Candlelighting: Week of August 5, 2011
Candlelighting: Week of August 5, 2011 Read More »
August 5, 2011
Quit Christian prayer rally, religious leaders urge Texas governor
Sixteen rabbis are among the more than 50 Houston religious leaders who signed a letter asking Texas Gov. Rick Perry to reconsider participating in a Christian prayer rally.
Rick Perry, a potential Republican presidential candidate, plans to host “The Response” on Aug. 6 at Houston’s Reliant Stadium. In a commercial featured on the rally’s website, Perry “calls on Americans to pray and fast like Jesus did, and the Israelites did in the book of Job,” as a solution to the “economy in trouble, communities in crisis, and people adrift in a sea of moral relativism.”
The Response is sponsored by the American Family Association, a Conservative Christian advocacy nonprofit founded in 1977 as the National Federation for Decency. The rally follows the association’s statement of faith, which includes that the Christian Bible is “the inspired, the only infallible, authorative Word of God.”
In the letter, the leaders criticize Perry for calling for “a full day of exclusionary prayer. … This religious event is not open to all faiths, and its statement of beliefs does not represent religious diversity.”
The rabbis who signed are members of the Anti-Defamation League’s Coalition of Mutual Respect, a group of U.S. interfaith leaders who promote education and respect among religions and ethnicities.
“By his actions,” the letter says, “Governor Perry is expressing an official message of endorsement of one faith over all others, thereby sending an official message of religious exclusion and preference to all Texans who do not share that faith. We believe our religious freedom is threatened when a government official promotes religion, especially one religion over all others.”
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Israel redeploys Iron Dome in south
Israel is redeploying the Iron Dome short range missile defense system near its Gaza Strip border because of a recent intensification of rocket fire.
Israeli newspapers reported Friday that Ehud Barak, the defense minister, ordered the redeployment at the request of local authorities in the region.
At least 30 rockets were fired in July. The Israeli army has responded with air raids.
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Weprin won’t endorse Obama for now
David Weprin, the Democrat running to replace disgraced congressman Anthony Weiner, declined for now to endorse President Obama’s reelection.
“I’m running myself right now,” the New York Post quoted Weprin as saying on Thursday. “On Sept. 14, I’ll be happy to address the president’s election.”
“Don’t read anything into it,” Weprin said, regarding his statement.
Sept. 13 is when a special election is held to replace Weiner, who resigned after sending lewd pictures over the Internet.
Former New York Mayor Ed Koch, a Democrat, recently urged residents of New York’s heavily Jewish 9th Congressional District, encompassing chunks of Queens and Brooklyn, to vote for Republican Bob Turner to send a message to President Obama that he is not pro-Israel enough.
Weprin, who is Jewish has criticized Obama’s approach toward Israel, has since secured the endorsement of pro-Israel stalwart Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT).
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A New Species of Tick-Borne Bacteria Identified in Minnesota and Wisconsin
[Lunch warning: Parts of this post are kind of gross. If you’re reading this over a meal, you have been warned.]
What a depressing week. The debt ceiling debate postponed ” target=”_blank”>New England Journal of Medicine published a study which describes a new geography, a new bacterial species, and a new transmitting tick for ehrlichiosis. It describes patients with the typical symptoms of ehrlichiosis in Minnesota and Wisconsin. The bacteria isolated from these patients belongs to the genus Ehrlichia but is a newly discovered species. It is spread by the deer tick, which like the lone star tick is also not a contender for the most beautiful organism.
” target=”_blank”>the inevitable zombie apocalypse? Probably not, but it is likely to spread from its current geography.
The simplest way to manage ehrlichiosis is prevention. Preventing tick bites prevents ehrlichiosis and lots of other tick-borne illnesses. The ” target=”_blank”>Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Ehrlichiosis page
” target=”_blank”>Yet Another Reason To Say Ick to Ticks (NPR health blog)
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Jerry Lewis ousted as MDA telethon host
Viewers of the Muscular Dystrophy Association’s telethon will see a new host for the first time in more than four decades as Jerry Lewis is dismissed, Los Angeles Times reports.
For the first time in 45 years, Jerry Lewis will not be pleading for donations in front of a camera Labor Day weekend after he was abruptly dismissed as the host of the Muscular Dystrophy Assn.‘s telethon, an event that drew attention to the childhood disease and in its heyday was an annual television highlight.
