Hannukah in Cuba

2010-12-09T00:02:00.000-08:00

C U B A

Havana. December 6, 2010

Raúl attends Cuban Jewish Community Festival

Alberto Núñez Betancourt

• PRESIDENT Raúl Castro Ruz described as "a fortunate coincidence in dates, the Jewish people’s celebration and important passages in our history" during a meeting with members of the Jewish Community of Cuba, which took place in the Synagogue headquarters of their Community Council, on the occasion of the fifth night of Hanukkah, which in Hebrew means "consecration," a traditional celebration also known as the Festival of Lights.

Raúl lights the first of the five candles
placed in the center of the room, in
accordance with the fifth night of the
Jewish festivities.

Raúl recalled that, 54 years ago on December 5, after the Granma landing, the expeditionaries were subjected to a surprise attack and engaged in their first combat, which represented a major initial defeat. But, 13 days later, the reencounter of one group of men with Fidel took place in Cinco Palmas, where the Comandante en Jefe, with only seven rifles and a great conviction of victory, affirmed: "Now we have won the war!"

On giving his heartfelt thanks for the possibility of meeting with those present, the Cuban president expressed his wish to meet again with the members of this community in Cuba, to talk about the fabulous history of the Jewish people.

Raúl also noted his satisfaction over the debates which began December 1 throughout the whole country to contribute to the improvement of Cuba’s economic model. "You, as part of the Cuban people, will also give your opinions."

After listening to the welcome message from Adela Dworin, president of the Jewish Community in Cuba, Raúl was invited to light the first of five candles placed in the center of the room in accordance with the fifth night of the Jewish festivity.

As a memento of his presence at the meeting, the president of the Cuban Jewish Community gave him a Jumash, a compendium containing the five books of the Torah.

Those meeting recalled the visit by the leader of the Revolution Fidel Castro Ruz to the Council headquarters of the Cuban Jewish Community, made precisely during the celebration of Hanukkah on December 20, 1998.

The audience enjoyed videos and a performance of traditional dances and songs by children and young people from the Community’s Sunday school.

Also present at the ceremony were Caridad Diego Bello, head of the Office of Religious Affairs of the Central Committee of the Communist Party; Havana City Historian Eusebio Leal Spengler; guests from the Cuban Council of Churches; and Party and government officials.

Swedish Excellence in Soccer .. Can A Jew Kick Goals?

2010-11-21T09:29:00.000-08:00

Well, ethnicity is blurring, look at the latest athletic hero from Sweden ...

A spectacular strike by Sweden’s Zlatan Ibrahimovic was enough to give AC Milan a 1-0 win over Fiorentina on Saturday, moving them four points clear at the top of Serie A.

Turning to Ibrahimovic's moment of magic Allegri added: "That's par for the course for him to do that! He has other qualities rather than just physical..I don't know what Milan would be without him."

The article did not comment on Zlatan's origins, but the nose strikes me as a give away. In fact, I think I remember seeing this Zlatan in a movie.

And God Said ....

2010-11-14T08:37:00.000-08:00

Be fruitful and multiply ..........

Posted by God at HA.

Peace Now Outscores AIPAC on Facebook.

2010-11-08T15:07:00.000-08:00

from an email:

The NY Jewish Week wrote an important piece Friday about APN’s success reaching out through Social Media:

Social media is the new currency of political activism. And which Jewish group has the most in the bank?

No, it's not the AJC or the ADL. Take a look at Facebook for the answer: it's Americans for Peace Now (APN), which currently has 17,039 Facebook users who "like" the pro-peace process organization.

AIPAC, the big pro-Israel lobby, isn't far behind with 16,229 fans, but let's face it: AIPAC has a lot more resources to work with than little APN. An informal survey puts J Street in third place with 10,210 fans; most of the other Jewish groups active on Facebook are way down in the triple digits, if that.

I know there is a horse-race element to this report, but something very important lies behind those numbers. APN’s base is growing for three basic reasons:

1) We have a message that people identify with. We believe in Israel. We believe in peace. We understand that pushing for a real peace effort is critical to Israel’s future. We know that caring for Israel doesn’t mean being heartless when it comes to the needs of the Palestinians.

2) We’re innovative. We’re building communities on Facebook and Twitter. We created a revolutionary iPhone and web app that tracks settlement construction (by the way, an update to the iPhone app will be out any day now). We developed a website that integrates social media seamlessly.

3) We have you. APN’s supporters and activists care about this issue and are willing to take action so that our message is heard. Facebook is a social network where personal updates and information is shared among acquaintances. We wouldn’t have grown to 17,000+ fans if our supporters didn’t share our message with their contacts.

Our work is not finished. Peace talks are stalled. Settlements are growing. The occupation continues. We need you to keep pushing for peace. Help us to demonstrate – over and over again – that Americans want our government to press forward. Help us provide funding for those courageous voices in Israel that speak out against settlements and for negotiations.

Here are four actions that you can take right now:

1)    Get your friends to join this email list.

2)    Like us on Facebook. Then ask your friends to join us.

3)    Write the new leadership of the House of Representatives.

4)    Make a financial contribution.

Believe in Israel. Believe in peace. With your help, our movement will get it done!

Noam Shelef
Director of Strategic Communications
Americans for Peace Now

Christian Zionism

2010-11-07T06:35:00.001-08:00

Worth a look!

Funny He Does Not Look jewish!

2010-11-07T06:26:00.000-08:00

A Rabbis , Arik Ascherman, Working For Palestinian Justice

2010-11-02T07:29:00.000-07:00

Arik Ascherman, born in Erie, Pennsylvania, Harvard-educated Jew,chose to become a Reform Rabbi in Israel. During his rabbinic training, Ascherman took two years off to work on co-existence in n the Israeli-Arab village of Tamra. Now with his wife, also a rabba, Rabbi Ascherman heads Rabbis for Human Rights and works with Palestinians to protect their legal rights.

Two Views of God's Word.

2010-10-31T09:11:00.000-07:00

Pamela Anderson, PETA spokesmodel and a guest dancer on the forthcoming Israeli season of Dancing With The Stars wrote a letter to Israeli Minister of Religious Affairs Ya’akov Margi, asking him to support a new bill that would ban the import of fur.

Margi is a member of the Shas party supports the right of Ashkenazi ultra orthodox to wear their traditional fur hats and coats many ultra-Orthodox sects traditionally wear.

What a choice .. orthodox yidden wearing festishes or Pamela Anderson pretending to be a ham hock?

Jews Rediscover Balm of Gilead

2010-10-28T08:21:00.000-07:00

Green, 32, is a founding member of Doc Green’s, a medical-marijuana collective established by Orthodox Jews, who, like the late kabbalistic rabbi Aryeh Kaplan, believe that cannabis was one of the ingredients in the holy anointing oil described in the Torah.Balm of Gilead is a balm (healing compound) made from the resinous gum of the balsam poplar (Populus candicans), a North American tree species. It takes its name from the allusive Biblical phrase "balm in Gilead", referring to the balm or balsam carried from Gilead by the caravan of merchants to whom Joseph was sold by his brothers (Genesis chapter 37). In all likelihood, this ancient trade item was what is now known as balsam of Mecca, produced from the tree Commiphora gileadensis (syn. Commiphora opobalsamum), native to southern Arabia. Working in a commercial loft space where sets of the Zohar and Midrash line the bookshelves and the Grateful Dead is heard as often as Hasidic melodies, the collective’s founders combine cannabis extract with fair-trade shea butter to produce Doc Green’s therapeutic healing cream, a medicinal lotion used to treat ailments from sore muscles to eczema.

Of course, like most liberal issues a large part of the leadership of the legalize pot movement is by Jews. From The Tablet .

See Balm of Gilead.

John Wayne, a New Jew?

2010-10-27T20:33:00.000-07:00

Bizarre enough?

The near-to-nazi patriots of the left are now identifying themselves, including faux heroes John Wayne, Ronald Reagan, and Glen Beck, with Israel heroism.

Try this on for size from "Western Hero Blog":

"Well, the PEW Research Center just completed its latest "Who Hates America Most" survey, and the results are predictable, according to the International Herald Tribune.

We are the New Jews; the group upon which bitter, resentful people worldwide pour out their fear and loathing. We are the people everybody loves to hate. "
ctd ... "The New Jews"

"Your stinking, corrupt country can't get its collective stuff together? Blame the US! (While receiving millions of dollars in aid from the nasty Neo-Zionists)

Your ruling oligarchy steals bread from the mouths of the poor? Blame America! (while sneaking across the border, of course)

You reside in a cauldron of misogyny, hatred and despair, ruled by various poobahs and potentates, exporting human bombs and venomous hatred? Blame the Great Satan, the New Jooos! (While receiving millions in economic and disaster relief assistance from the same infidels).

