Ax-swinging Palestinian kills Israeli teen, wounds young boy

Leave a Comment / Uncategorized / Brad A. Greenberg

“Lansky,” the Meyer Lansky biopic starring Richard Dreyfuss, wasn’t much of a film, which was disappointing because the famed Jewish mobster was such an interesting character. But one jarring scene from the film (the trailer’s above) stuck with me: A young Meyerle happens upon a gang of Polish villagers as they attack an elderly Jewish man, stomping and kicking him until one of the villagers grabs a nearby ax and ends it all.

Considering Poland’s history of anti-Semitism the circumstances Lansky was born into in 1902, a story like that wasn’t necessarily apocryphal. And if it was for Lansky, it no longer would be for a 7-year-old Israeli boy who yesterday was attacked in his West Bank village by an ax-swinging Palestinian. Yair Gamliel, whose father was among three members of the “Bat Ayin Underground” convicted of attempting to bomb a Palestinian girls’ school seven years ago, was only injured. Sixteen-year-old Shlomo Nativ wasn’t so lucky.

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HaLevi’s Philosophic Jewel Polished to New Gloss

Leave a Comment / Entertainment / Rabbi David Wolpe

“The Kuzari: In Defense of the Despised Faith” by Rabbi Yehudah HaLevi, translated and annotated by Rabbi N. Daniel Korobkin (Feldheim, 2009).

When “King Lear” was presented in the Yiddish Theater, the old joke has it, the sign read “translated and improved.” Well, no one would say that the Kuzari, written in the early 12th century by Rabbi Yehudah HaLevi, needs to be improved, but this new translation and commentary certainly makes one of the most readable classical works of Jewish philosophy even more accessible. With this new translation in hand, we can hope that a new generation of Jews will learn about one of the most remarkable individuals that Judaism has given to the world.

HaLevi was a poet as well as a philosopher. A product of the “Golden Age” of Spanish Jewish culture, he was also witness to the beginning of its decline. HaLevi wrote imperishable verse; his words adorn our prayer books. Some of his verse, in accord with the temper of the times, was secular in tone — poems of love, wedding poems and even drinking songs. HaLevi had a wide circle of friends, including some of the most eminent scholars of the time. He was distinguished by a love for the land of Israel — not an abstract love, but a passionate, unquenchable love. His lines are not only known to us from their intrinsic power (“My heart is in the East/ While I am in the uttermost West”), but because they have been transmuted into some of modern Israel’s most memorable songs (“I am a harp for your songs” — used by Naomi Shemer in “Yerushalayim shel Zahav”).

HaLevi’s philosophical masterpiece, the Kuzari, is undoubtedly his greatest contribution to Jewish learning. It is a work of philosophy that attacks philosophy, and despite the often-technical arguments and philosophical terminology, it is the lyrical work of a poet, one whose heart is moved by the plight and promise of the Jewish people.

As with many famous works of philosophy, from Plato to Hume, the Kuzari is a dialogue. It is founded on a historical event: the conversion to Judaism by the king of the medieval Khazar Kingdom. There is not much known about the circumstances, but those who are interested can find out what is known from Rabbi N. Daniel Korobkin’s lucid essay for his book. (Rabbi Korobkin is spiritual leader of Yavneh Academy and director of community and synagogue services for the West Coast Orthodox Union.) The conversion rippled through the Jewish world. For a minority, to have an entire kingdom choose Judaism was a phenomenal boon. (Rabbi Korobkin does not mention that some modern scholars believe one of the king’s motivations was to keep his land’s balance between Christian and Muslim forces without too radically offending either one! But it seems clear that genuine conviction obtained, and the book capitalizes on that idea.)

HaLevi takes this singular event as his inspiration. The king is visited by a dream in which God tells him that God is pleased with his intentions but not his actions. The king, unable to shake off the dream, decides to explore other avenues of living. In the process he summons a philosopher, a Christian, a Muslim and a Jew to defend their approach to faith.