The group said the 85-year-old legendary comedian would not appear on this year’s telethon, and would no longer serve as its national chairman, a position he held for nearly 60 years. The telethons have raised nearly $2.5 billion, the MDA said.
The announcement and the mysterious circumstances surrounding Lewis’ departure provoked an outcry from comedians and other performers, who still widely revere him for his groundbreaking routines and public service.
Read more at LATimes.com.
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‘Free Gilad Shalit’ billboard to go up in Los Angeles [VIDEO]
A billboard that calls for the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit will go up on La Cienega Boulevard, just south of Olympic Boulevard, on Monday, August 8.
In 2006, Hamas, the ruling political party in the Gaza Strip, kidnapped Shalit, who turns 25 this month, and has held him in captivity since.
A large photograph of Shalit will appear on the billboard, along with the text: “I was kidnapped by Hamas on June 25, 2006. I have been held hostage … This summer I will turn 25 years old. Where did you spend your birthday this year? Free Gilad Shalit.”
Gal Sitty, 28, a resident of Studio City, coordinated the effort to put up the billboard, raising approximately $7,000 to purchase the billboard through the new web site, Epicstep.com.
Sitty said the aim of the billboard is to keep the public focused on working toward Shalit’s release.
“I started to think of ways of how I could keep this all in the media, to raise awareness, to press on leaders, show people how important it is to help him out,” Sitty said.
“I think it’s absolutely imperative that the people who can act, i.e. [Benjamin] Netanyahu and other people in the Israeli government, have to do anything and everything they can to bring him back, especially because he was a solider for the state of Israel and gave everything he can for the state,” Sitty added.
The billboard will remain up through approximately the first week of September.
Sitty said he chose the location on La Cienega Boulevard for its proximity to the Israeli consulate and other Jewish institutions, including the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles and the Simon Weisenthal Center.
He hopes the Los Angeles billboard will get approximately number 200,000 “exposures” – billboard industry lingo for “pair of eyes” – each week, a figure quoted to him by the company that owns the billboard space.
Last month, Sitty successfully led an effort to get a similar billboard up New York, and the New York billboard enjoyed approximately 300,000 exposures each week.
Sitty said he became more focused on ending Shalit’s imprisonment in 2010, after witnessing the march for Gilad Shalit in Israel. He was chaperoning a Birthright Israel trip at the time, and watched with the group and the other trip guides in Tel Aviv as thousands of Israelis rallied for Shalit’s release.
“In Israel everybody has many opinions, and are divided on everything politically, but on this, there was nothing controversial about it,” Sitty said. [They all said] they want Gilad Shalit back.”
The success of the New York billboard – which was located at the corner of 10th Avenue and 35th Street in Manhattan, New York – convinced Sitty to work toward getting a billboard up in Los Angeles, the second largest Jewish community in the United States.
Through Epicstep.com, billboards go up for one month at a time. Epicstep allows anybody to create billboards around any campaign idea or cause. Once a user has created a campaign on the website, the site gives he/she the price and the location of where the billboard is going to be, and then that person uses their website to collect donations—known as “crowdfunding.”
Epicstep.com was started by Lev Reys and Eugene and Gene Veksler, who are all Jewish. The site launched about four months ago.
“I’m just really happy that it happened and that it was able to successfully fund,” Reys said.
Sitty said there might be more free-Shalit billboards in the future.
“I’ve heard from other people who still want to put up billboards in other cities,” he said. “So I want to keep strategizing to do that.”
In a recent issue of the Journal, editor-in-chief Rob Eshman wrote a column about Sitty’s New York billboard.
[UPDATE: Tuesday, August 9]
The billboard went up today, on La Cienega Boulevard between Olympic Boulevard and Whitworth Drive. The text of the billboard includes, “I have been held hostage for 1,867 days and counting,” and the billboard space is owned by CBS. See it below.
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Jews turn on Obama
A lot has been written recently about whether President Obama is losing support in the Jewish community. Besides polls, perhaps the best indication of Obama’s standing were the repeated reminders AIPAC sent out implicitly imploring its conference delegates not to boo him. This was the same person who received a rock star welcome in the past, but whose policies are seen as so threatening to Israel that they undoubtedly contributed to the record turnout to AIPAC’s annual policy conference.