Sniff disdainfully at the New Jews while looking down your nose at them from your European paradise, ignoring the fact that you are resting in the shade of the Neo-Zionist security umbrella. Better check the foundation, though. You may have some erosion going on.

The survey mentions, "publics worldwide have greater confidence in Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, than in his Republican rival, John McCain, "to do the right thing regarding world affairs.""

Of course! "Do the right thing" means to cave in to every crackpot scheme dreamed up by self-important UN kleptocrats and "we are the world" socialists. It means paying lip-service to ineffectual feel-good policies that actually keep people mired in poverty and servitude, while forsaking all bold actions as "provocative" and "unilateral".

Do the right thing?
I would love to see some other countries step up and do the right thing on their own.

Message to the whiners of the world: Do the right thing on your own and you won't have to worry about Uncle Shmuel doing the "wrong thing"!

Take responsibility for your slothful, degraded state and do something about it! Want to make the world a better place? Start with your own little piece of hell on earth and go from there! Haven't you noticed that blaming the US gets you nothing?

We Americans are the New Jews that everyone loves to hate. The Jewish People brought us knowledge of the One True God of Jews, Muslims and Christians. They've given us Holy Scriptures, poetry, philosophy, and ground-breaking contributions in every field of science. They carved out a home for themselves and made it a success by their own sweat and blood. And they've earned nothing but hatred and resentment for it.

President Obama has been on a two-year apology jag, but we are still the New Jews."

Jesus Sides with the Romans and Hitler?

2010-10-26T07:56:00.000-07:00

VATICAN CITY (RNS) A special Vatican meeting on the Middle East ended Saturday (Oct. 23) with a flare-up in Catholic-Jewish tensions, after an American bishop declared the Bible does not give Jews privileged rights to the land of Israel. "We Christians cannot speak of the 'promised land' as an exclusive right for a privileged Jewish people," said Archbishop Cyril Bustros, a native of Lebanon who is currently a Melkite Greek Catholic bishop in Newton, Mass.

Never Again? ...

2000 years ago we, the Jews were occupied by Rome. We .. the Jews. Most of the Jews of that era, even more than today, lived in the diaspora .. in Rome, England, Spain, Greece, Alexandria .... but our home as a people was Judea, occupied Judea.

There was resistance to the occupation. Some, like Jesus, took the side of peace, insisting on the Jews sticking to our religion and traditions while obeying the ruling Caesars. According to the Roman version of the Christian story, the Jewish leadership killed the God-man for preaching just this.

Of course, the Roman version reflected the efforts of non Jewish Christians to assume the mantle of Pontifex Maximus .. to become the state religion of Rome. How could Rome accept the blame for killing its own God?

After the crucifixion of Jesus, forty years after, the effort at peace failed and we fought a war with Rome. Rome won. Rabbi Akiba, the religous leader of the Jews, was captured and skinned alive .. by Rome. Rome destroyed the Temple, banned us from living in Jerusalem, renamed the city "Aelia Capitolina" and renamed Judea Phillistia (Palestine in English).

Of course, as far as the church was concerned, two hundred and fifty hundred years later when Constantine appointed the Bishops to offices of state, their God, their Jesus must have been on their side, the Roman side.

Today, only sixty years after the Holocaust and the refounding of Israel, the same church that claims its right to absolute truth, the same church, that launched the crusades and expelled the Jews from Spain and England, the church that stole Jewish babies and whose current pontifex maximus wore a nazi uniform, THAT ROMAN CHURCH still asserts that GOD wanted the destruction of Israel!

Never again?

Christian vs. Rabbinic Origins

2010-10-18T08:06:00.000-07:00

@57 Richard Pope on Horses Ass

I had posted that literal reading of the Torah, eg the bizarre and now dated laws in Deuteronomy, was a matter long past in Judaism.

He had asked whether stoning of women was still going in in Jesus' time.

Overly literal reading of Torah is something your buddies the Christians invented. For about 2500 years, even Orthodox Jews have insisted that the Torah needs to be read with ALL the knowledge we have .. traditions, science included.

So were the Jews still stoning women for adultery 2000 years ago? There is a story in the New Testament about Jesus stopping some rather Orthodox Jews from stoning a woman accused of adultery
Richard,

Response (attributed to God on HA)

You missed my point. I referred to the literal interpretation of Torah, not to what punishments were normal 2000 years ago.

A major part of the message of the Pharisees was that Torah had to be interpreted in the light of tradition and other sorts of knowledge. That concept led to the writing of the Talmud, an extraordinary effort to use rational thought to understand the Torah. Literalism, in the Christian sense, has never been a major part of Judaism except for one sect, the Karaites. BTW, that sect sought and was given protection by the Nazis!

As for whether woman were still being stoned for adultery during Jesus' time, I do not know. Blasphemers, however, were stoned to death and one piece of evidence that the Jesus story is a fiction intended to protect the Romans, is that the Sanhedrin could have had Jesus stoned to death if, as the Christian story claims, he had misused the name of God.

Finally, the historical (as opposed to Christian Bible) record makes it very unlikley that the Jesus of the Christian bible existed. There are no contemporary writings about a figure of his stature, the claim to a virgin birth (other than being heresy) would have led to others calling him a bastard, Roman records do not refer to him, and his supposedly revolutionary preachings were actually rather main stream among the Pharisees.

My own hunch is that the Pharisees created the first non violent resistance. This affected not only the Jews in occupied Israel, but the every large expatriate community across the Roman world as well as a large number of people looking for a form of resistance to the oppressive culture of the Romans.

Jesus, whether he existed as a real character or not, was metamorphed by Paul into a deity well within the traditions of most of the occupied people. Paul's Jesus is clearly a Greek deity figure, son of a virgin,dad was a deity who screwed a woman, miracles, descent into hell, ascent to the god hood, sitting in judgment over the gates of heaven and hell, etc. This, plus the Pharisaic ideas of passive resistance would have been broadly attractive to the people living under the rather barbaric rule of the Romans.

Back to the Jews, after the Romans destroyed the Temple, we morphed into something utterly different than Paul's vision. Adhesion to the Torah was strengthened and became the core of Judaism. The rabbis evolved, not as priests or clergy in the Christian sense, but as experts in understanding the Torah .. in the light of the real world. They, the Rabbis, evolved many of the ideas modern humanists take for granted .. including the primacy of science over other forms of revelation and the concept of human law.

Hope this helps!

Whoever wrote this in God's name, whether it was or was not God, I can not say. It does seem, however, quite reasonable,

A Concept for A New Reality Show

2010-10-12T14:45:00.000-07:00

Recently there has been a fuss about some of the more bizarre of the current crop of Tea Bagging radicals runing for office after engaging in such charming behavior as re-enacting Nazi miliatry engagements.

I DO understand tolerance and think even this sort of right wing bigotry has the right to be heard though NOT the right to be respected. It occurs to me, however, that the racism of the right may be great financial opportunioty for Fox to run a new sort of reality show.

SJ Media proposes ....

The Mansion

It will go like this. The cast well be selected from talented black athletes and actors.

The athletes will play Southern masters.

The competitors, will all be young and comely .. at least as the ordeal begins.

Each season, the competitors, all “white Christians” will agree to work and live on the manse as slaves

As slaves, they will begin dressed in rags that wik not quite offer privacy or protection form the cold at night.

The slaves will need to hand wash their clothing and utensils in less than crystal clear water running through a creek. This creek will also be their only source of water. No cups or spoons will be provdided to assure that the slaves learn proper bowl etiquette.

Slave food, a sort of porridge, will be metered out by the Masters. The same porridge will be given three times a day with a slice of bread oif the slave has behaved well.

Each week, the slaves will be brought before the Master for judgment, with punishments including heavier shackles, reduced rations, solitary confinement, cleaning the toilets, stoop labor, wearing of derogatory signs etc. No “real” violence will be used.

The better slaves may be rewarded by articles of clothing, better food, or even by assignment as house servants.

A slave can win by escaping or by being awarded “freedom: at the end of the season.
(c) SJ 2010.

Best Challah in the Holy City.

2010-09-03T08:45:00.000-07:00

Haaretz

al Quds site

HOPE

2010-09-01T08:09:00.001-07:00

http://i.huffpost.com/gen/197646/thumbs/r-MIDEAST-PEACE-huge.jpg

Funny?

2010-08-28T22:29:00.000-07:00

In recent months, proposed burqa bans in Europe have raised many important questions regarding choice, religious freedom, and societal impositions of dress and femininity. Aren’t such bans in observance of some greater good? Aren’t these bans necessary for public safety, eliminating the burqa as an ideal and ready disguise for terrorists or bank robbers? Shouldn’t modern society prevent oppressive Muslims from subjugating women any further? On the other hand, if we regard liberty as the highest value, shouldn’t we respect the freedom of women who choose to wear burqas? Then again, how do we know women really are choosing to wear burqas? And is it any of our business anyway?

