JustASC

Here’s an alarming line from a Detroit Free Press report on the 2008 JCC Maccabi Games, being held in West Bloomfield, Mich.:

Organizers declined to comment on the event, however, citing fears of possible terrorist-like attacks on the gathering, which is expected to draw a wide field of athletes for Olympic-style competitions.

Did organizers really say this? Would commenting to the press have compromised the athletes’ security? Would a press report have been any more or less compromising that the event’s official web site? 

By the way, we loved the headline on the Freep story:

Athletes to compete in annual Jewish games

Jewish games? We were hoping dreidl, find the afikomen and mah jongg, but n-o-o-o — instead, 3,000 teens wil compete in 14 sports, icnluding swimming, tennis and soccer.

Last night I attended a book party for Rob Kutner, a writer for “The Daily Show” and author of the very funny Apocalypse How: Turn the End-Times into the Best of Times! (The host was Nigel Savage, founder of the Jewish environmental group Hazon, for whom Rob has staged a regular Purim comedy fundraiser.)

Watch a promo for the book here:

Two Middlesex County lawmakers, Assemblyman Patrick J. Diegnan Jr. and Peter Barnes III,  get involved in the Edison school bond election dispute. Their statement after the jump. (more…)

As sundown approaches, I leave you with this inspirational story from Australia’s The Age: 

On holy day of love, Jewish men enthusiastically embrace their moral duty
Jason Koutsoukis, Jerusalem
August 16, 2008

WHAT makes a Jewish man smile on Friday evenings? The tranquillity of the sabbath, when families gather around the dining table for a traditional meal. The candle lighting. The blessings. But there is something else: perhaps God’s double mitzvah – literally, double “commandment” – that a man make love to his wife not just that night, but throughout the next day. It may be the holy day’s most important precept.

“This is an expression of moral values,” says Lubavitch Rabbi Mendel Deren, who is based in the Old City of Jerusalem. “And by moral values, I mean that a man’s duty to make love requires him to think not about what his own body wants, but the responsibility he has to care about his wife and her feelings. It’s an act of love.”

You can read the rest of the story here (if you’re 18 or over, that is).

So commerce imitates life: Here’s the scene outside my window, as the Wendy’s commercial shoot goes outdoors to a campany lunch hour scene. I think they are shooting for an “Office” vibe, with generic white collar workers in khakis sitting around picnic tables and eating their dull brown bag lunches.

And what am I doing? Sitting at my desk, wearing khakis and eating my brown bag lunch. 

As we report this week, things are heating up in Edison over a school bond referendum scheduled for Rosh Hashanah.

As local rabbi Dr. Bernhard Rosenberg told our reporter:

“I heard a rumor they were trying to pull this one off,” he told NJ Jewish News. “I warned a member of the board [of education] that under no circumstances was this to happen. I told him I was going to go to war – and I mean nuclear war.”

Now other groups are getting into the action. See a joint statement by Jewish groups after the jump:

(more…)

John McCain visited New Jersey Aug. 12 and left with $1.5 million dollars in new contributions, much of them raised at two events sponsored by members of the state’s Jewish community.

NJJN’s Bob Wiener reports, after the jump: (more…)

Help me out here:

A production company has rented the lunchroom we share with our landlords, the United Jewish Communities of MetroWest NJ. Apparently they are shooting a commercial for Wendy’s. (I’m not privy to the script, but it seems they needed a non-descript corporate space and a shot of a loading dock. Nothing in the shoot suggests it is a Jewish-owned or -operated setting.) I assume they are paying rent, and will leave behind the improvements they have made to the room, including carpeting, fresh paint and curtains.

A fellow Jewish newspaper editor thinks we have a scandal on our hands, writing:

A treif commercial filmed in a Jewish federation a non-story? C’mon. How could people not want to read about that?

I responded:

I think it is a non-story, except to the degree that people will be more fascinated than outraged. They are renting a non-descript lunchroom at cost, unidentifiable in whatever comes of it….I applaud their efforts at raising revenue.

Are they actually eating Wendy’s at the shoot? Not clear. But in the years I have worked here, employees in the building, which includes our offices, the federation’s, and a JCC, eat both kosher or nonkosher lunches at their desks or in the lunchroom. The many non-Jewish employees certainly do not bring kosher food. The microwaves are not considered kosher by those who keep kosher.

So what do you think — is this a scandal in the making, or a simple business arrangement that leaves a charitable institution with a little more income and some capital improvements? 

[UPDATE: My spy reports the film crew is using latex hamburgers. She's not sure about the french fries.]

I’m trying to figure out who comes out ahead in this news release from the ADL:

New York, NY, August 13, 2008 … While continuing their racist attacks against Sen. Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, white supremacists and anti-Semites have opened up a similar line of attack against his Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain, claiming that he is a “pawn of the Jews” and an enemy of the white race.

On extremist Internet forums monitored by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the Republican candidate has come under sustained attack by anti-Semites and white supremacists who portray him either as pandering to or being controlled by Jews, and as a “race traitor” for his moderate views on immigration.

“While we had expected that the bigots and white supremacists would focus their anger on Barack Obama as the African-American candidate, what has happened is that both candidates are equally unacceptable to white supremacists, who see them as being controlled and manipulated by the Jews,” said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director.

I’m assuming ADL had no political motivations, but political partisans won’t care about that.

McCain’s camp will welcome the release because it polishes their candidate’s pro-Israel credentials, and dilutes any sympathy Obama gets from being a target of the racists and anti-Semites.

Obama’s camp will welcome the release because it puts their guy and McCain on a level playing field when it comes to Israel. They’ll like Foxman’s quote:

“In the warped conspiratorial worldview of the haters, McCain and Obama are equally tainted by the controlling hand of Jews, who they allege control the government and pull the levers of power in Washington.”

Neutral or non-partisan folk, if there are any, will say it proves their point that when it comes to Israel, there is a broad Democratic-Republican consensus.

This is sort of an encouraging sign, isn’t it?

Jewish-Palestinian gang of car thieves detained

Police have detained Jewish, Arab-Israeli and Palestinian car thieves belonging to a gang that specialized in transferring stolen vehicles to the Palestinian Authority, Ynet reported on Tuesday.

Among those arrested was an Israeli high-tech worker who allegedly provided the other gang members with car keys and alarm codes.

Although not this:

The gang stole only from Jews, and a car that was mistakenly stolen from an Arab was returned to its owner.