JustASC

Religious correctness poses as even-handedness in this sentence from Daphne Merkin’s article on the Kabbalah Centre in the New York Times magazine:

[Kabbala] has been looked on with suspicion and even hostility by some Jewish authorities since it first emerged, its lore codified in an ur-text known as the Zohar, the authorship of which some attribute to Moses de León in the 13th century and others to the sage Simeon ben Yohai in the second century.

True, “some” believe the Zohar is an artifact from the second century. But a truer formulation might be, “While the weight of critical scholarship attributes the Zohar to de Leon, traditionalists still insist it is the work of ben Yohai and was passed down through the centuries by his disciples.” 

This week in the NJJN:

Reporter Elaine Durbach recalls her childhood in once hopeful Zimbabwe.

Schechter closes a day school campus in Union County.

I explain why Eric Yoffie is only half-right about John Hagee.

The publisher of politickernj.com spins their creepy circumcision cartoon:

Bob Sommer, president of the Observer Media Group, which owns politickernj.com, disagreed. He is Jewish, as is Jared Kushner, owner of Observer Media Group.

“The cartoon was about the use of power, and the senator and the congressman adeptly used their power to the senator’s benefit,” he told NJJN. “That’s what the cartoon is about and any adept reader would understand that.”

Asked why, then, the cartoon included elements of the politicians’ religion, Sommer said, “Both the senator and the congressman are proud of their religion, and it was a humorous use of how they use their power.”

More from the NYTimes on the kosher food “boom,” this time in a profile of kosher cookbook author Susie Fishbein:

According to Lubicom, a marketing firm for the kosher food industry, about 350,000 households in the United States keep kosher kitchens year-round, a number that has gone up by 3 percent to 5 percent every year since 2005 as some American Jews have become more observant.

That sounds about right — the 2001 NJPS identified about 324,000 Orthodox homes, considered an undercount by some, and of course there are non-Orthodox Jews who keep kosher.

Later there’s this stat:

 $15 billion in kosher food products were sold in 2007, according to the Orthodox Union, the largest kosher certification agency.

But again, does that total include everything that carries a kosher certification? Has anyone studied how many consumers specifically seek out hekshered products, as opposed to throwing ketchup in the cart that happens to be marked with a “k”? (You can even argue that $15 billion seems low, when you consider that U.S. families and individuals spent more than $895 billion on food in 2005).

Here’s a fascinating, and in this campaign climate, a seemingly unprecedented statement of open-mindedness by a political operative. Lanny Davis, Washington attorney and Clinton supporter, originally wrote a piece for the Wall Street Journal and the AC360 blog  saying Obama had yet to answer to his satisfaction questions about his pastor. Wrote Davis:

Why did he stay a member of the congregation? Why didn’t he speak up earlier? And why did he reward Rev. Wright with a campaign position even after knowing of his comments?

In his April 13 post, Davis shares an email he received in response from Jeh Johnson, whom he identifies as an African-American attorney from New York.  In his email, Johnson discusses the role of the black church in the lives of middle class blacks like himself and Obama. And he writes of the radical messages he sometimes hears from the pulpits, and why, despite them, he continues to attend such churches even as he “harbors no ‘anger’ or racial animosity toward anybody, including my white law partners, my white neighbors, or my white family members.” Writes Johnson:

The reality is this: Those of us who participate in both the white and African-American experiences will very likely have a Jeremiah Wright in our lives - it could be our teacher, our uncle, our brother, our father, or our pastor. It is simply part of the American experience.

Davis says this about Johnson’s email:

One e-mail sent to me moved me the most, giving me a better understanding of Senator Obama’s reaction to Rev. Wright’s sermons. While not answering all my concerns, it still opened my mind and heart much more than before.

Here’s what drives me nuts about trend stories reporting a boom in the sale of kosher foods, most recently in the New York Times:

[Manischewitz] says there are now 86,000 kosher-certified products, the market is growing between 10 and 15 percent annually, and more than 14,000 new kosher products have been introduced in the United States and Canada over the last five years.

Do they really mean “14,000 new kosher products,” or “kosher certification has been extended to 14,000 new products”? It seems most of the major food companies seek a heksher for their products, which means they can sell to those who keep kosher in addition to their base customers (and perhaps a number of people who see the heksher as some sort of seal of purity). That’s an admirable story about American-style diversity, but that’s different than saying the nation’s customers are clamoring for thousands of new kosher qua kosher products. I think the stats include the vast majority of consumers who don’t even know they’re buying a “kosher” product — and don’t even notice if it carries an OU, Star-K, or the like.

Granted, the Kosher-for-Passover aisle at my supermarket is crammed with offerings and the kosher market has gotten ever more sophisticated and diverse. But until the day that sales for Kitov Cheese Swirls surpass sales for Cheetoh’s, let’s take it easy about a kosher boom.   

NJpoliticker.com, a must-read for political junkies, posted this charming cartoon by Rob Tornoe on the eve of Passover, under the headline, “Rothman the Mohel, or, Ferriero’s Bris.”