Beck, The Movie

2010-08-26T09:01:00.000-07:00

(SJ News, Peoples Republic of Utah Bureau, April 2065)

Ging Hua Films announces that their SONY/Paramount division has purchased the film rights to the biography of the assassinated Great Leader. Prophet Hiram Kaching of the Church of latter Day Saints and Kim il Jung III, President of the People's Christian Republic of the Koreas, reassured the MormansRChristians community that Ging Hua would be respectful of the life and beliefs of the Great Leader.

Ave Maria Biotech has agreed to provide one of its adult clones of leader beck to play the lead. The clone, GB 2.1, was grown form a pinky attained shortly after the assasination, and has been raised by followers of the leader to have a full knowledge of Leader Bech's life and philosphy, Beck Juche.

This is Scary: Ave Maria Biotech

2010-08-24T00:23:00.000-07:00

A biotech firm, AVM Biotrech, with roots in the UW is working with the radical religious right to block stem cell research. A federal judge has recognized AVM's standing in court because, the Seattle firm claimed such research could hurt their business interests.

The result is an injunction blocking research using human embryonic stem cell lines!

May God help us all!

More details and links at The Ave:

http://handbill.us/?p=346

Who Owns the Kids?

2010-08-23T08:44:00.000-07:00

LONDON (RNS) A Roman Catholic adoption agency has lost its fight for the right to continue its policy of refusing to place children with same-sex couples based on religious principles.

The decision in England rules that a Roman Catholic adoption agency can not require that adoptive parents of a child born Roman Catholic be ... Roman Catholic. If the ruling says the State, not the Church defines who is Roman Catholic, wouldn't this violate America's First Amendment?

This decisions has incredibly deep implications.

The assertion of Christians, Muslims and Jews is that their religion is transmitted to their children. Native American Children and Jewish children were taken by the Roman Church and baptized. This was seen by modern liberals as a form of theft.

If the State claims it has the right to decide that a gay person or a gay couple is Catholic, what happens to the Church's right to define itself?

If the State claims that religion is not transmitted at birth, what about "race?"

These are dangerous waters.

Glenn Beck Debates the Iman

2010-08-23T08:21:00.001-07:00

“We are trying to establish something that follows the YMCA concept but is not a church or a synagogue or, in this case, a mosque, we are taking that concept and adapting it to our time and the fact that we’re Muslims. It’s basically a Muslim Y.” Faisel Abdul Raul

2010-08-22T17:23:00.000-07:00

Former hip-hop star turned Orthodox Jew shot dead in N.Y.

Jamaican born Yoseph Robinson was shot to death at a kosher liquor store where he worked, while trying to protect his girlfriend during an attempted robbery.

One friend told the Daily News, "I would look at him and say, 'Yoseph, how can you be black and be Jewish?' And Yoseph would just look at me with this big smile and say, 'It's not about color, it's about faith.'" His employer at MB Vineyards wine shop in Brooklyn said, "He was a guy that changed his life around. This is the kind of guy we should all emulate."
Robinson allegedly attempted to wrestle the gun from the robber, who entered the Midwood liquor store on Thursday night. Robinson's girlfriend, Lahavah Wallace, said, "He jumped over the counter and wrestled with the guy with the gun and told me to go." Wallace hid in the backroom and then heard shots. When she emerged, Robinson was bleeding on the floor. “He was struggling to breathe."
Robinson was born in Jamaica, but moved to New York when he was 12. At age 16, he began selling drugs. Gail Levi, who recently heard him speak at a synagogue, said, "He was a gangster with all the money, women and drugs that power could buy. But he realized it was empty and wanted to change." At age 23 he converted to Orthodox Judaism. Despite his new life, he still had problems. He was going through a divorce and a custody battle at the time of his death, saying his wife wouldn't let him talk to their six-year-old daughter. He also accused his wife of "straying from an observant lifestyle." However, he seemed to be a beloved character in his neighborhood. One neighbor said, "Most of us Jews in Brooklyn are not that interesting. Yoseph was the most interesting and charismatic person."

The New Mecca

2010-08-21T08:35:00.000-07:00

The furor over the Islamic Cultural Center in New York is all too familiar.

The rabid religious right sees 9/11 as a new Mecca. An American Kaaba.
The idea that Allah commands that Mecca be free of Jews and Christians is repugnant. The commandment that Islam dominate other peoples is disgusting and should be called that. The idea that the World Trade Center is profaned bya mosque is just as repugnant.

The price for such rational intolerance, is that we should show the same intolerance of ourselves. Atheists who want to ban God from public places, Christians who see 9/11 as a new Mecca … are ALL doing the same thing.

In the meantime:

Dozens of US soldiers who refused to attend a Christian band's concert at a Virginia military base were banished to their barracks and told to clean them up.

Burlington Burkha Factory in Mecca

2010-08-20T09:54:00.001-07:00

Breaking News
Mecca, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
In a striking move, intended to address American concerns about the building of an Islamic Center near to the 9/11 site, the Faisal ibn Hagoldy, Minister of Commercial Development, and Solomon Cohen, CEO of Burlington Coat Factory, have announce that Burlington will open a Burlington Burkha Factory in Mecca.

Burlington, the owner of the site planned for the Islamic Center in NY, has agreed, in return for the access to Mecca to donate the site in NY, to Feisal Abdul Rauf, the Imam Behind the Islamic Cultural Center.
Burlington’s press release states that the company sees this as “a golden opportunity to bring Burlington’s low prices ans quality to the expanding market of Muslim women who desire fashionable outer clothing that complies with Islamic law.”

SJ News Service

"The sight of Muslims praying at Dachau stopped other passers-by in their tracks, she said."By Jeff Diamant Religion News Service CARLSTADT, N.J. (RNS) The scenario might have seemed unlikely: prominent Muslims and Jews from the United States, trekking across the Atlantic in mournful, spiritual solidarity to visit two Nazi concentration camps. Together.

2010-08-18T00:28:00.000-07:00

By Jeff Diamant
Religion News Service
CARLSTADT, N.J. (RNS) The scenario might have seemed unlikely: prominent Muslims and Jews from the United States, trekking across the Atlantic in mournful, spiritual solidarity to visit two Nazi concentration camps. Together.

Tony Judt .. a Jew Dies.

2010-08-17T08:38:00.000-07:00

I have never read Tony Judt and did not even know he was such a critical figure in modern Judaism. Then he died.

“More than I sometimes understand, I think, I am both writing in and about the tradition and spirit of Jewish cosmopolitanism: caught somewhere between Marx’s ‘ruthless criticism of everything existing’; pil-pul; zahor!; bearing critical witness; social responsibility; and perhaps a certain davka. I’ve never written about this directly, but I think it informs the tone – and probably the subject matter – of much of my work. I also makes me smile when American ultras accuse me of being ‘un-Jewish’ in my criticism of Israel, etc. It seems to me that, for good and ill, I am decidedly Jewish and in a long and worthy tradition.”

Tony Judt

Why Man Makes God

2010-08-17T08:09:00.000-07:00

Over at Pharyngula, PZ Myers, a critic of all things religious and pious evangelist for Richard Dawkins, is taking on Raymond Kurzweil. Kurzweil is a great thinker, inventor and prophet . After inventing the synthesizer, Kurzweil has gone onto write books about the wonder of science ..especially about the ways he sees computer science and neurobiology growing together.

Sadly, PZ is dissing Kurzweil sense of wonder, arguing that the brain is too complex for Man to understand. PZ needs to worship at the temple of Spinoza, a place where reality is wonderful.

The News ... from North Korea

2010-08-17T07:24:00.000-07:00

Floral Basket from Japanese Delegation

Pyongyang, August 16 (KCNA) -- General Secretary Kim Jong Il received a floral basket from the delegation of the Japanese Society for the Study of the Juche Idea on a visit to the DPRK.
The floral basket was handed over to an official concerned on Monday by Seiichi Sakugawa, president of the National Liaison Council of Societies for the Study of the Juche Idea who is leading the delegation.

The Mosque at Ground Zero

2010-08-16T09:33:00.000-07:00

Why Cordoba?

Why is the Mosque at ground zero to be called the Cordoba Center?

Cordoba was the home of the caliphate that rule Andalusia before the conquest by Christianity.

For many Muslims and Jews, the Andalusian Era in Spain Cordoba, has become a mythical golden age. From that age , we have great teachers .. Maimonides, Halevy, Abravanel, ... the Kabala and much of modern medicine began in this tolerant society. The Ground Zero Islamic center was named for a period in Spanish-Muslim history that some call a golden age of tolerance.

The achievements of that culture are very true, but unlike America, Islam never treated "others" as equals. Jews were repeatedly confined to ghettos or forced to convert. There is a huge difference between the exceptional ism of America, where all peoples are accepted as Americans, and Cordoba where the dominant Islamic proudly tolerated Jews and Christians.

