Jew like me
Maybe everybody messed up and the millennium starts tonight: Christians are joining being officially represented at the highest levels of the Jewish Agency and getting circumcised by mohels.
Not sure which is crazier (for them or for us).
I guess the latter shouldn't come as surprise, considering the popularity of Hebrew National. It's sort of the same idea.
0 Comments |
Share This
| 
Christianity,
Israel |
Matzo balling with Harris & Berkman
JTA staff writer Ben Harris looking dapper in his winter gear.
For the second year in a row, JTA's Ben Harris and Jacob Berkman spent Christmas Eve hitting a bunch of Jewish-themed parties throughout Manhattan. Here'?s their take on this year's festivities:
Click the 'play' button below to listen.
[audio:/images/archive/122607_xmas_outing.mp3]
To subscribe to JTA's Behind the News podcast, click here.
No Mike Huckabee-Chinese restaurant sightings, but we stand by our claim earlier this week that the self-described "Christian Leader" is a Marrano.
And while we're on the topic of Chinese Food on Christmas:
6 Comments |
Share This
|
Events,
Podcast,
video |
Mike Huckabee—Marrano
No wonder Mike Huckabee can't go a week without reminding everybody that he's a "Christian Leader." It turns out the guys is overcompensating – he's a Marrano. Check out this report:
"The only thing that I know that for sure we're going to do that we have always done is we'll go to our church Christmas Eve service," Huckabee said. "It's a huge community-wide celebration, and we do that every year. And then we have an unusual tradition that after the Christmas Eve service we go out and eat Chinese food. Don't ask me why."Asked if the tradition is intended to help him better relate to the Jewish community – who often celebrate Christmas with egg rolls and General Tso – Huckabee said, "No, it's Chinese food."
He was unaware of the Jewish Christmas tradition.
So he says.
4 Comments |
Share This
|
2008 Election |
What to make of McCain’s Joe-mentum
A few thoughts on Joe Lieberman's decision to jump the mechitzah to back John McCain for president:
1) If McCain manages to win the GOP nomination, suddenly Lieberman will find himself back in the V.P. derby. Talk about flashbacks. But, hey, if we're having another O.J. trial, why not another Lieberman run. Of course, this time around Lieberman would seem like plain vanilla given that the Democrats seemed poised to nominate a woman or an African American for the presidency (and don't forget Bill Richardson's push to be the first Latino on a major national ticket).
2) No doubt plenty of Democrats and liberal bloggers will be pouncing on this endorsement, claiming that it is the final straw. It's certainly true that he is an outspoken supporter of the Iraq invasion and often seems more interested in attacking Dems over their opposition to the war than to the Bush administration's handling of it. That said, it would be a mistake to view Lieberman's as an act of political betrayal.
Democratic voters gave Lieberman the heave ho in Connecticut's primary last year. Lieberman won as a third-party candidate and declared that he was an "Independent Democrat." The deal was that he would caucus with the Dems – allowing them to control of the Senate – and in return he would maintain his seniority and get the committee chairmanships he had coming. Even if Lieberman were to endorse Bush for a third term, who cares? As long as Lieberman doesn't hand the Senate back to the GOP, Democrats should be happy.
3) Lieberman has not been shy about criticizing his own party. But, in the end, his endorsement is not so much about dissing Clinton or Obama, as rewarding a good friend who stood by him when he was out on an island after losing the Democratic primary. Besides, by making the announcement on the eve of the primaries, any bounce from the gesture will come at the expense of Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani – not the Democratic candidate in November.
4) Lieberman has always occupied a strange spot: In 2000 he became the symbol of American Jewry's full-fledged political arrival – but on many levels he is completely not representative of American Jews. Most Jews are secular or liberal in their religious views/practices, believe that the Iraq war was a disastrous idea and couldn't disagree more with Lieberman's mantra that the Constitution guarantees freedom of religion, not from religion. Now it turns out that Lieberman isn't even on the same page with most Republican Jews, most of whom seem to prefer Giuliani (here and here).
UPDATE: Ned Lamont, the man who beat Lieberman in the primary but lost to him in the general election, issued a statement slamming Joe's endorsement of McCain. Lamon't main point is that during the campaign last year, Lieberman made it sound like he would be endorsing a Democrat for president:
To be fair, that comment was made during the Democratic primary. So jumping on Lieberman over it is sort of like rejecting a marriage proposal and then accusing the spurned lover of adultery when he starts looking around.
6 Comments |
Share This
|
2008 Election |
Adam Sandler does ‘Munich,’ pop singer does ‘Hava Nagila’
Here are two keepers: a preview of Adam Sandler's upcoming flick about a top Israeli commando who wants to become a hairdresser and British pop singer Lauren Rose performing her version of Hava Nagila, which is climbing to the top of the charts in England:
UPDATE: JTA's resident music buff, Jacob Berkman (that'll get fellow writer Ben Harris steamed), says Rosen is simply ripping off this guy's holiday-timed Hava Nagila from two years ago.