Obama must have expected a different reception when he accepted the invitation to speak. When he gave his speech on the broader Middle East at the State Department earlier he surely thought he was giving a pro-Israel speech that would be warmly received and that his appearance at AIPAC would be a victory lap. It didn’t turn out that way.
Obama’s State Department speech, which was far more supportive of Israel’s positions than that of the Palestinians, provoked a firestorm of controversy because of his reference to the 1967 border as the starting point for a future Israeli withdrawal. The statement was misconstrued as a call for a total withdrawal from the West Bank – his call for land swaps had indicated Israel would be expected to keep some territory – and he was forced to tell AIPAC what he really meant.
His AIPAC address was again overwhelmingly pro-Israel, but the response ranged from deafening silence to tepid applause. Coming on the heels of reports the Obama campaign is concerned about losing the support of major Jewish donors, Obama had hoped to shore up a loyal base. Two years of disastrous policies, however, has created feelings in the pro-Israel community that range from suspicion to hostility, with only the most rabid Democratic partisans and the “save Israel in spite of itself” crowd still blindly supportive.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s vigorous riposte to Obama’s initial speech and lecturing of the president at the White House would normally make the Israeli lobby jittery, as tensions between presidents and prime ministers are never good for Israel, but Netanyahu was greeted as the rock star when he spoke to AIPAC and, even more so, when he addressed Congress.
Many people were disappointed that Netanyahu did not present a peace plan; however, his description of the realities of the current situation in the region were consistent with the views of the Israeli lobby. By contrast, the president’s Arabist outlook, placing the Palestinian issue as the crux of all the problems in the region, while ignoring the implications of the Arab spring for regional stability, is viewed as woefully naive.
Obama has no doubt seen poll data suggesting his Jewish support has fallen from the 78% he was elected with to the mid-60s. While still a healthy majority, this is the lowest level of support for a Democrat since Jimmy Carter, and could be the difference in key states such as Florida in a close election.
One thing Obama has going for him is the lack of a Republican alternative. Moderate Jewish Democrats are looking for someone who is liberal on social policies but hawkish on defense and unabashedly pro-Israel. No one in the current Republican field fits that bill and it is unlikely such a candidate could win the nomination given the bias in favor of social conservatives in Republican primaries and the influence of the Tea Party. On the other hand, Ronald Reagan got 39% of the Jewish vote in 1980 despite his conservative views because of Jimmy Carter’s anti-Israel image. Obama may yet alienate a majority of Jews.
The irony is that Obama’s two speeches showed greater support for Israel than his earlier policies – he made no demand for a settlement freeze and recognized that Israel will keep part of the West Bank, while blasting the Palestinians for refusing to negotiate, uniting with Hamas and their efforts to delegitimize Israel and unilaterally declare a state.
Clearly, he must do more.
Obama must go to Israel to speak directly to the people. He must show that he feels their pain from six decades of war and terror. He must recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, make clear Palestinian refugees will go to Palestine, and demonstrate understanding of the dangers to Israel posed by Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas and regional turmoil. The president should acknowledge Jewish claims to Judea and Samaria and express understanding for the sacrifice involved in making territorial compromises on the West Bank. He should renounce the Arabist view that Israel is the source of Mideast instability and the cause of anti-American feelings, and that solving the Palestinian issue is a panacea. He must tell the Israelis he will not try to impose a solution on them and he will facilitate direct negotiations and demand that the Palestinians cease terror, recognize Israel as a Jewish state and negotiate without preconditions. Obama must convince Israelis that he understands the risks involved in making peace and that America has their back.
This may be viewed as pandering before the election, but if his deeds match his words, he could win back the doubters, rebuild trust with Israelis and create the conditions for restarting the peace process.
Mitchell Bard is a foreign policy analyst whose latest book is The Arab Lobby: The Invisible Alliance That Undermines America’s Interests in the Middle East (HarperCollins Publishers)
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Babes in Oscarland? Brett Ratner to produce 84th Academy Awards
It was announced yesterday that sybaritic director Brett Ratner will produce the next Oscar telecast alongside veteran TV producer Don Mischer.
It is a deliberately diverse duo: Ratner is the forty-something director of action fare like “Rush Hour” and “X-Men: The Last Stand” while Mischer is a seasoned producer of high profile television whose credits include The Obama Inaugural celebration, The Kennedy Center Honors, myriad Super Bowl Halftime Shows and the opening and closing ceremonies of the Olympic Games.