Sadly, the right in America has an idea of tolerance a lot like the ideas of Cordoba. They see America as a tolerant place, a place where they arfe the majority and they tolerate the rest of us.

I recommend that the right read Washington's letter to the synagogue at Newport, RI. The Jews of Rhode Islam had written expressing hope that the new nation would tolerate us. Washington said, no, "we" can not tolerate you because we are all the same.

That is the American view.

I also strongly recommend Mark Tracy's essay on the history of Islamic Tolerance and the name "Cordoba."

AtheistTS VS. True Believer

2010-08-16T08:49:00.000-07:00

From Aki at HorsesAss

“The difference between a “true believer” and an atheist is VERY small. A “true” believer knows there are 175 religions around the world, and 174 of them are made up and not true. An atheist knows there are 175 religions around the world, and 175 of them are made up and not true.”

GREAT!

Another traditonal industry beat the dust....

2010-08-15T19:53:00.000-07:00

Beate Uhse erotica hit where it hurts by free online porn

Free porn available on the internet is hitting erotic shopping empire Beate Uhse where it hurts – in the bottom line

Democracy

2010-08-14T10:13:00.001-07:00

PUTIN POPULAR: 59% APPROVE...

On God

2010-08-10T05:51:00.000-07:00

Reality, is what's still there even after you stop believing in it.
Philip K. Dick

The Day the Jews Ended

2010-08-07T08:29:00.000-07:00

Great short story about the end of the Jews .. read me!

excerpt ...

Suddenly there came a furious knocking at my front door. Outside stood an ultra-Orthodox rabbi, with a big black hat, a long black beard, and a red canister of gasoline in his hand. Two young yeshiva students were at his side, one holding a clipboard, the other holding a baseball bat. I opened the door.
“Shalom Auslander?” the rabbi asked.
“Yes?”
“Shalom Auslander, the Jew?”
“What an odd question,” I said.
“Yes or no,” he said.
“Yes.”
The yeshiva student with the clipboard checked something off on his sheet of paper, and the rabbi handed me a small wooden box.
“It is my duty to inform you,” he said, “that you are no longer Jewish.”

Nuff Said

2010-07-29T09:19:00.001-07:00

Here is the beginning of my post. And here is the rest of it.

Can Jews Jump?

2010-07-28T21:32:00.000-07:00

According to haaretz.com, Amar'e Stoudemire, the Knicks power forward's trip to Israel comes in light of his learning that his mother is Jewish.

He seems to be embracing his newly discovered religious roots, as he is quickly picking up on some Hebrew.

Other Jewish NBA players are Jordan Farmar and Omri Casspi. If Duke guard Jon Scheyer makes an NBA team, he will be added to the list, as well.

Err ahhh .... does religion have "roots?" Maybe the Huff Post ought to consider that Mr. Stoudemire is proud if heritage? Or is that pride in Jewish heritage not possible if you are a "person of color?"

Move-On Teabaggery

2010-07-22T09:09:00.000-07:00

Endorse the Pledge

Overturn Citizens United:

Amend the Constitution to protect America from unlimited corporate spending on our elections by overturning the Supreme Court's decision giving corporations the same First Amendment rights as people.

Fair elections now:

Pass the Fair Elections Now Act, providing public financing to candidates who are supported by small donors so they can compete with corporate-backed and self-funded candidates.

Lobbyist Reform Act:

Pass legislation to end the overwhelming influence of corporate lobbyists by: prohibiting individuals from switching from corporate lobbying to government service, or vice-versa, within a 5-year period; stopping corporate lobbyists from giving gifts and providing free travel to government officials; and posting online the attendees and content of all meetings between lobbyists and government officials.

Sad.

Asking elected officials to sign a pledge like ythis is worthy of a tea bag award. Why would anyone wnat to sign a pledge for an amendment to overturn a Supreme Court decisions with not evena suggestion as to what the amendment would be for?

The fair elections act? Exactly how do you get this done AND protect the first amendment?

Only a tea baggier would believe that stopping lobbysits from offering air plane rides would have any real effect in corporate lobbying.

Sad.

How about some real proposals?

1. An Amendment restricting political funding to contributions from individuals and requiring that all contgributions above $200 be explicitly listed. Also, violating this ought to incur a felony.

2. Impoverishment punishments. Who the hell thinks Martha Stewart got a real punishment. Financial crimes need serious financial penalties .. not juuts dollars but impoverishment. Make her live at the poverty level for five years!

Peace Movement in Palestine?

2010-07-21T07:51:00.000-07:00

Protecting Us from People to the South

2010-07-12T12:17:00.000-07:00

The country ... needs to brace itself for a wave of undocumented workers from the United States: Stubbornly high unemployment rates got you down? Not sold on the economic recovery? Look no further than America's polite neighbor

see more:

How Christian of you!

2010-07-11T09:06:00.000-07:00

This essay began as a response to a post by Liberal Scientist demanding that Jews defend a passage from Deuteronomy. The passage talks of a father's rights to recompense if his daughter's husband falsely claims that his wife was not a virgin.

Liberals often tout their tolerance by blaming intolerance on Judaism. Bertrand Russel, the great rationalist, blamed the Jews for Christian bigotry because he, as a European, bought into the idea that religion is evangelical and oppression.

Please do not paint Judaism with the muddy, blood soaked brush of Christianity.

Until Emperor Constantine imposed Christianity on the Roman Empire Rome was officially tolerant of its subject religions .. including atheism.

After Constantine, the last non-Christian Emperor, Julian promulgated an edict overturning Constantine's laws and declared that all the religions equal before the law. Julian, himself a "pagan" returned temples confiscated by the Christians to their original owners and even attempted to rebuild the Temple of Jerusalem.

Legend says Julian was killed by two of his soldiers, now Christian saints. Christians have condemned Julian, calling him "Julian the Apostate."

"Religion," as you use the term, is defined by the evangelical triumphalism, exclusivism and imperialism of Christianity and Islam. Communism too is part of that tradition.

Judaism, like most other religions, was never evangelical. While Judaism teaches that its truth is correct, the idea of forced conversion of others was never a part of Judaism. In fact, the Talmud teaches that the most religious person is not a Jew, but a non-Jew because she or he has no need to follow Jewish law.

"How Christian of you!" .. has never been a compliment in my book.

Here is the exchange I had over at HA.

@14 Liberal Scientist
“This is from YOUR book.”
What a load of horse manure you are spreading.
How VERY Christian of you to demand that I defend YOUR version of my Torah!
1. You have NO idea what “chosen people” means to Jews. Instead you use the term an overtly antisemitic way to claim that Jews have claimed some sort of unique privilege.
How VERY Christian of you
2. You seem to suggest that the Zionists built Israel because we were chosen and the folks living in Palestine were not. The Zionists were secular Jews, largely atheists.
How VERY Christian of you
3. You accuse me of “bray(ing) about my religions never forcing others to convert.” When have we ?
How VERY Christian of you
4. You assume that because I am Jewish YOU know what my beliefs are. Try telling that to Marx, Spinoza, Halevi, Salk …
How VERY Christian of you
5. You treat our history as if it were YOUR revealed truth. Do you really thkink Jews consider David’s murder of his General a good thing? Does Judaism celebrate the sacrifice of the Egyptians?
How VERY Christian of you
6. I am willing to bet that you deny your own Christian heritage, clinging to the “great ethical lessons of Jesus” while blaming the horrors of Christianity on bad Christians.
How VERY Christian of you
For what it is worth, I am a devout atheist.

Remembering The Bra Burners ...

2010-07-10T08:57:00.000-07:00

Feminism, in the twenty teens
puffed up lips, tattooed mascara, thongs with anal cleft tattoos, breast implants, platform heels, and now .. faux doe eyes!
Sarah Palin for President! ... Read more.