Without reviewing all the many and interesting facets of the book, we can highlight two arguments in the rabbi’s arsenal. The philosopher proposes a very Aristotelian God. His God is perfect, can neither gain nor lose, be affected by anything, change or even have intentions or will. The God of HaLevi is, as Pascal later glossed it, not the God of the philosophers, but the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. HaLevi’s God begins not with argument but with experience. God is one to whom we can pray, from whom we can derive hope. The philosopher’s God in this recounting is bloodless, abstract. (The rabbi is too polite to point out that the God of the philosopher could not have sent a dream in the first place.)

HaLevi also leads the king to realize that the Muslim and Christian protagonists accept the authority of the Jewish scripture. On that single point, all three agree. So why not place faith in the same source that they do?

Naturally, these comments just touch the surface of a book meant not merely to be read, but to be studied. All the great religious questions, of revelation, of immortality, or Israel’s history and destiny, here find expression and interpretation. HaLevi himself is a venerated figure who has also endured some disparagement among modern readers. The veneration arises from his actually seeking to journey to the Holy Land, one of very few Jews (and even fewer eminent Jews) who embarked on that perilous journey throughout the Middle Ages and beyond. Whether he arrived at the land of Israel is unclear (there is a legend that he arrived at the Western Wall, where he was trampled to death), but his passionate Zionism was not theoretical. HaLevi lived his words.

The disparagement arises from HaLevi’s positing a different sort of soul for Jews, claiming that Jews alone have souls capable of prophecy. Here elementary historical understanding requires we acknowledge that the words or ideas of all human beings, even the greatest, cannot be divorced from the age in which they live. Those who today argue for the essential difference of the Jewish soul are engaging in what has been called “metaphysical racism” — a practice both foolish and dangerous. But we live more than half a millennium after the author of the Kuzari. Recall that the subtitle of the book is “In Defense of a Despised Faith.” HaLevi was a rare spirit who transcended his time in many ways; to seek out flaws in his theological armor is to show ourselves small without diminishing him.

Rabbi Korobkin does not shrink from examining this question, and readers will benefit from his treatment of it. There are many editions of the Kuzari and numerous books about HaLevi, both from an Orthodox perspective such as Rabbi Korobkin’s, as well as other Jewish and secular perspectives. HaLevi is a major figure; Jews should know his work, his poetry, his passionate defense of our faith. In this beautifully produced, fluidly translated, clearly annotated edition, we have the easiest entrée to HaLevi’s thought. Rabbi Korobkin has honored an extraordinary spirit and done the Jewish world a service with this work.

David Wolpe is senior rabbi of Sinai Temple. His column on books appears frequently in The Journal.

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Brainiac Finds Summer of Love in ‘Adventureland’

Leave a Comment / Entertainment, Film / Naomi Pfefferman

In Greg Mottola’s semi-autobiographical film, “Adventureland,” Jesse Eisenberg plays an Ivy League graduate whose plans for a European holiday are quashed when his parents suffer financial woes and he is forced to work a summer job at a decrepit amusement park, circa 1987. What he assumes will be a tedious summer turns into a personal and sexual rite-of-passage when he meets Emily (Kristen Stewart of “Twilight”) and begins a complicated romance.

The 25-year-old Eisenberg has emerged as one of the most sensitive performers of his generation and the go-to actor for filmmakers making movies about themselves as insecure young intellectuals in crisis. In Noah Baumbach’s Oscar-nominated “The Squid and the Whale,” Eisenberg played a pompous son of literati parents undergoing a bitter divorce.

James, his character in “Adventureland,” is a sweet but fretful writer mortified by his descent into the job hell of Horse Derby operator at the park. “He possesses this self-aggrandizement that he is smarter than the other employees and that he should be off doing loftier things,” the actor said during an interview recently at the Four Seasons Hotel. “The flip side is that if he does have this crappy job, then perhaps he is supposed to be there, because that is all he is worthy of.”

Eisenberg — whose speech has the stop-and-start rhythm of a young Woody Allen — was surprised when Mottola cast him without an audition. “Sometimes you have to audition multiple times for roles where you just feel kind of icky about yourself, because there are only so many movies in Hollywood and most of them are not that good, which is the nature of any mass art form,” Eisenberg said. An actor has bills to pay, after all, and in his case, that includes the Manhattan home where he lives with his longtime girlfriend.

“Then something amazing like ‘Adventureland’ comes along, and I just got in,” he said. “Of course then comes the added pressure of having to prove yourself on the set.”

