April 6, 2009

Well, there was more than one way to win the Cold War. And before President Reagan spent the Soviet Union into oblivion, a new biography, “The Rebellion of Ronald Reagan,” suggests he tried to convert Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev:

The new biography tells of the leaders final summit meeting in Moscow in 1988. During the summit Reagan told the story of a World War II Russian soldier who turned to God just before dying of his wounds, despite being raise as an atheist in Soviet Russia.

Gorbachev had already told the President that he had been baptised as a Russian Orthodox by his mother, but added that he himself had no faith.

A presidential aid at the meeting noted that the President told Gorbachev wished to convert his son, who was also an atheist.

A declassified set of minutes of the meeting said, “The president concluded that there was one thing he had long yearned to do for his atheist son. He wanted to serve his son the perfect gourmet dinner, to have him enjoy the meal, and then to ask him if he believed there was a cook.”

Reagan, however, swore the minute-takers to secrecy due to the potential for political embarrassment should the conversation be leaked.

Rudolf Perina was one of those recording the conversation. In the biography he is quoted as saying that Regan tried to convert Gorbachev, “Reagan thought he could convert Gorbachev or make him see the light.”

Read the rest, from Christian Today, here.

(Hat tip: Holy Weblog)

I hardly think being too informal isn’t the biggest issue affecting the atmosphere at Catholic churches. Nonetheless, a few priests in the Diocese of Leeds in England came to the conclusion that it’s inappropriate to say “good morning” after standing in front of the congregation and making the sign of the cross. So they’ve decided they’re no longer going to do it.

Mass isn’t social hour, I guess the reasoning goes, so sit down and shut up:

A spokesman for the diocese said: “The review of the liturgy is looking at whether there are elements of the service that have become a bit too distracting.

“People might argue that if you go in to a house, you say ‘hi’, but the priest is not going in to a house. He is going in to a sacred service. We need to emphasise that the priest is president of the community and is presiding at the service.

“It is a debate that has been going on in the Church for a long time – are we doing a cabaret or are we actually celebrating the Eucharist?”

Look out J. Ezra Merkin: Your sister might be willing to give you a free pass, but the New York attorney general isn’t. This morning Andrew Cuomo sued the disgraced investor for the uber-rich, a man who is accused of being one of Bernard Madoff’s primary fund feeders.

Here’s the story from The New York Times:

The lawsuit, filed under state charity and securities laws, claims that Mr. Merkin improperly collected more than $470 million in fees from his clients, who included more than a dozen nonprofit organizations, by “falsely claiming he actively managed their funds” when in fact he simply handed their money over to Mr. Madoff, without adequate investigation or oversight.

The complaint charged that Mr. Merkin had failed to carry out the diligent research and investigation he had promised, and in some cases had deliberately deceived clients about investing with Mr. Madoff.

“Merkin’s deceit, recklessness, and breaches of fiduciary duty have resulted in the loss of approximately $2.4 billion,” according to the complaint filed by Mr. Cuomo’s office, which opened an investigation of Mr. Merkin soon after the Madoff scheme collapsed in mid-December.

The accusations echo charges that have already been made against Mr. Merkin in private lawsuits filed by some affected charities and institutions, which include the New York University Law School and a charitable foundation established by Mortimer B. Zuckerman, the publisher and real estate executive.

A lawyer for Mr. Merkin, Andrew J. Levander, could not immediately be reached for comment, but he has said in the past that his client will “fully cooperate with any investigation by the New York attorney general’s office.”

You can read the rest here. And don’t say we didn’t see this coming.

Longtime Variety editor-in-chief Peter Bart, once the most-feared man in Hollywood, was pushed “up and out” yesterday. What’s interesting about Bart, and what I sent Hollywood Jew blogger Danielle Berrin, is just how uncomfortable he is as a Jew.

Revealing details of that discomfort—self loathing?—come from an exhaustive 2001 profile Amy Wallace wrote for Los Angeles magazine. Here’s the PDF and here’s the Jewcy part:

Here are a few things Bart wouldn’t tell me: Both his parents were born in Austria. His mother, whose maiden name was Clara Ginsberg, arrived at Ellis Island in 1914. Her passenger record includes this notation: “Ethnicity: Austria (Hebrew).” There is no record of a Max S. Bart entering the United States through Ellis Island. Bart’s father may have traveled under another name. But there is a listing for a Moses Bart, which was the name of Bart’s paternal grandfather. Moses came to America in 1913, when he was 57 years old. His ethnicity: “Austria, Hebrew.”

Bart has kept even his closest friends confused about his past. “He was brought up a Quaker, wasn’t he?” asks Evans. It’s an honest mistake. You can’t spend more than an hour with Bart without hearing about his attending Friends Seminary and Swarthmore College—both Quaker institutions.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Bart says of his religious heritage, as one of his knees begins bouncing up and down. “I resent people’s militancy on these issues. Everyone wants to peg everyone else because everyone is predictable. And I’m not.”

Over several months he will volunteer that he has never once dated a Jewish girl, never attended a seder, and has been inside a synagogue only once, for the bar mitzvah of then-agent Michael Ovitz’s son. (“I wanted to see what one was like.”) “Listen, I got berated by the vice president in charge of business affairs at Paramount,” he says, “because I did not take off Jewish holidays. And I was affronted. I basically told him to mind his own damned business.”

At one point he tries to explain his discomfort by comparing himself to his longtime assistant, a light-skinned black woman: “She struggles with this, too. She feels she’s a black person. But she’s about as black as Felix [Bart’s Siamese cat]. I feel she is a bit victimized by, again, that need to identify with some subculture that will help you.

“You talk to a lot of the better-educated, wealthy black people. You know, they’re not very black. The big distinction is between the people they call ‘niggers’—who are the ghetto blacks, who can’t even speak, can’t get a job, and bury themselves in black-itude—and those people who are better looking, better educated, smarter, and who own the world: the black middle class,” he says. “A lot of people in Hollywood—let’s say if they happen to be Jewish people who come from Brooklyn—they are most comfortable with those people. Which is fine. It just doesn’t happen to describe me.”

A few minutes later he asks, “Can you and I make a deal about this whole thing about religion? I would love it if we could dodge it in some way that you don’t think is dishonest.” He will repeat this request more than once.

Before I move on, I should note that Bart was temporarily suspended after this article appeared because of comments that were seen as—and I would agree—abjectly racist. But what about Bart’s Jewish identity?

Newsweek is back with its third-annual list of America’s top rabbi—and it’s with a new frontrunner: Rabbi David Saperstein of the Reform movement’s Religious Action Center. Here’s an excerpt from Jewish Journal’s story:

What mainly propelled Saperstein into the lead is his role as Washington insider, political powerbroker and friend of President Obama, said Jay Sanderson, CEO of JTN Productions and one of the three men who determine the rankings.

The complete list of 50 most influential rabbis can be found here.