A TV Ad
Guy and Gal meet, date in his 84 Malibu. Clinton campaign is in background.
Guy and Gal wed, drive into their future in a new Camaro.
Grand parents smile, sitting in their Buick. Bush gives aircraft carrier speech.
Guy rushes Gal to Hospital for first child, Obama logos in background. That Camaro is getting old and small.
Guy and Gal, Babe in arms, show up at Chevy dealership to buy an SUV.
Gal drives Babe to kindergarten and braces. Babe takes driving lessons in the old SUV.
Babe drives to the beach party in the SUV. She glances in mirror, we see her faux doe eyes framed by luscious eye lash implants. Her breasts bounce intriguingly, held only barely by the twin triangles of her minikini. A handsome dark-skinned guy, Dilip Kumar drives up in a restored ‘Vette.
Babe sits at her makeup table, putting lipstick on her new Angelina Joli lips, puffy and succulent.
Babe is a BABE in her two piece prom dress … cut out to show ass cleft tatoo of roses, full breasts budding in a bullet bra, and pink hair! Dilip proudly drives Babe to prom in a super sleek Camaro Volt as OnStar opens the convertible top.
Dad. Mom and Dilip sit in audience as Babe graduates Summa cum Laude from Beck University. Sarah Palin’s commencement address is overshadowed as the rich lipped, wide-eyed valedictorian talks of her love for country. Dad and Mom proudly give Dilip and Babe the keys to their new Hummer Volt.
Scene shifts to DC. A Cadillac limo appears in front of hotel. Dad, Mom, and Dilip walk the red carpet and enter the Caddy Limo. Holding Dilip’s hand, is three-year old Radha.
The car arrives at Pennsylvania Ave, there are crowds, and special seating for the family in the Caddy limo.
Then
“Ladies and Gentlemen, … the President of the United States!”
Babe takes the podium, tattoos hidden behind her short skirted business suit, legs encased in pin striped nylon, piercings of nose and tongue long healed, but .. still those gorgeous lips and huge eyes!

Jewish converts in Columbia try to leave the Inquisition, tell jokes

2010-07-09T08:38:00.000-07:00

A pair of beggars position themselves on the front steps of the cathedral for the end of mass. One wears a big Star of David, the other a humble wooden crucifix. As churchgoers file out, the beggar with the cross is given a steady stream of alms, while the beggar with the Star of David is ignored or even spat upon. The priest looks at the two of them and says, “Hey, Jew, you should move to the synagogue. You’ll have better luck with your own kind.”
The beggar with the Star of David looks at the other beggar, who is eagerly counting his money, and says to him, “Hey, Moshe! Did you hear that?”

At his home, Moshe Gomez shows pictures of his Jewish wedding, officiated by Rabbi Moshe Ohana, who came to Bello from Miami to perform a conversion ceremony.

This joke is told by 31-year-old Ezrah Rodriguez Agudelo, a convert to Judaism and a member of a Sephardic community in Bello, a neighborhood on the northern end of Medellín, the capital of Colombia’s Antioquia region, which was possibly home to a number of converso, or Marrano, colonizers fleeing the Inquisition. A former evangelical Christian, Rodriguez, dark-skinned and as spindly as a sparrow, has learned to laugh at the Jewish stereotypes. Yet the joke, which he tells in Spanish, is not just about the relationship of Jews and money. It is also a Marrano joke about the benefits of pretending not to be Jewish.

Raising Our (Jewish Kids) in Seattle

2010-07-08T16:22:00.000-07:00

There is a lot that is great about raising Jewish kids in Seattle ... some very good shuls, a multiethnic community that has very Jewish .. or perhaps Swedish .. principles. We have museums, great parks, fine book stores, Pike Place Market, Broadway, the ID and several neighborhoods with large Jewish populations.

All this is great .. except for one huge problem ... the schools. Jewish parents, like many other parents in Seattle, come from a tradition that places a high value on public schools. We want our kids to go to school with all kinds of Americans, but we want our kids to have the best opportunity to succeed.

In that one way we are elitists.

Often, Jewish parents in Seattle grew up attending elite public schools. I went to one of those, Boston Latin, and owe a huge amount to BLS. Besides igniting my long lasting interests in science and literature, Latin introduced me to very bright kids from all of Boston's ethnic groups.

Seattle does not have a BLS because the schools insist that opportunity must be equal for all kids.

As a result Seattle kids who are better off, either because of parental money or because they have the motivation to get scholarships, end up leaving the SPS for private schools. The fact that the private schools are segregated apparently does not bother the parents .. many of whom remain activists in re other folks' kids in the SPS.

The extreme end of this form of classism and racism is seen in the approximately 100,000 new dwellings growing in Belltown and SLU. An entire city is being built there with NO public schools!

The worst evidence of this disdain for academic opportunity is the effort by the current Superintendent to disassemble Garfield High School. For those unaware of the phenomenon, under Principal Amon McWashington, Garfield became an extraordinary success story.

Amon managed to attract and serve some of Seattle's best students while also building a local high school with outstanding records in athletics and Jazz. The "natural" environment for interethnic education at GHS was outstanding. This became THE place for kids from Seattle's gifted programs to go, not because it was in any way segregated but because Amon understood how to create an atmosphere for excellence.

During Amon's era I did a study of students taking advanced placement classes at GHS as compared with Lakeside. The GHS kids walloped Lakeside!

The district response? No public support for Principal McWashington.

Now the Superintendent wants to disperse the programs from GHS to give "all kids" the same opportunities.

Hopefully politically active parents will prevent this stupidity ... but, in defense of liberals fleeing from Seattle or choosing to send their kids to Catholic, Jewish or secular private schools, , that sort of committment by any parent is very difficult. It is simply easier to go live in the Burbs.

Iranian Hair

2010-07-06T22:43:00.000-07:00

Iran rules on islamic vs non islamic hair styles for men.

Censored ... by China!

2010-07-05T14:23:00.000-07:00

tried logging into http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/

Forbidden

You don't have permission to access /english/ on this server.

Happy 4th

2010-07-04T11:40:00.000-07:00

A Jewish Fourth .. story from Texas .. “when the family lived there, the Klan was very powerful. They didn’t like Jews. One day, when your grandfather was away on a buying trip, a group of (KKK) started milling around the house and the crowd got bigger and louder. They were drunk. Your mother and her sisters and your uncle, the youngest, were in the house. I didn’t know what would happen if it just went on.

“I’ll tell you what I did. With my left hand, I grabbed the American flag that we kept in the house and grabbed a heavy, cast-iron skillet in my right. Then, I stepped outside. One of the roughnecks was standing on the steps not a foot away. His name was Barbour. He was over 6 feet tall and even standing on one of the lower steps, he was taller than I was. I took that skillet and I hit him on the head as hard as I could and I knocked him out. I held the flag up as high as I could and I said, ‘I am an American and you are Americans. I have just as many rights as you have. You have the right to say who can be on your property, and I have right to say who can be on my property. Now get the hell off my property or I’ll go inside and get the shotgun.’ ”

Flickers of Hope?

2010-07-02T08:51:00.000-07:00

Hamas representative Oussama Hamdan has said that the international community has condemned Israel's storming of a Gaza aid flotilla.

2010-07-02T08:45:00.000-07:00

Obama speaking on immigration policies.

Obama presents a rational argument for how to resolve the immigration mess.

The Republican response was typical. They found this admittedly silly image, another way to demean a rational man.

Do the Republicans have ANY real policies or are they using the Senate as a cat box?

There must be serious people with business like ideas. So many of the current issues really do need a balanced discussion.

Unfortunately … we will never hear anything serious from the current collection of tomcats as long as all they think about is how to get their balls back.

Of course , the “left” also has such people … it just seems as if these Democrat version are dogs and that these dogs have been box trained.

Maybe we need a new reality TV series … The Catfight where the tomcats can hurl verbal cat shit at each other? … a variation on Fox, co hosted by Rush Limbaugh and Maxine Waters?

Detroit .. Pompey in Progress?

2010-07-01T21:36:00.000-07:00

Detroit's ruins bring visitors, but rankle critics within the city

"Detroit Disassembled,

- 3:32 pm

Nigeria: Sports have outcomes!

2010-07-01T09:06:00.000-07:00

2010 W/CUP FALLOUT: FG bans Eagles for 2 years •To audit NFF’s accounts •We’re yet to be informed -FIFA
FOLLOWING the uninspiring performance of the Super Eagles in the ongoing World Cup in South Africa, the Federal Government has ordered the immediate withdrawal of the country from all international football tournaments organised by FIFA and related events for two years to enable the country to properly reorganise the sector. Tribune

Obviously Nigeria needs Jewish players.
Obama's cousin, Rabbi Capers Funnye may be able to help!

Germans hail multicultural WC team

Many feel ethnic diversity of country's players in World Cup has made squad more exciting and dynamic.

Leftists harass immigrants supporting Germany

read here .......

Where are the Food Blogs for Seattle?

2010-06-30T08:09:00.000-07:00

I would like to see someone blog about restaurants in Seattle.

The food sites I can find fall into three categories:

1. Restaurant of the week columns derived from traditional newspaper food columns. These also seem to me to have wandered off from food into the chef's lives and the charm of the decor. This existential epicureanism celebrates the author's own talents as much as the pleasures others might obtain from frequenting the same emporium.

2. tWITTER tWAT ... cloud based chatter similar to the annotation of sex in a particularly robust men's room. Sorta like this .. "Call 661 2342 for the best burger you ever had !" or " Where can I find a fast hand role from a Christian sushi chef?"

3. Foodie-ism .. Sometimes these DO discuss restaurants but the overall theme seems to me more about foreplay .. err preparation for the act of ingestion. personally I enjoy talk about sexual foreplay more than I do about the thrill of kneading thyme into a loin roast.