Mottola, best known for directing “Superbad,” said he has admired Eisenberg since seeing him play a 16-year-old virgin seeking seduction advice from an uncle in 2002’s “Roger Dodger.” Mottola said the actor reminds him of a younger version of himself, especially the summer he worked as a carnie while at Columbia University and vowed to avoid sex until he fell in love, which he saw “as a code, but was probably just a cover for massive insecurity,” he said.

“Jesse was perfect for the role, because he is an excellent actor but also very much himself: quick-witted, intelligent, perhaps too smart for his own good. He has the energy of way too many ideas happening at once in his head, which he sometimes struggles to form into a coherent sentence.”

In conversation, Eisenberg is erudite, funny, self-aware and says he identifies with James’ tendency to “overexplain things.” While he is currently signed to act in a number of films and is developing a movie inspired by a relative who is a Holocaust survivor, he mostly tries to keep a low profile as a student at Manhattan’s New School , where he studies democracy and cultural pluralism.

“I don’t tell anybody I’m an actor, because it feels kind of obnoxious and arrogant to be in movies — like you’re putting yourself out there to be seen,” he said. He describes himself as an intensely private person who is uncomfortable when strangers recognize him on the street. “I assume that if you’re in the public eye all the time, it might be easy to lose some of your inner life, because you’re living in such an outward way,” he added.

Eisenberg was raised in something of a show business family in Queens, N.Y. and East Brunswick, N.J. His younger sister, Hallie Kate Eisenberg, starred as a child in films such as “Paulie” and “The Insider,” and his mother was a professional birthday party clown.

“As a child I suffered from terrible separation anxiety,” he said. “I had emotional issues, but many actors do, which is why we are emotionally accessible.” Eisenberg attended Hebrew school, but dropped out at age 11 and declined to become bar mitzvah because, he said, “I didn’t feel a connection to it, and neither did my friends, yet they wanted to have their parties. I don’t want to sound like a martyr,” he added, hastily, “but I would have felt guilty going through with it, because it would have meant something I wasn’t able to commit to.”

Instead he pursued acting and, while still in high school, was cast in “Roger Dodger.” He has since been in “The Hunting Party” and “The Education of Charlie Banks,” now in theaters, in which he plays a college student confronted by a childhood bully.

Two months ago, Eisenberg wrapped production on “Holy Rollers,” about a Chasidic man who is lured into becoming an Ecstasy dealer by a friend with ties to an Israeli cartel; he also has a movie deal to adapt his play, “The Revisionist,” which is inspired in part by his own family’s experiences in Europe before and after World War II.

During one of his weekly visits to his 97-year-old aunt in New York, Eisenberg promised to visit her native village in Poland after wrapping production on “The Hunting Party” in Bosnia several years ago. On the road trip there — which sounds like something out of Jonathan Safran Foer’s “Everything Is Illuminated” — he had to pay off Polish police in cash after a car accident, managed to arrive unscathed at his aunt’s childhood home on the town square in Krasnystaw and in another city met a cousin who had survived the Holocaust by hiding with a Catholic family as a girl.

Her stories about the war and its aftermath prompted “The Revisionist”: “It is about this 25-year-old, s——y science fiction novelist who goes to Poland to visit a second cousin because he thinks if he does something dramatic in his life it will inspire him to finish this bad book. She assumes he’s there to see her, because she lives alone and no one ever comes to visit, and he just wants the free room. So it’s about the relationship that ensues,” he said.

Eisenberg hopes to play the male lead in the film adaptation of the play; in the meantime, he is dutifully making the interview rounds for “Adventureland.”

“There is a kind of intensity and pressure when one is playing a character based on the director,” he said of the film. Nevertheless, he was able to find aspects of himself in the film’s protagonist. “James has all these lofty ambitions, but at the same time he doesn’t have enough confidence to pursue them, and I feel the exact same way,” he said.

“On the one hand, I want to be in movies, and I have all these projects I want to do, but on the other hand, I have to then force myself to go contend with the world.”

“Adventureland” opens April 3.

