JustASC

Tonight at Rutgers, the Obama Jewish Leadership Committee of New Jersey, an official Obama campaign organization, gathers. Speakers include Sen. Frank Lautenberg, Rep. Steve Rothman, former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Daniel Kurtzer, and State Senator Loretta Weinberg.

Curiously, the event is closed to the press, despite an invitation faxed to our office.

UPDATE: Our reporter showed up toward the end, and was told it was on the record after all. Sheesh.

JTA has coverage of the Jews for Jesus leader who spoke at Palin’s church. It has this weird and uncharacteristic exchange with the ADL’s Abe Foxman:

The Anti-Defamation League, which has been deeply critical of Jews for Jesus and was among the organizations calling for Democratic nominee Barack Obama to distance himself from his controversial pastor during the primaries, said it had no problem with Palin’s membership in a church that supported efforts to convert Jews.

The ADL’s national director, Abraham Foxman, told JTA that Protestant evangelizing to Jews was entirely different from Catholics praying for Jewish conversion, which the ADL has sharply criticized.

“They did not have the Inquisition. They did not go on a Crusade. They did not kill Jews for 2,000 years,” Foxman said. “They have a belief; they’re entitled to their belief.”

Besides, he said, there is no evidence that Palin shares Brickner’s views.

“If you could tell me that she approves of this guy, she invited him, I’m not aware of any of that,” Foxman said. “The fact that she belongs to a church that believes in it, I don’t have a problem.”

The last part is interesting, and kind of what I said months ago about Obama and Wright – you can belong to a church or synagogue, even love it, while ignoring some of the uglier things said from its pulpit. I wouldn’t pillory Palin for that.

But the distinction Foxman makes between Catholics and Protestants is just bizarre, and out of synch with even recent ADL/Foxman statements, like this one:

It is especially odious to defend the duplicitous proselytizing of Jews by groups such as Jews for Jesus and so-called “Messianic Jews.” While they claim to deplore the use of deception and coercion, they “reject the notion that it is deceptive for followers of Jesus Christ who were born Jewish to continue to identify as Jews,” thus turning the meaning of deception on its head.

 In the same statement, Foxman/ADL praises the Rev. Billy Graham,

who said: “I believe God has always had a special relationship with the Jewish people, as St. Paul suggests in the book of Romans. In my evangelistic efforts I have never felt called to single out the Jews as Jews…” In 2000, Graham defended Jews during the Southern Baptist Convention’s major effort to proselytize Jews, saying, “I normally defend my denomination. I’m loyal to it. But I have never targeted Muslims. I have never targeted Jews.”

If this is a good thing in Foxman’s eyes, then how is a church that seeks the conversion of Jews not a bad thing?

This week in the NJJN:

McCain’s local Jewish delegates stand by their man, as a compressed Republican National Convention gets underway in St. Paul. 

A new cantor talks about her transition from stage to pulpit, her love of classic Jewish song, and what it’s like for a singer to be married to the daughter of famed violinist Yitzhak Perlman.

Sportswriter Murray Chass talks about life after the New York Times, which he left earlier this year after taking a buyout offer.

And I offer my two cents (plain) about Hurricane Bristol:

Can a McCain-Palin ticket last until November? Fair or not, the pressures on Palin, her family, and the Republican ticket are enormous. Her statement of withdrawal almost writes itself, whether she decides to take the high road – “I regrettably underestimated the time and attention I must devote to my family in this difficult time” – or the low road: “I can no longer subject my family to the viciousness of the partisan media.”

Emily Bazelon suggests how Evangelical Christians and ultra-Orthodox Jews are alike, and why McCain may have plunged ahead with the Palin pick despite her daughter’s pregnancy:

A few years ago, I went to a wedding, in the trippy hillside Israeli town Szefat, between an ultra-Orthodox Jewish Israeli and his Dutch soon-to-be-convert bride. She was eight months pregnant, her bulge apparent even under the white tentlike cotton that covered her from head to foot. Szefat is the place Jews go to dabble in mysticism and born-again Judaism. You might think that a knocked-up bride there would inspire, if not condemnation, at least embarrassed jokes. But I saw only joy and celebration around me: The only thing that mattered was that the bride would marry and convert before the birth of the child, making him a Jew (because Jewish law recognizes only matrilineal descent).

It’s still “Silent Night” in South Orange-Maplewood. NJJN‘s Johanna Ginsberg reports:

Christmas carols – and Hanukkah hymns and Ramadan prayers – are still not permitted in the South Orange-Maplewood School District.

On August 29, United States District Court Judge William H. Walls dismissed a case against the school district claiming its holiday concert policy constituted hostility toward religion.

It was the second time Judge Walls dismissed the case, known as Stratechuk vs. Board of Education, South Orange-Maplewood School District.

His original decision in support of the school district, issued in September 2005, was vacated by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals later that month and sent back for reargument.

Plaintiff Michael Stratechuk had two children in the school system in 2004 when it barred the singing or playing of religious music at December holiday concerts. Stratechuk argued that the policy violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

Residents, reacting to the ruling in a posted on the town’s online discussion board, were unanimously in favor of the ruling. Comments ranged from, “Rockin’ good news!” to “Good. Plaintiff should end the litigation and not appeal. Any further action should involve only members of the community and the BOE, not the courts.”