Sigghhh ....(image link)

Stalin to Join Roosevelt on Rushmore?

2010-06-24T06:48:00.000-07:00

© RIA Novosti. Sergey Pyatakov

by Andy Potts at 23/06/2010 14:55

...
Stalin, alongside Winston Churchill and Theodore Roosevelt, appears in an exhibit showing the Yalta Conference at the end of World War II which is set to be unveiled in Kuzminki park on Saturday.

Bush's protege in Israel

2010-06-23T06:24:00.000-07:00

Binyamin Netanyahu has offered no idea for his vision of an end game .. whether that is in the Turkish mess, or in a longer term solution to peace with Palestine. Avigdor Lieberman, the Foreign Ministers seem to be living in some fantasy world where Israel would be cleansed of its own Arab population while miraculously presiding over the birth of a Yidden-frei Arab state. Barak and others of the rational part of Netanyahus coalition are in another world from Lieberman and Netnayhu seems like a dysfunctional teacher with no idea of how to lead hid class.

In contrast Palestinians have clear overall objectives. In a world where democracy is challenged, there is no sympathy for Israeli cacophony.

Go Yankee Yidden!: we bleed if cut and kick balls too!

2010-06-23T06:02:00.000-07:00

U.S. midfielder Benny Feilhaber playing club soccer last fall.
CREDIT: Henning Bagger/EuroFootball/Getty Images

Three yidden are on the impressive US football squad in the World Cup melee. Benny Feilhaber, Jonathan Bornstein, and Jonathan Spector were roommates at UCLA and have played together since their teens.

The Jews team, aka the American squad, plays Algeria today at 7 PST. Of course the last time we fought in Algeria, we were led by Princess Kahane against the invading Arabs. We lost.

The Messiah Has Come

2010-06-16T21:27:00.000-07:00

Online, find first chapter of the new bio of

The Rebbe:
The Life and Afterlife of Menachem Mendel Schneerson

America: Our Talibunnies Can Kill Your Talibunnies

2010-06-16T07:52:00.000-07:00

Ten days after checking into his hotel and receiving a customary police escort (which is typical for westerners traveling in this part of Pakistan), Faulker snuck out, heading towards the border with Afghanistan. When the Pakistani police caught up with him, in the Brumboret Valley, Faulkner was packing “a pistol, a dagger and a sword, carrying night-vision goggles, a night-vision camera and religious literature on Christianity.” When questioned after his arrest, Faulkner replied, “God is with me, and I am confident I will be successful in killing [bin Laden].”

iCandy?

2010-06-15T07:12:00.000-07:00

Josh Belzman,Contributing editormsnbc.com, writes on Apples' new piece of eye candy (iCandy?):

"The iPad is useless. Beautiful, but useless. In the span of about a week I purchased, gave up on and feverishly resold an iPad after realizing Apple already made and I already own the more utilitarian and ergonomic version: the iPhone.

The iPad is unwieldy eye candy. It's an aluminum- and glass-wrapped homewrecker. Just two days with it led me to appreciate my lowly laptop and undersized smartphone more, and Apple's design sense less."

UPDATE

“Kim Jong-Su, the general secretary of the North Korean FA, has said the Dear Leader gave ‘in-depth guidance’ on how to develop the game in the country and the coach himself has claimed he received regular tactical advice during matches, apparently using mobile phones that are not visible to the naked eye.”
Jong-Il, a man of many talents, is said to have developed the technology himself. Before you laugh in disbelief, remember this is the man who scored 38 under par in his first-ever game of golf — with five holes in one — making him the greatest golfer of all-time. He’s got skills.
No word yet whether North Korea also has an invisible vuvuzela in the works.

Why was Sheikh Raad Salah on the Mavi Marmara?

2010-06-14T08:57:00.000-07:00

Sheikh Raad Salah is an Israeli Arab politician. He was one of several Israeli Palestinians aboard the Turkish ship.

Raad Salah is an Israeli denialist. He claims that our claim to Jerusalem is based on a false view of history. This view and his other actions, however, do not change his freedoms as an Israeli citizen.

The Sheikh is pro Palestine and may be even pro a single state. Israel, as a democracy, gives Sheikh Salah the freedom not only to speak but to act. ..non violently.

Isn't there a way to turn this Israeli into a tool for peace? As a Jeffersonian I believe that free speech is the center of resolving conflict, as follower of Hillel I believe that tolerance is central to peace. As a Gandhian, I believe that non violence is the strongest tool for achieving justice.

Seeing Salah through the hyperbole of the media is difficult, but he can not be the only free thinking Palestinian Israeli. Could the real peacemakers on the Palestinian side now be living in Israel?

I have thought many times about the dilemma of a non-violent leader arising on the West Bank or Gaza. Gandhi and King never feared for violence from their own sides. It may not be possible to be a non violent leader living in Gaza, but a new Dr. King could arise in Haifa!

Of course there is a speck of pork in this kosher and hallal view of the future of Israel. Fundamentalims may trump non violence! the picture to the right is of cheridim blocking an archaelogical dig in Jaffa. Imagine a Selma styke march of Palestinians blocked by a cheredi phalanax.

I have (some) hopes.

Military Recruiting ... UKRAINE style

2010-06-14T08:35:00.001-07:00

Is Gabi Ashkenazi, commander of Israel's army, related to Obama?

2010-06-13T09:46:00.000-07:00

Spock?

Gulf yet another act of Islamo-terrosism!

2010-06-12T20:18:00.000-07:00

BP is NOT British Petroleum any more. They changed their name to BP after they became a largely Kuwaiti owned company.

Of course Kuwait is MUSLIM and we know that Kenya, like Kuwait, begins with a K!

This makes the Gulf yet another act of Islamo-terrosism!

see also

Kuwait's oil reserves below 100 bln barrels

Is Detroit Black?

2010-06-12T19:56:00.000-07:00

County candidate says his race a hindrance

Laura Berman: After almost three decades as an elected official from northwest Detroit, Wayne County Commissioner Burton Leland is the self-described "last white man standing." In his race for re-election, he is portraying himself as a veteran public servant being disparaged unfairly because of his race. -

Leland's major opponent, McCormick, is an African-American political neophyte who is hopping mad over his flier that reads "There are some folks who say they have a problem voting for me because I am white and Detroit is an African American city," it reads.
"If there are those who won't support me because of the color of my skin, I must accept it. But you don't have to."
Adolph Mongo, a Detroit political consultant who earned notoriety playing on racial politics, says Leland is "trying to portray himself as this poor little white guy."
...............True or not, the racism charge against McCormick is working against her.
..............
Although Leland's the politician with the power of incumbency, deep connections and the ability to out-fundraise her, it's McCormick, the challenger, who finds herself on the defensive.
"He's a social worker and he's using psychology," she says, with frustration.
"He's saying, 'I'm a white guy who has been serving the community and I want to help you and now certain people are judging me on the color of my skin and not the content of my character.' "

From The Detroit News: http://detnews.com/article/20100612/OPINION03/6120339/1409/County-candidate-says-his-race-a-hindrance#ixzz0qhLmD5oF

Israel ... Can a Jewish State Welcome Foreign Workers?

2010-06-12T16:44:00.000-07:00

Abstracted from the Tablet

Arizona’s controversial Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act echoes as similar debate surrounding some 1,200 children of illegal migrant workers in Israel . Israel’s long-standing policy against the deportation of minors provides protection to parents who lack legal status.

Interior Minister Eliyahu Yishai sees these Israeli-born children as a threat to the character of the Jewish state and hopes to expel them this summer, along with their parents.

Israel began replacing Palestinian laborers with foreign workers in the late 1980s, during the First Intifada. The foreign population grew steadily from there, ballooning during the early days of the Second Intifada.
A growing community meant babies. While these children are allowed to attend Israeli schools, they receive few state benefits. Unlike children born on U.S. soil, who automatically become U.S. citizens, children born in Israel are granted neither citizenship nor permanent residency. And although many children of foreign parents would like to serve in the Israeli army, service does not make soldiers eligible for citizenship in Israel, as it can in the United States.

Migrant laborers who enter into romantic relationships in Israel are likely to lose their residency permits if the Interior Ministry gets wind of the bond. And a worker who gives birth in Israel is forced to pick between her visa and her baby—keep one, lose the other. This is a choice most of the 1,200 children’s mothers have had to make.

President Shimon Peres penned an emotional letter to Yishai, asking him to cancel the expulsion. “Who, if not a people who suffered embitterment in the lands of exile, should be sensitive to their fellow man living amongst them?” Peres continued, “I heard Hebrew ring naturally from their mouths. I felt their connection and their love for Israel and their desire to live in it, to serve in its army and to help to strengthen it.” ....