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Sokatch, Cherminsky Honored for Advocacy

Leave a Comment / Circuit, Community / Danielle Berrin

Sokatch, Chemerinsky Honored for Advocacy

Even as the Progressive Jewish Alliance celebrated its first 10 years on March 29 by honoring Daniel Sokatch, its founding executive director who has moved on to become CEO of the Jewish Community Federation in San Francisco, the PJA introduced its new leader, Elissa Barrett to a Skirball Cultural Center ballroom so full that some guests had to dine in the balcony. Sokatch was joined for a conversation onstage by the evening’s additional honoree, Erwin Chemerinsky, longtime liberal advocate and founding dean of the new law school at UC Irvine. The pair’s congenial chat about their shared values was moderated by Jewish Journal editor-in-chief, Rob Eshman.

Asked about the challenges of taking on his new role, Chemerinsky called the UC Irvine post “the most exciting opportunity in my life,” but said that he would never curtail his representation of those in need. He spoke of an opportunity he took on to represent homeless people in Laguna Beach who were being charged with the crime of sleeping outdoors. When it occurred to him that his advocacy might compromise his fundraising abilities, he said he decided, “if I can’t bring a lawsuit on behalf of homeless people, then I don’t want this job anymore.”

Sokatch called our times “such a compelling moment for young people to come into public service,” with President Barack Obama and California State Assembly Speaker Karen Bass in office as examples. “Our role as a progressive community should be to support the progressives that we elected. The ‘80s are over, finally,” he said, to applause. Bass was among the evening’s speakers, which also included entertainment by Krumpers, performing dance that originated in the African American community of South Los Angeles in 2002.

The dinner’s co-chairs were Paula Litt and Lawrence Trilling.

— Susan Freudenheim, Managing Editor

Daniel Schwartz Named ‘Community Hero’

Vons Pavilions in Beverly Hills awarded Daniel Schwartz the Safeway Community Hero Award for his volunteer work in the community. Vons contributed $1,000 in Schwartz’s honor to the Etta Israel Center, an organization that creates programs and raises awareness for people with special needs.

Schwartz, who has cerebral palsy, has been both a client and a volunteer at the Etta Israel Center. He has also volunteered at the Roxbury Park Senior Citizens Center, fundraised for many charities, and is a past president of a local chapter of Best Buddies, a community that helps people with intellectual disabilities.

Schwartz, age 20, a 2008 graduate of Beverly Hills High School, has worked as a part-time courtesy clerk and bagger at Pavilions for two years, where he began working through a vocational program offered by the high school. He is currently enrolled in the Pathway program at UCLA Extension, a two-year certificate program for students with developmental disabilities.

Friends, former teachers and family gathered as Damon Rice of Vons and Rick Ziegler, the manager of the store, presented the award to Schwartz. Dr. Michael Held, director of Etta Israel, and Rickey Bloom, a founder of the organization, accepted the contribution.

In commenting on the award, Ziegler explained, “Daniel has served as an excellent role model. He always comes to work with a smile and enthusiasm, and we regularly have customers asking for him.” — Julie Gruenbaum Fax, Senior Writer

Rabbi Rachlis Delivers Invocation for President Barack Obama

Rabbi Arnold Rachlis delivered the invocation for President Barack Obama when he visited the Orange County Fairgrounds in March to discuss his economic plan. Rachlis, who is the Reconstructionist-ordained spiritual leader of University Synagogue in Irvine, said a blessing for the country and its leader, whose name he said means “blessed.”

“We who are gathered here today know, as President Obama knows, that government alone can’t cure all of the ills of the world,” Rachlis said. He urged citizens to participate in the repair and healing of the country. “We are here today to declare that government has a crucial role, an indispensable role, a holy responsibility,” but “we are the ones who must fulfill our mandate to act.” After his call to national service, Rachlis quoted the Book of Isaiah. “We are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers and we cannot stand idly by in the face of injustice, whether far away or in our own communities,” Rachlis said.

Rabbi Scheindlin Named President of Solomon Schecter Board

Rabbi Laurence Scheindlin, headmaster of Sinai Akiba Academy, was named President of the 2008-2009 Solomon Schechter Day School Association Board of Directors. The appointment signifies the first time the Schecter Association has named a school headmaster as board president. Scheindlin has been headmaster of Sinai Akiba since 1977 during which time the student body has grown from 170 students to 570.