For years now, in an attempt to attract a younger audience, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has been trying to give the annual telecast a makeover.
The past decade has seen a revolving door of hosts including Jon Stewart, Chris Rock, Whoopi Goldberg and Ellen DeGeneres and experimented with different comedic pairs, such as aging lions Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin (who were funny) as well as last year’s hosts James Franco and Anne Hathaway (young, beautiful, but not so funny).
In 2008, producers Bill Condon (director, “Dreamgirls”) and Laurence Mark (producer, “As Good As It Gets”) hired showman Hugh Jackman (“X-Men’s” Wolverine) to romp his way around the proscenium in a program styled after Broadway. Jackman’s musical numbers beat out Jon Stewart’s previous year one-liners and increased ratings from 32 million U.S. viewers to 36.3 million, according to E! online. Baldwin and Martin’s 2010 telecast brought in the highest ratings in recent history with 41.7 million viewers but they dropped again with Hathaway and Franco to 37.6 million in 2011.
As producer, Ratner’s prescription for the troubled telecast is comedy. “Comedy is the key,” Ratner said, according to TheWrap.com. “That’s the most important thing I can accomplish. If people can sit in that theater and laugh, and people can watch at home around the world and laugh, then I’ve accomplished what I want to do. The numbers [ratings] will be what they are.”
Ratner, who is equally as well known for his extracurricular antics as his filmography, brings a distinct popcorn-entertainment sensibility to everything he does, whether it’s throwing a party at his Hillhaven Lodge or directing a Madonna music video. Mischer, who has co-produced the Oscars before, is meant to temper Ratner’s wild side. But frankly, the Oscars could use a little barbarous, untamed fun especially if the awards themselves are a forgone conclusion as they were last year (Was there any doubt “The King’s Speech,” Aaron Sorkin and Natalie Portman would all take home the 8-and-a-half pound golden guy?).
With all eyes on Ratner, we can only wonder one thing: Who will rummage through his designer-filled “ex-girlfriend closet” and escort him down the red carpet?
My guess? His mother.
From my 2008 Jewish Journal profile of Ratner:
The first person I meet when I arrive at Ratner’s house is his mother. Visiting from New York, she sits in the living room of Hilhaven Lodge, talking on the phone in her slightly nasal, Miami-New York inflection. She appears striking in this classic setting, dressed in a yellow cashmere cardigan and art deco frames—her youthful contrivances recall that, having given birth to Ratner out of wedlock at age 16, her own youth was cut short.
Ratner grew up on Miami Beach, where, beginning in preschool, he attended RASG Hebrew Academy until he was expelled in the eighth grade for touching a female classmate. He proudly claims he was kicked out for “negiyah.” During his youth, Ratner’s young mother was more like a sister to him, while his Cuban Jewish maternal grandparents, Mario and Fanita Pressman, raised him. Since Ratner didn’t meet his biological father until he was 16, he called high-powered Miami attorney Al Malnik (a multimillionaire entrepreneur best known for having represented mobster Meyer Lansky) his father. Malnik had a formidable influence on Ratner: “If I wasn’t a director, I’d definitely be a gangster. I’d have to use my street smarts. But with gangsters, money is their God, and I don’t know if I would kill people,” Ratner said.
The well-known story that follows is: After sweet-talking his way onto the “Scarface” set, Ratner dropped out of high school to attend NYU film school, where he was initially rejected for poor grades but eventually managed to charm the dean, who admitted him. Desperate for cash to finish his student film, he sent request letters to many Hollywood directors but only one responded—Steven Spielberg, with a check for $1,000.
“I always knew he would be famous,” his mother, Marsha Ratner-Pratts, tells me, gleaming.
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In Halachic and Philosophical Support of Rav Yosef’s blog on Shelo Asani Isha
An encore presentation: Why I say Say “She’asani Yisrael” – “God … Who has Made Me and Israelite!”- every morning, instead of the three traditional “Shelo Asani”s, by Rabbi Asher Lopatin to support Rav Yosef’s excellent piece on this issue.
First a Halachic Discourse:
In our versions of Masechet Menachot, 43b (Bavli), Rabbi Meir says that a person, “Adam”, has to say three blessings every day: She’asani Yisrael, Shelo Asani Isha and Shelo Asani Bur. On the next line Rav Acha Bar Ya’akov replaces “Shelo Asani Bur” (God didn’t make me an ignoramus) with “Shelo Asani Aved” (God didn’t make me a slave).