In her modest apartment outside of Tel Aviv, Judith, a domestic helper from the Philippines, says she is most worried about her children, aged 8 and 15. “They don’t know how to leave,” she says.

Judith and her husband Eldy, who is also Filipino, have been in Israel for almost two decades. They lost their visas a few years ago when their employer left the country. Their Israeli-born and -raised kids don’t speak Tagalog. Like most of the 1,200 children, they speak English with their parents and Hebrew with each other.

Michelle, Judith and Eldy’s teenage daughter, says, “I want to go to the army, I want to study here. I feel Israeli.” Indeed, her dress, cadence, and mannerisms lend Michelle the air of an Israeli.

But during Christmas, Judith was afraid to put a tree in the window. “We’re afraid to walk on the street,” she says. “We live like criminals.”

Critics have slammed the move as inhumane. They point out that the children attend local schools, speak Hebrew, and celebrate Jewish holidays.

Abbas ... peace?

2010-06-11T08:36:00.000-07:00

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said he was looking for agreement from the Netanyahu government that the basis for borders would be the 1967 lines with agreed land swaps, an arrangement he said was in place during his direct talks with the previous prime minister, Ehud Olmert.

“Everyone around the world talks about the ’67 borders, but with some amendments, some swaps here and there,” he told a Brookings Institution forum the day after he met with US President Barack Obama and other top American officials.

Still, during his trip to the US, Abbas sought to emphasize his credentials as a peacemaker. His Brookings appearance, billed as his first public address in Washington, was sandwiched between a similarly rare meeting with Jewish leaders and former government officials Wednesday night and visits with members of Congress later Thursday.

Tax BreaK for Canadians!

2010-06-10T23:55:00.000-07:00

British Columbia is switching from a sales tax to a value-added tax. According to Washington law, residents of states or provinces that do not have a sales tax are exempt from Washington’s sales tax.

So, our northern neighbors are going to be able to buy stuff here at a big discount!

Yekke Mission: Jews to Gaza

2010-06-10T08:24:00.000-07:00

German-Jewish Boat to Challenge Israeli Blockade

By Charles Hawley

Palestinians enjoying a water pipe while looking out into the Mediterranean Sea. The waters off the Gaza Strip could get busy this summer.

A group of German Jews has stepped up efforts to send a humanitarian mission to the Gaza Strip in defiance of the Israeli sea blockade. Increasingly, it looks as though the group will have plenty of competition. The waters off Gaza promise to be busy this summer.

Yekke .. affectionate term for German Jews.

The dome below is of the "new Synagogue" on Oranienstrasse in Berlin. This is a museum/ruin from the Nazi era and, ironically, a gathering place for modern progressives, Israelis, and Berliners. It is aslo the venue for the play by Nir de Volff:

But there will be a bit of new history in the onion-domed building on Saturday, when Israeli-born choreographer Nir de Volff premieres Action!, the first dance performance ever held in its confines.

The Baroness and the Sheikhs

2010-06-08T06:44:00.000-07:00

The U.K. just got its first female Muslim cabinet member, a divorced young baroness who represents the country’s contradictions. Naseem Khan on what Pakistanis—and the Taliban—think of her.
Baroness Sayeeda Warsi embodies the sprawling contradictions of contemporary British politics: She is a young, divorced Muslim woman—and the co-chairman of the Conservative Party.

Last week, she dazzled the cameras, resplendent in the vibrant pinks and shimmering gold of her traditional Pakistani dress, striking a remarkable contrast to her dark-suited colleagues, who are mostly white males educated at Oxford or Cambridge.

The oddity of Islamic dress is that it is, in its won way , as provocative as Western sex obsessed teen's clothing. The ad below illustrates the irony .. with all apologies to the Baroness.

The odd thing is that after thirty years of feminism, the bra burnings and dress for success of the Steinem years has finally been replaced in the West by an almost neutral attitude towards most woman's clothing, Although both exposed lingerie and enveloping Islamic hadjibs remain sexually provocative, the flowered blouse with pearls is a female and ordinary as the manly bulging breast of an Armani suit when either costume is worn by a CEO.

Beck Breaks Another PC Barrier

2010-06-07T22:48:00.000-07:00

From Glen Beck's new favorite book

The Red Network, by Elizabeth Dilling

"...under the opportunities of the American government and the inspiration of Christianity, the American Negroes have acquired professions, property, banks, homes, and produced a rising class of refined, home loving people. This is far more remarkable than that many Negroes are still backward. The Reds play upon the Negroes' love of their own people and represent them as persecuted in order to inflame them against the very white people who have in reality given the colored race far greater opportunities than their fellow negroes would give them in Africa today."

a few brief quotes

"savage call of the muezzin"
"When Hitler started his campaign against Communists a…
Fellow workers in the Red movement are glad, of course, to magnify Einstein (they)point out with pride that the greatest most un-understandable scientist in the world is one of their number. …
Brandeis, radical Supreme Court Justice

National movement for boycotting Germany, supposedly because of its anti- Jewish activiti…

from review at Amazon

3 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

an authentic list of the people who have tried to destroy America, January 2, 2006

Newboy

This review is from: The red network; a "who's who" and handbook of radicalism for patriots

I was hardly able to contain my rage as I read this book, but, after having some time to digest it, I can only thank Miss E. Conversa Dilling from the bottom of my heart. I had always suspected that BOTH Alexander Hamilton (who was born in HAITI, mind you) and Tho. Jefferson (did HE fight? he just talked!) were perfectly willing to subject Good Americans to their silly and diabolical One Worldish schemes, but I did NOT know, until I read this book, that both were Communists.
And now Karl Rove! Who CAN you trust?

To add grist to the mill:

California Republicans optimistic about their prospects in November could find themselves with a bit of a problem after the votes are counted in Tuesday’s primaries — a statewide ticket with the so-called “Birther Queen” as one of their candidates.

Orly Taitz is an Israeli émigré who has spent the past two years filing lawsuits challenging President Barack Obama’s right to be president on the grounds that he was born in Kenya. In the process, she has earned herself $20,000 in court fines.

Now she’s running for the GOP nomination for secretary of state, and with her establishment-backed primary opponent mounting a less-than-stellar campaign against her, operatives say there’s a chance she could win.

Hooverville goes global?

2010-06-07T21:53:00.000-07:00

G-20 Cancels Fiscal Expansionism: Hooverism on a Global Scale
By: David Dayen Monday June 7, 2010 7:40 am

The G-20 nations over the weekend basically held up a “Let Them Eat Cake” sign for the rest of the planet’s citizens to read. And a white flag to the bond market vigilantes, to boot. Not in this country or abroad has the private sector stepped up to drive the recovery. And yet, the deficit scolds have won. There will be no more fiscal stimulus, generally speaking, for most of the world. And that’s true despite mass unemployment in America and rising joblessness in Europe. This is precisely the kind of thinking that turned a jarring stock market crash into a worldwide depression in the 1930s.

Hawking on God

2010-06-07T19:57:00.000-07:00

Those people might care to hark at deeply relevant news. God will be defeated by science. No, not by faltering Wi-Fi systems at a conference. And, no, these are not my words. This is the considered opinion of someone sometimes referred to as the cleverest man in the world, Stephen Hawking.

BP stands for ??????????

2010-06-07T19:54:00.001-07:00

Kuwait Owns 27% of BP; 95% Of BP Oil comes from US; BP refine/stores it in Texas; Kuwait Sets price; Sells it in US! Our OWN OIL

Iran Offers to Make War

2010-06-07T08:22:00.000-07:00

Iran offers escort to next aid convoy

• Aide threatens use of Revolutionary Guard
• Netanyahu warns of Jerusalem missile danger

2010-06-06T09:09:00.000-07:00

The Problem with Aid

International Donations Not Always Welcome in Gaza

The aid shipment that the Palestinian activists' flotilla was hoping to bring to Gaza before they were halted by Israeli commandos is now awaiting delivery. But Hamas will only let the badly needed goods into the territory under certain conditions. In the Gaza Strip, aid is not always greeted with enthusiasm.
Having built a three-storey house in Jabalia, north of Gaza City, Zaed Khadar used to be a proud homeowner. He ran a supermarket from the ground floor and made enough profit there to provide for his seven children. His wife bred chickens on the roof. Then came the Gaza War, a three-week conflict between December 2008 and January 2009, and suddenly Khadar's life was in ruins. His neighborhood, his house and his business were all destroyed. Since then, the 46-year-old has been helpless in every sense of the word. Donations coming to the Gaza Strip from both large and small aid organizations never arrive at the Khadars'.