For those not up on their NJ Democratic politics, the joke here is that U.S. Rep. Steve Rothman and U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg are alleged to have strong-armed Bergen County Democratic Chairman Joseph Ferriero to withdraw an intended endorsement of  U.S. Rep. Rob Andrews, who is challenging Lautenberg for his Senate seat. 

A comment by Ben Dworkin in the feedback section nails the outrage under the title, “evocative of blood libel”:

With a week to go before Passover, a time when the ancient blood libel charges have been raised in the past, this cartoon is offensive and inappropriate. PolitickerNJ should be smarter than to put this out there.

I get the point of the cartoon, and the joke. Surely there is another way to make people laugh about the situation in Bergen County without resorting to this kind of religious imagery, which evokes so many slanders of the past.

I respectfully ask that you reconsider your decision to post this.

I wonder how the publisher will respond.

Jewish Journal of Los Angeles has good breaking coverage of Jewish philanthropist Daphna Ziman’s accusations that a black pastor made anti-Semitic remarks in a speech at an event where she was being honored. The page has the text of the email that is being rapidly disseminated on the Internet accusing Eric Lee of attacking Jews for blacks’ portrayal in Hollywood, among other things. They also have Lee’s statement denying that he made any “statement that was offensive regarding the Jewish community and I completely deny and refute any accusation that I have done so.”

I was forwarded Ziman’s email by someone saying “Jewish supporters of Barack Obama should consider” the incident (Ziman’s email notes that Lee had praise for Obama.) American Thinker blog headlined it “Another Problem Preacher for Obama.” So that’s in play.

Ziman’s email was posted at the pro-Israel Web site StandWithUs, which followed up with this interesting note:

This is a follow up to the letter that Daphna Ziman wrote which was published in our last newsletter, just an hour ago.

The letter expressed Daphna’s experience and the distress she felt at being a witness and recipient of anti-Semitic comments. Some readers may view her letter as having come across as being negative toward Barak Obama. Our purpose in sending out Daphna’s letter was solely to highlight the issue of anti-Semitic remarks delivered by Rev. Eric Lee, president and CEO of Southern Christian Leadership Conference of greater Los Angeles.

Anti-Semitic diatribes like the one that Daphna witnessed, should never be tolerated and require a response from leadership and the larger community of decent people of all faiths and political persuasion.

StandWithUs maintains a neutral, non-partisan stance, and we are not and do not take a position for or against any one candidate.

The Economist has a multi-part “Special Report” on Israel’s 60th anniversary. In a piece on Israel’s debate over a potential constitution, there’s this fascinating aside:

In a recent edition of Azure, a liberal-right Israeli journal,

Notwithstanding the debate over Azure’s politics (covered at length here), what the heck is “liberal-right”?

Investors Business Daily editorializes against Jimmy Carter’s plans for a citizen-diplomat mission to Syria, during which reports say that he might meet with exiled Hamas leader Khalid Meshal.

The editorial concludes with this neat bit of sleight-of-hand:

Now we see Jimmy Carter conducting the kind of “aggressive personal diplomacy” Barack Obama has promised.

If Obama wins the White House, will Khaled Meshal be invited to Camp David?

This double-bank shot is a brilliant display of rhetorical chutzpah. It’s a parlor game – connect a politician with an egregious news report in two moves or less — that you can try on any issue. Like this:

On The 700 Club April 8 edition, Pat Robertson said of Islam: “I want to say it again, and again, and again: Islam is not a religion, it is a political system meant on — bent on world domination, not a religion. It masquerades as a religion…”

Is this the kind of rhetoric we can expect from our diplomats when John Hagee becomes McCain’s secretary of state?

Or how about:

Sen. Clinton called on President Bush to skip the opening ceremonies of the Olympics, unless China modifies its human rights policies. Meanwhile, violence spread from Tibet through neighboring parts of China on Sunday as anti-Chinese protesters took to the streets.

If Clinton wins the White House, will condoning violent protest be the signature of her presidency? 

This week in the NJJN:

• Jewish Dems meet up in NJ, and the talk is about earned income tax credits (no –just kidding. They talked about Obama)
• Israel’s version of “Wife Swap” finds a gay dad in South Orange to change places with a mom in the Holy Land
• How do you say the Four Questions in Klingon?
• Former NJ Gov. Thomas Kean has harsh words on the Bush administration’s civil liberties record:

During wars past, he said, “our freedoms bent, and they bent too far in most cases. But they didn’t break, and the saving grace was the good sense of the American people.”

“But today, the president says, ‘We are at war, and we have to sacrifice some of our liberties.’ Our liberties have always been restored after war,” said Kean, but “now, when is peace going to come?”

“When is the global war on terror going to come to an end? No one can say.

“No peace treaties are going to be signed. There will be no victory parades. Therefore, we have to act now. We can’t allow our civil liberties to erode in this kind of war because we don’t know when we will get them back.”