The G’marra questions why we need to say both Shelo Asani Aved and Shelo Asani Isha, and Rashi, in his second explanation of that answer, says that we need to say both in order to come up with the required daily allowance of 100 b’rachot. The Bach (O.C 46) argues that the main reason for saying all three is to increase the number of b’rachot we say to 100, and that is the main reason for saying three b’rachot in the negative (shelo asani): if you would say the positive “She’asani Yisrael” then you could not say “Shelo asani aved, isha”. The Aruch HaShulchan (46, yud) like the Bach that if you say She’asani Yisrael, you cannot say the other two negative b’rachot – you would be “stuck” having said just one, positive, B’racha.
The Rosh (Rabeinu Asher) in the back of Masechet B’rachot, upholds the version that we have in Menachot – “She’asani Yisrael”. While some question this version of the Rosh himself, the Gaon MiVilna affirms it is the girsa of the Rosh in his Biur HaGra on the Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim, 46:4.
Even though the three negatives have prevailed in our traditions and siddurim, and She’asani Yisrael has not ,the Magen Avraham of three centuries ago and the Mishna B’rura of one century ago mention that in their respective periods there were siddurim – perhaps many of them – that had the b’racha of she’asani Yehudi or Yisrael, but that that is a mistake of the printers.
In fact, many of the classic halachik commentators feel that the negativity of the traditional b’rachot is strange – and they work to come up with answers. Moreover, even according to the Shulchan Aruch, the positive b’racha of She’asani Yisraeli may have its place – with a convert – and even those who reject the positive version of “She’asani Yisrael/Yehudi/Ger” for a convert, do not reject it because it is not a legitimate formulation (matbe’a), but, rather, because it does not work for a convert who has made himself a Jew, rather than being made so by God.
Therefore, I suggest that we follow the b’racha according to the G’ra and the Rosh and our Talmud, and say, “She’asani Yisrael” instead of the negative, and that a woman says“She’asani Yisraelit” instead of the negative. Once the first b’racha is said in this way, the way it appears in the G’marra Menachot, then we have no choice, based on the p’sak of the Aruch HaShulchan (from the Bach) , to avoid saying the final two, negative b’rachot of “Shelo Asani Aved” (God did not make me a slave) and “Shelo Asani Isha”(God did not make me a woman), since they become unnecessary after such an all encompassing, powerful, and positive statement of Jewish identity of “She’asani Yisrael/Yisraelit”.
Now for some “hashkafa” – philosophical context:
She’asani Yisrael/Yisraelit” is a beautiful b’racha, thanking God for making me Jewish – proud to be Jewish, excited to begin the day as a Yisrael.
Rather than beginning the day with negative b’rachot, which accentuate the G’marra of “noach lo la’adam shelo nivra” – it would be truly better for a human being not to have been created at all – maybe it is now time to begin the day with a positive b’racha “k’mo sha’ar b’rachot shemevarchim al hatova” (Magen Avraham, 46, 9) – like all other b’rachot that we say blessing God for good things. How do you want to wake up in the morning: happy to be alive, or frustrated that you are still stuck in this world? Perhaps it depends on the day!
But “She’asani Yisrael” matches very well with the story of the angel’s fighting with Jacob in Genesis 32, 26: “Vayomer, Shalcheini ki alah hashacher”, as Rashi interprets: Send me away, Oh Ya’akov, for I have to say the morning blessings of the angels. These angels, presumably, are happy to have been created! Then two verses later, the angel gives Jacob his morning blessing: “Lo Ya’akov ye’ameir shimcha, ki im Yisrael”! Your name will not be the negative Ya’akov any more, but, rather, the positive, glorious Yisrael! Can’t you imagine Jacob there and then saying: Blessed are you God who has made me Israel!
There is no better way to bring Jacob’s early morning transformation to life than by us, too, saying every morning, with pride and optimism, the way our G’marra has it: “She’asani Yisrael” – proud to be a “Yisrael – and through that sweeping away – halachically – centuries of the three negative birchot Hashachar that perhaps were desperately waiting for the day when proud, committed Israelites, would feel blessed enough to push them aside for a brand new morning, just as Jacob’s name was changed so many years ago. Yet, as always, remaining loyal to our tradition and to its Talmudic backbone.
Asher Lopatin
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