"People who are not in with Hamas don't see any of the relief goods or the gifts of money," Khadar says. On the sand dune where his house once perched, there is now an emergency shelter. The shelter is made of concrete blocks that Khadar dug from the rubble, and the roof is the canvas of a tent that provided the family with shelter for the first summer after the war. "Hamas supporters get prefabricated housing, furnishings and paid work. We get nothing," Khadar complains. Hamas Members Take and Distribute 'at Their Own Discretion'
The reason his family receives nothing: Like many of his neighbors, Khadar is a die-hard supporter of the Fatah party, the sworn political enemy of the more radical Islamists in Hamas. That's why Khadar has little hope of seeing any of the 10,000 tons of aid that the activist flotilla heading for the Gaza Strip tried to bring to Gaza's harbor at the start of this week.

Common genetic threads link thousands of years of Jewish ancestry

2010-06-05T05:17:00.000-07:00

Published: Thursday, June 3, 2010 - 12:55 in Paleontology & Archaeology

Using sophisticated genomic analysis, scientists have probed the ancestry of several Jewish and non-Jewish populations and better defined the relatedness of contemporary Jewish people. The research, published by Cell Press in the June issue of the American Journal of Human Genetics, may shed light on the question, first raised more than a century ago, of whether Jews are a race, a religious group or something else. The genetic, cultural and religious traditions of contemporary Jewish people originated in the Middle East over three thousand years ago. Since that time, Jewish communities have migrated from the Middle East into Europe, North Africa and across the world. The migration of Jews to new locales is known as the Diaspora. This study shows that although Jewish people experienced genetic mixing with surrounding populations, they retained a genetic coherence along with a religious one.

No cattle shockers, not tear gas, no tasers

2010-06-03T10:48:00.000-07:00

From Mirel Goldberg mirelcomic@gmail.com

It is very sad when you receive more and more proofs that your leaders, that decide your future, hopes, that in their care we leave the future of our children and people are stupids, insane and incompetents. The generals that we pay huge wages and advantages, the political leaders that live from the" fat" of the land and from our hard earned money, are stupid, mean, proud. The seven deadly sins are their domain. But I was hoping that they have what Napoleon asked from his generals: to have some luck.

The proud bastards don't have this either ...They are repeating the same mistakes and now an heroic Exodus archetype image is created from the dead fools that came on their boats to help a terrorist organisation/govern and a population that democratically elected the Hamas and voted for blood, terror and tears.

Another Irish ship is approaching: let's see if we learned something. I doubt.

Israel acted in international water because in the 12 miles you'll have hundreds of Gaza fishboats, Israeli Arabs boats, ships of Israeli activists and maybe the Israeli Right counter-demonstrati on ships . The best solution was sabotage/imobilize in the middle of the sea at night, as nobody with no sophisticate cameras may give news cover and images. To stop the motors and to leave the ships imobilized on the sea.

Another solution was to use special forces as Mishmar HaGvul, prison special anti-riot units...people trained from childhood (in their Georgian, Druze, Russian, Israeli slums, Ethiopian village) how to beat someone without needing to shoot.

To beat someone BUT not to injury/kill him is a profession; the Israeli comando (navyseal style) is trained to enter, search and terminate. When they were in danger, they falled on the training that they received. And they were in mortal danger.

The blunder was due to the fact that the imbeciles that are our political and military leaders sent the wrong men in the wrong place.

I have a profound feeling that all over the world, in private societies as in states governs, the fools and the idiots are now leading to our doom. The corrupts, the fools and the ignorants are our leaders. In the history of humankind, with drums and trumpets sometimes we are dancing to the March of Folly. And now is this time

As in other countries, Israel is no exception; it is a very sad day: people died and Israel lost again the battle of communication. In the future this day will be paid by us in land, money, Honor and respect.

Thank to our proud political and military leaders. May they rot in the dustbin of history.

"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results."
— Benjamin Franklin

To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it." — G.K. Chesterton

PeaceNow?

2010-06-02T22:50:00.000-07:00

The Israeli military operation against the humanitarian Gaza convoy has provoked an outcry around the world and within Israel itself.

Five leading headlines from this morning's edition of the daily newspaper Haaretz illustrate the frustration.

Ari Shavit's 'Fiasco on the high seas', Reuven Pedatzur's 'A failure any way you slice it', Yossi Sarid's 'Seven idiots in the cabinet', and Gideon Levy's 'Operation Mini Cast Lead' - Israel's code name for its bloody war on Gaza, considered a war crime by the UN Goldstone commission - and last but not least the paper's editorial, 'The price of flawed policy'.

Marilyn and her Avatar

2010-06-01T23:50:00.000-07:00

Now that is life worth imitating.

The greatest courage is to use non violence

2010-05-31T11:10:00.000-07:00

Israeli commandos killed at least 10 people when they stormed an activist flotilla carrying aid to the Gaza Strip on Monday. Politicians were quick to condemn the violence used by the Israelis.

Awful events, yet could there be a lesson here? ten peaceful protesters, ten deaths. I believe these ten deaths could have far more effect than the hundreds of self immolating jihadi suicide bombers.

Can the Palestinians learn the power of non violence?

Curses on the Tomb Raiders

2010-05-31T11:06:00.000-07:00

Egypt's Avenger of the Pharaohs

Egypt, plagued by tomb raiders and art dealers, has lost large portions of its pharaonic heritage to Europe and the United States. The head of the country's Supreme Council of Antiquities is waging a bitter moral campaign against the West, and he is now demanding the return of six of the most beautiful masterpieces. By Matthias Schulz more... [ Forum ]

Former commerce inspector gets suspended death

2010-05-21T08:58:00.000-07:00

Toyota Invents Cars based on Artifical Life

2010-05-21T07:41:00.000-07:00

Toyota announced plans today to build an electric vehicle at the recently closed New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. (NUMMI) plant in Fremont, California. Tesla will partner with Toyota, providing electric drive technology, and producing its own Model S sedan at the plant.

It is already being described as "one of the most important scientific achievements in the history of mankind" - a new, entirely artificial life form created in a laboratory.
It is not a clone, or a genetically modified organism, but a synthetic living cell.
It is being hailed as a huge scientific step, but some are saying it is a step too far.
The cell was created in the laboratory of American scientist Dr Craig Venter, who told Newsnight that it was a breakthrough that would benefit humanity.

Seattle Jew

Jews still struggle to feel at home in Malmö

Jews still struggle to feel at home in Malmö

Huckabee

Who I am ...

Egtypt: SuperBowl Sunday

SuperBowl Sunday: Egypt

Miracle of the Fried Host

Is This Where I Turn the Other Cheek?

Turning the other cheek, II

Turning the Other Cheek, I

Washington is National Football Champion

=

Forgive the Christians

A Medal of Some Honor, an Accolade

Another Lost Tribe.

Sofoklis Schortsanitis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

St. Barbara in Belarus

Kashrut v. Halal at McD!s

Place this quote:

Do lawyers even care about their appearance as untruthful, paid flacks?

Hannukah in Cuba

Swedish Excellence in Soccer .. Can A Jew Kick Goals?

And God Said ....

Peace Now Outscores AIPAC on Facebook.

Christian Zionism

Funny He Does Not Look jewish!

A Rabbis , Arik Ascherman, Working For Palestinian Justice

Two Views of God's Word.

Jews Rediscover Balm of Gilead

John Wayne, a New Jew?

Jesus Sides with the Romans and Hitler?

Christian vs. Rabbinic Origins

A Concept for A New Reality Show

Best Challah in the Holy City.

HOPE

Funny?

Beck, The Movie

This is Scary: Ave Maria Biotech

Who Owns the Kids?

Glenn Beck Debates the Iman

The New Mecca

Burlington Burkha Factory in Mecca

Tony Judt .. a Jew Dies.

Why Man Makes God

The News ... from North Korea

The Mosque at Ground Zero

Why Cordoba?

AtheistTS VS. True Believer

Another traditonal industry beat the dust....

Beate Uhse erotica hit where it hurts by free online porn

Democracy

On God

The Day the Jews Ended

Nuff Said

Can Jews Jump?

Move-On Teabaggery

Endorse the Pledge

Peace Movement in Palestine?

Protecting Us from People to the South

How Christian of you!

Remembering The Bra Burners ...

Jewish converts in Columbia try to leave the Inquisition, tell jokes

Raising Our (Jewish Kids) in Seattle

Iranian Hair

Censored ... by China!

tried logging into http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/

Forbidden

Happy 4th

Flickers of Hope?

Detroit .. Pompey in Progress?

Detroit's ruins bring visitors, but rankle critics within the city

Nigeria: Sports have outcomes!

Leftists harass immigrants supporting Germany

Where are the Food Blogs for Seattle?

Stalin to Join Roosevelt on Rushmore?

Bush's protege in Israel

Go Yankee Yidden!: we bleed if cut and kick balls too!

The Messiah Has Come

The Rebbe:The Life and Afterlife of Menachem Mendel Schneerson

The Rebbe:
The Life and Afterlife of Menachem Mendel Schneerson