May 7, 2008

Like the Wall Street Journal last week, the liberal Israeli daily, Ha’aretz, carried a story this week that convicted the Rev. Eric Lee of saying, “The Jews have made money on us in the music business and we are the entertainers, and they are economically enslaving us.”

Prominent California reverend and black activist Eric Lee has apologized for anti-Semitic comments he said last month at a Los Angeles event commemorating the assassination of Martin Luther King.

The Los Angeles Times on Friday reported a “reconciliation” meeting between the Pastor and Daphna Ziman – an Israeli-American philanthropist and the recipient of this year’s Tom Bradley Award for community service, for whose honor Lee made the keynote speech at an award ceremony in Los Angeles.

During his speech, Lee, the local president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a civil rights group, is reported to have suddenly launched an anti-Semitic rant, stating that Jews have made money on blacks in the music business.

In fact, there has been much dispute, which I reported several times over, about exactly what Lee said. And the word missing from the above story is “alleged.” It is what Lee is “alleged” to have said. But Ha’aretz’ Shlomo Shamir, like so many people who read Lee’s apology, assumed, apparently without talking with Lee or Daphna Ziman, the Jewish philanthropist whose emailed account of Lee’s speech went viral.

The difference between Shamir’s news article and the Wall Street Journal op-ed by MLK’s former lawyer is just that: One was news and the other opinion. Both, though, need to be accurate.

More from the anti-Semitism beat, the NYT has this interesting article about the rise of Jew hatred alongside burgeoning Jewish life in Hungary:

In the comments to the post about the Israel Bible Quiz, Stan Meyer said that Jim Crow is alive and well. Maybe, maybe not. But at least the spirit of exclusionary laws were evident last night in Indiana when nuns were turned away from the polls for lack of ID.

The nuns, all residents of a retirement home at Saint Mary’s Convent near Notre Dame University, were denied ballots by a fellow sister and poll worker because the women, in their 80s and 90s, did not have valid Indiana photo ID cards.

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“It’s the law, and it makes it hard,” said Sister Julie McGuire, who was working at the polling place and had to explain to the nuns that they could not vote. “Some don’t understand why.”

Indiana requires voters who come to the polls show a photo ID issued by the state or the federal government. The law was pressed by Republicans citing voter fraud and opposed by Democrats and the ACLU, who argued that it would disenfranchise voters.

Ever wondered why animals don’t practice religion? It’s a fair question, especially when considering the multitude of beliefs humans have held. The answer, according to economist Maurice Bloch is that animals didn’t evolve the proper mechanics to imagine a universal order.

That leaves hanging a really strange chicken-and-egg question about creation and evolution, but it’s worth reading Bloch’s essay, published here in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B and discussed in this article on NewScientist.com. As you may have surmised from Bloch’s background, his article is based more conjecture than lab work:

Big statement coming from evangelicals today:

Conservative Christian leaders who believe the word “evangelical” has lost its religious meaning plan to release a starkly self-critical document saying the movement has become too political and has diminished the Gospel through its approach to the culture wars.

The statement, called “An Evangelical Manifesto,” condemns Christians on the right and left for “using faith” to express political views without regard to the truth of the Bible, according to a draft of the document obtained Friday by The Associated Press.

“That way faith loses its independence, Christians become `useful idiots’ for one political party or another, and the Christian faith becomes an ideology,” according to the draft.

The declaration, scheduled to be released Wednesday in Washington, encourages Christians to be politically engaged and uphold teachings such as traditional marriage. But the drafters say evangelicals have often expressed “truth without love,” helping create a backlash against religion during a “generation of culture warring.”

“All too often we have attacked the evils and injustices of others,” they wrote, “while we have condoned our own sins.” They argue, “we must reform our own behavior.”

The Evangelical Manifesto, to be presented at the National Press Club, carries a lot of the mainstream voices that teeter between liberal and conservative politics—a refreshing bit of news for a brand of Christianity that has become far too aligned with political power and the Republican Party.