July 18, 2007

Dog bites man—that’s what I thought when I saw this headline in today’s Ventura County Star: “Anti-Defamation League official decries anti-Semitism.”

I e-mailed the story to a former colleague and he made these comparisons:

“NAACP leader says lynching is bad.”

“Dodgers don’t like Giants very much.”

“Hell hot, heaven not.”

It is possible, though, to be a non-loathing Jew who thinks anti-Semitism has to an extent helped the Jewish community. UCLA law prof Eugene Volokh made that case last month in the Wall Street Journal.

Modest amounts of anti-Semitic speech and unfair criticism of Israel, it seems to me, can strengthen American Jews’ self-identity as Jews, and thus indirectly both support the preservation of the American Jewish community as a community, and strengthen support for Israel. Feeling embattled as a group tends to strengthen group solidarity. Hearing unfair criticisms for Israel tends to strengthen the sense that Israel is unfairly embattled and deserves more support. Feeling some fear of anti-Semitism reminds American Jews of the value of preserving American Jewish institutions. And it reminds American Jews of the value of protecting Israel, in case one day American Jews may need refuge somewhere just as European Jews once did. (“Home is the place where, when you have to go there, They have to take you in.”)

First, I want to repeat an important phrase: MODEST AMOUNTS. Second, I want to ask that comments to this blog post not be anti-Semitic, unless, of course, you are Sacha Baron Cohen or the guys at Heeb.

Who cares whether Harry Potter is a Christian, you’re about to get fined whatever his faith if you’re an Israeli bookseller planning on making bank when the final installment in the “Potter” series comes out Saturday morning. My colleague Adam Wills is talking about the story over at his blog, GeekHeeb.

Since it’s happening on Shabbat, Orthodox Israeli lawmakers are having apoplectic fits about bookstores staying open on the day of rest to take part in the Potter-mania. In fact, Industry and Trade Minister Eli Yishai is threatening to fine stores that sell the book before Shabbat ends.

“Israeli law forbids businesses to force their employees to work on the Sabbath, and that applies in this case as well. The minister will fine and prosecute any businesses which violate the law,” Shas Party spokesman Roei Lachmanovich said.

That’s bad news, not just for Israeli Harry Potter fans—and what about observant Jews who will break Shabbat throughout the world to get a copy?—but particularly for Steimatzky, Israel’s largest bookseller, which says it has a contractual agreement to begin selling “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” at the same time as everyone else.

The NY Times had a story yesterday about the creationist textbook sent around the world. The book, “Atlas of Creation,” was not the product of the Discovery Institute or Answers in Genesis, but that of a Turkish Muslim, Harun Yahya.

At 11 x 17 inches and 12 pounds, with a bright red cover and almost 800 glossy pages, most of them lavishly illustrated, “Atlas of Creation” is probably the largest and most beautiful creationist challenge yet to Darwin’s theory, which Mr. Yahya calls a feeble and perverted ideology contradicted by the Koran.

In bowing to Scripture, Mr. Yahya resembles some fundamentalist creationists in the United States. But he is not among those who assert that Earth is only a few thousand years old. The principal argument of “Atlas of Creation,” advanced in page after page of stunning photographs of fossil plants, insects and animals, is that creatures living today are just like creatures that lived in the fossil past. Ergo, Mr. Yahya writes, evolution must be impossible, illusory, a lie, a deception or “a theory in crisis.”

 

“In fact,” the Times reports, “there is no credible scientific challenge to the theory of evolution as an explanation for the complexity and diversity of life on earth”—which is something you’ve read here before. Most scientists, even God-fearing ones like Francis Collins of the Human Genome Project, believe evolution exists alongside the Creator.

Wal-Mart, which some believe is the anti-Christ, is about to start carrying 12-inch Jesus dolls. He will join Samson, Goliath and Daniel in the lion’s den on toy shelves, according to USA Today. Photos can be seen here.

The toys were created by One2Believe, a Valencia, Calif.-based company I ran into when I was at the LA Daily News. Personally, I think this is a noble effort, with a niche market, but as I kid, I would still prefer to play with my Ninja Turtles.

That seems pretty clear from the July issue of Vanity Fair, guest-edited by U2’s Bono and entered dedicated to issues affecting the continent. It’s something I make a prolonged point of in a lengthy story that will run in The Jewish Journal’s philanthropy issue next week.

Two major Christian magazines also thought African development—“Health and Wealth” and “The (Prosperity) Gospel”—was big news this month and published these side-by-side dueling covers.

The Christianity Today issue came out first (I have a story inside it about whether Christian’s can stop sinning), and having the same cover focus is incredibly common for the national newsweeklies Time and Newsweek. But usually it would take an event the magnitude of Billy Graham dying or Christ returning to generate such like-mindedness in among Christians.

An article on the op-ed page of today’s LA Times has very little to do with religion. But it is written by a Jewish former sportswriter at the NY Times—yeah, that narrows the field—who this spring inspired my post about the lack of Jews in professional sports.

Gerald Eskenazi laments in his op-ed what will soon happen to baseball—the hormonal-freak Barry Bonds will hit his 756th home run and pass Hammerin’ Hank on the all-time list. You can feel the spirit being sucked out of America’s pastime as you read Eskenazi’s piece. Here are some snippets.

A lot of the great numbers already have been surpassed, and we accept that. Gone forever is 60, Babe Ruth’s single-season home-run number. Strewn among the ruins of history is 2,130, the number of consecutive games played by Lou Gehrig. The persnickety Ty Cobb lost his 96, once the single-season stolen-base record. (Perhaps the only iconic number left is 56, the number of consecutive games in which Joe DiMaggio hit safely.)

But now, a venerable number — one could argue, quite convincingly, it is baseball’s second-greatest behind Bonds’ single-season homer mark of 73 — is about to be usurped by this incredible (enhanced?) performer, and something will be gone from the game. …

Bonds’ accomplishment will not make people happy, at least the ones who don’t live in San Francisco. And that is the really sad part, for me, about Bonds’ Homerific run. It’s one more whittling away at the game. …

Yet here’s my confession: I will — unhappily — vote for Bonds, the anti-hero, when his Hall of Fame time comes.

I’m a Dodgers fan, so I think you know what I would do. But what about you?

(Cartoon: OC Register)