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Scarlett Johansson ads to her resume

Leave a Comment / Uncategorized / Danielle Berrin

Ever wonder how Scarlett Johansson, a beautiful, but unremarkable talent, became the perfect post-millennial movie star?

Her film career is only partly responsible. While her turn in “Lost in Translation”—the Sofia Coppola film that made her—was Johansson’s finest moment on screen, her qualities as an actress haven’t advanced much in the 16 films she’s made since then. She has, however, established a brand playing glamorous roles—the queen, the temptress, the muse—but in mostly dull films like “The Island,” “The Prestige,” and “The Other Boleyn Girl.” With only a smattering of respectable fare, and a savvy partnership with Woody Allen, Johansson has parlayed her film brand into commercial iconography.

And she chose well: There was a music video with Bob Dylan, and another with Justin Timberlake; TV commercials for Gap, Calvin Klein and L’oreal; and really sexy print ads for Louis Vuitton, Dolce and Gabbana and Estee Lauder. In each of those, she cast herself as her preferred version of starlet and the images are irresistible. The creation of her own music album solidified her status as a fully fleshed out character; Johansson wisely realized a chanteuse is more powerful than a silent type.

And now her latest role—a champagne spurting goddess for Moet & Chandon—will serve her better than any Oscar. Because bankability is everything in Hollywood and in this, Johansson is not scarlet, she’s golden.

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A Vineyard Blooms in the Negev

Obituaries April 3, 2009

Leave a Comment / Obituaries / Jewish Journal

Esther Biederman died March 6 at 85. She is survived by her daughter, Deborah (Jay) Bolton; son, Danny; and seven grandchildren. Hillside

Raquel Bobroff died Jan. 19. She is survived by her daughter, Susy (Jack); son, Danny (Pat); five grandchildren; five great-grandchildren; and sister, Regina. Mount Sinai

Ruth Bohm died March 7 at 84. She is survived by her husband, Frank; daughters, Marion (Vernon) Larenture, Brigitte (Gary) Thompson and Karen (Mario) Anaya; six grandchildren; and sister, Hanna Winter. Mount Sinai

Eli Bregman died March 2 at 81. He is survived by his daughter, Leslie Smith; and son, Adam. Hillside

Edwin Brown died March 12 at 91. He is survived by his daughter, Carolyn Lusen; son, Lawrence “Larry” (Chris); three grandchildren; two great-grandchildren; two sisters; and one brother. Mount Sinai

Shirley Burns died March 12 at 83. She is survived by her daughters, Bonnie (Martin) Green and Laurie; three grandchildren; one great-grandchild; and brother, Alvin Kaplan. Mount Sinai

Ethel Cline died Feb. 25 at 93. She is survived by her daughter, Maryanne (Ellis) Horowitz; sons, Harvey (Elaine) and Harold (Juliet); nine grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren. Malinow and Silverman

Nancy Ann Colton died March 9 at 50. She is survived by her husband, Rick; sons, Scott, Lyle, and Andy; parents, Ted (Harriet) Wasserman; brother, Larry Wasserman; and brother-in-law, Bruce. Mount Sinai

Ethel Diamond died Feb. 23 at 96. She is survived by her son, Bruce; two grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren. Malinow and Silverman

Sarah Dinovitz died March 5 at 95. She is survived by her daughters, Phyllis Drapkin and Judy Goldstein; and six grandchildren. Hillside

Louis Eisenberg died March 10 at 96. He is survived by his daughters, Marilyn and Bonnie (John Young); sons, Jerry (Gail) and Barry (Donna); six grandchildren; three great-grandchildren; and brothers, Henry and Zomie. Mount Sinai

Joyce Elias died Feb. 24 at 72. She is survived by her daughter, Jodi (Michael) Cambra; and three grandchildren. Malinow and Silverman

Carol Epstein died March 2 at 59. She is survived by her son, Andrew; and mother, Muriel Trabner. Malinow and Silverman

Mildred R. Fried died March 4 at 86. She is survived by her daughters, Joanne (Paul) Sabolic and Sharon (Claude) Bruni; and four grandchildren. Mount Sinai

Ben From died March 9 at 93. He is survived by his daughter, Eveline (Orlando) Bermudez; three grandchildren; and niece, Selma (Bart Loermans) Hook. Mount Sinai

Gloria Mae Gans died March 5 at 84. She is survived by her daughters, Elizabeth Ann (Jeff) Koppelman, Pamela Dinkelspiel and Frances (Mark) Day; and seven grandchildren. Hillside

Sally Gappell died Jan. 20 at 109. She is survived by her daughter, Millicent (Stanley Sklute); son, Edward (Gail); four grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren. Hillside

Imre “Bumpa” Gluck died March 10 at 91. He is survived by his wife, Alice; daughters, Sharon Ross, Michelle (Harry) Peck, Linda (Rodney) Fingelson and Lisa (Cary) Richman; son, Dennis; seven grandchildren; one great-grandchild; and sister, Sonya Stein. Mount Sinai

Marian Gordon died Feb. 25 at 85. She is survived by her daughter, Janice Freemyer. Malinow and Silverman

Sylvia Hallman died March 5 at 95. She is survived by her son, Gary (Susan). Hillside

Joseph H. Hecht died March 8 at 96. He is survived by his daughter, Janet (John) Wells; son, Fred (Diane); two grandchildren; three great-grandchildren; and sister, Marie. Mount Sinai

Beatrice Bauer Hutter died Feb. 26 at 96. She is survived by her sons, Jeffrey (Shelly) and Stuart; three grandchildren; and half-brother, Harry (Evelyn). Mount Sinai

Florence Itkin died March 4 at 88. She is survived by her sister, Selma Bernstein. Hillside

Alexander S. Javor died March 10 at 97. He is survived by his daughter, Barbara Jo; sons, Ronald and Les; three nieces; brothers, Arnold Jacobs and Henry; brother-in-law, Herb Fischer; and sister-in-law, Clara Martin. Mount Sinai

Joyce Segal Kirsch died Feb. 16 at 65. She is survived by her husband, Sheldon; sons, Aaron (Miriam) and Daniel (Rachel); and four grandchildren. Mount Sinai

Ruth Koch died Feb. 28 at 90. She is survived by her son, Howard Jr. Malinow and Silverman

Dr. Norton Kristy died March 7 at 83. He is survived by his wife, Davida; son, Brickton (Martine); daughter, Apyll; and two grandchildren. Mount Sinai

Martin Levin died March 8 at 96. He is survived by his sons, Robert and Steven; and three grandchildren. Hillside

Maurice S. Lumel died March 5 at 87. He is survived by his wife, Freda; daughters, Tami and Marlene (Tony) Westrick; four grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren. Mount Sinai

Arnold Luster died March 9 at 79. He is survived by his wife, Doris; daughters, Cindy and Cathie (Richard) Rutkin; sons, Jeffrey (David Annanders) and Bradley (Theresa); and six grandchildren. Mount Sinai

Henry Minster died March 10 at 90. He is survived by his son, Barton (Linda) Gordon; stepson, Verne (Sonia) Gordon; four grandchildren; and sister, Sabina Schredni. Mount Sinai

Frank More died March 9 at 86. He is survived by his wife, Edith; daughter, Susie (Steve) Wagner; son, Erwin (Linda Berman); four grandchildren; and sister, Vera Peter. Mount Sinai

Sally Deana Pincus died March 10 at 87. She is survived by her husband, Bernard; daughters, Marilyn Hazan and Judy; three grandchildren; three great-grandchildren; and sister, Evelyn Kaufman. Mount Sinai

Jackie Rebora died Jan. 5 at 77. She is survived by her former husbands, Arthur Lawrence and Richard Thorne; daughter, Gail Shelly; son, Robert; six grandchildren; one great-grandchild; and sister, Gloria Steinberg. Mount Sinai

Dolly Riskin died March 1 at 104. She is survived by her daughters, Lucille Gechtman and Jackie; four grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren. Hillside

Robert Rosenthal died March 12 at 71. He is survived by his wife, Deborah; and daughters, Lynn (Bernard) Arana and Laurie (Edward) Hallman. Mount Sinai

Ann Ross died Feb. 24 at 86. She is survived by her son, Gilbert (Cindy). Malinow and Silverman

Lilly Rouff died Feb. 6 at 91. She is survived by her sons, Dr. Steven (Leslie), James (Camille) and Gerald (Hester); and two grandchildren. Malinow and Silverman

Milton Rowen died March 2 at 90. He is survived by his daughters, Laurie (Steven) Kend and Linda (Mark) Cristol; and four grandchildren. Hillside

Sylvia Singer died March 2 at 90. She is survived by her son, Allan; four grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren. Groman Eden

Frances Skoll died March 7 at 93. She is survived by her husband, Martin; and nephew, Scott Rouse. Hillside

Rose Weitman died Feb. 28 at 94. She is survived by many nieces and nephews. Malinow and Silverman

Gerda Yapko died March 10 at 86. She is survived by her daughter, Diane (Norman) Pomerance; and sons, Brian (Jerry) and Michael (Diane). Mount Sinai

Jeanne Zeiring died March 6 at 95. She is survived by her daughter, Sara Boyers; son, Bill; and two grandchildren. Hillside

Evelyn Zuckerman died Feb. 23 at 101. She is survived by her daughters, Jane Zachary and Ellen Boles. Malinow and Silverman.

Obituaries April 3, 2009 Read More »

Ordination stripped from Episcopal priest who claimed to be Muslim too

Leave a Comment / Uncategorized / Brad A. Greenberg

This is not an April Fool’s joke: The Episcopal Church has defrocked a Seattle priest who refused to recant her statement that she was both Christian and Muslim.

I wrote about the Rev. Ann Holmes Redding’s announcement when she made it, to much shock, two years ago. Now The Seattle Times reports Redding is finished, at least as an Episcopal minister.

Here’s why and what’s next for Redding:

The Rev. Kendall Harmon, the canon theologian with the Diocese of South Carolina who also runs the traditionalist blog TitusOneNine, said Redding should be commended, on one level, for having the integrity to be upfront about what she believes.

But what’s at stake is central to the church, he said. “To be a Christian is to be a Trinitarian and worship Jesus. If we’re not clear on that, we have nothing to offer in our witness.”

Though Muslims regard Jesus as a great prophet, they do not see him as divine and do not consider him the Son of God.

Redding does not believe that God and Jesus are the same, but rather that God is more than Jesus. And she believes that Jesus is the Son of God insofar as all humans are the children of God, and that Jesus is divine, just as all humans are divine — because God dwells in all humans.

Harmon points to the contrast between the Rhode Island bishop’s discipline of Redding, and the position held by the former, now retired bishop of the Olympia Diocese in Western Washington who said he regarded Redding’s dual faith as exciting in its interfaith possibilities.

“We are internally incoherent on a massive scale,” Harmon said. “What does it say about a church that you can be in Rhode Island and have that treatment, and be in Olympia and have another treatment, if it has to do with something this central?”

(skip)

In any case, Redding is moving on.

She’s co-written a book, just published, called “Out of Darkness Into Light: Spiritual Guidance in the Quran with Reflections from Christian and Jewish Sources.”

More than 200 friends showed up at Town Hall Seattle last week to mark the book’s publication, the 25th anniversary of her ordination as an Episcopal priest, and to celebrate “her movement into the next phase of ministry as both Christian and Muslim.”

Redding is starting to write her memoirs and hopes to get a contract.

And she’s working to establish Abrahamic Reunion West, a nonprofit institute to bring together the Abrahamic faiths — Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

And the rest of it?

“As frightening as it is,” she said, “I’m willing to let God be in charge of this path of mine.”

(Hat Tip: HolyWeblog)

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The Chosen Dish: Season One

Leave a Comment / Blogs, Uncategorized / Orit Arfa

Recipe for Season One of The Chosen Dish (click thumbnails below to taste):

Take Orit Arfa and Jay Firestone and gently place them into the private kitchens of 3 contestants: ” title=”Hilit Gilat” target=”_blank”>Hilit Gilat, and ” title=”delicate roast” target=”_blank”>delicate roast by 3 judges. Boil them in a crucible as they wait for the decision. Uncover the winner. Garnish with nachas.