8 Comments |
Share This
|
Film,
Music,
Pop Culture,
video |
The ‘Six Point’ plan for Jewish votes
Rob Eshman, editor of the L.A. Jewish Journal, has a great column this week about what candidates needs to do if they want to appeal to Jewish voters. The keys: pander on Israel; offer one good way to reduce our dependence on oil; be a Nixon environmentalist; ix-nay on the esus-Jay; don't hate government, hate bad government, and take the Iranian nuclear threat seriously.
As it turns out, the column comes the same week that the American Jewish Committee released its annual survey of Jewish opinion – and the numbers back Eshman up on several points.
* Rudy Giuliani scores well on all six points, and not only does he have a much higher favorable ratings than the other Republicans – he finishes second overall behind Hillary Clinton.
* An incredible 82% of American Jews think that it is very important for the U.S. to achieve energy independence and another 17% say it is somewhat important. And the overwhelming majority want an environmentally friendly way of getting there.
* By a margin of 57%-35% American Jews oppose U.S. military action against Iran. But 92% are either somewhat or very concerned about Iran obtaining nuclear weapons.
0 Comments |
Share This
|
2008 Election |
Reform Politics
Check out this audio dispatch from Ben Harris, who is one of two JTA reporters at this week's biennial convention of the Union for Reform Judaism. It's a politically active, extremely liberal crowd of several thousand Jews – and, not surprisingly they're buzzing in the hallways about the elections and cheering in the auditoriums about the need to stop any more conservative judges from getting on to the Supreme Court.
Click the play button below to listen.
[audio:/images/archive/121407_eden_harris_urj.mp3]
To subscribe to JTA's Behind the News podcast, click here.
11 Comments |
Share This
|
Denominations,
Podcast,
Politics |
Some of my best friends are named Schneider
'Tis the season for the war against the war on Christmas, so we weren't surprised to receive a press release from the Catholic League's president, Bill Donohue, listing about a dozen examples of "multicultural monsters" censoring holiday displays. What did catch our eye, however, was this item on the list: "A Jewish public official in Wisconsin wants to rename the state Capitol Holiday Tree the Christmas Tree, but is being opposed by the Freedom From Religion Foundation."
The Catholic League was talking about Marlin Schneider, a state representative from Madison – the very same Marlin Schneider who went to bat for naval veterans demanding a congressional investigation into Israel's attack on the U.S.S. Liberty during the 1967 war.
Hmmm.
As it turns out, Schneider is not Jewish.
But he does like Jews, which is why he was so baffled by all of the hoopla over his efforts on the U.S.S. Liberty issue:
The Liberty veterans believed that the attack on their ship was deliberate and not friendly fire, and that it had been covered up by the United States Navy and the State Department for years because of fear of reprisals by influential people who would bring down any politician with the audacity even to ask questions about the attack. Some of the people who later talked to me both within and outside our own capitol warned me to beware of massive political contributions against me and even potential assassination. I laughed that off because I have never been anti-Israel and, in fact, the people who got me to run for office in the first place in 1970 were Jewish constituents whom I admired because in the 1950s they had taken on Sen. Joseph McCarthy right here in central Wisconsin. Moreover, one of my former assistants was the daughter of a rabbi incarcerated at Buchenwald who now works for a Jewish organization in New York City. I also thought that a lowly state legislator was too small a potato for anyone really to care much about.
It turns out that the Catholic League misread this story, which identifies Schneider's pro-Christmas Tree spokesman, as a Jew:
"A rose is a rose is a rose," said Schneider spokesman Michael Schoenfield in the article. "Whatever you call it, it is going to be a Christmas tree, so call it what it is."While opponents to the resolution said by using the word "Christmas," it is offensive to non-Christians, Schoenfield said he disagrees.
"As a Jew, I have a problem calling it a holiday tree," he said in the article. "It's not my holiday."
While we're on the topic … Schneider from "One Day at a Time":
Jew or not a Jew? I'd say no. But that was actor Pat Harrington Jr. sitting at Larry David's seder table in Season 5, Episode 7 of "Curb Your Enthusiasm." (Thanks to my wife for that pickup.)
0 Comments |
Share This
|
Christianity,
Hate |
Huckabee: Create a Palestinian state—in Egypt or Saudi Arabia
Check out this account of Huckabee's campaign stop back in October at the house of Jason Bedrick, the first Orthodox Jew to be elected to the New Hampshire State House:
In response to a question about the Middle East from Rabbi Moshe Bleich of the Wellesley-Weston Chabad Center, Gov. Huckabee expressed frustration with Israeli politicians who wanted to give away the Golan Heights and firmly opposed dividing Jerusalem.When asked about a Palestinian state, Gov. Huckabee stated that he supports creating a Palestinian state, but believes that it should be formed outside of Israel. He named Egypt and Saudi Arabia as possible alternatives, noting that the Arabs have far more land than the Israelis and that it would only be fair for other Arab nations to give the Palestinians land for a state, rather than carving it out of the tiny Israeli state.
6 Comments |
Share This
|
2008 Election |
Jews: We favor Rudy & Hillary
Tomorrow the American Jewish Committee will be releasing its annual survey of American Jewish opinion. There's plenty of interesting stuff in it, especially about the presidential race…
* FAVORABLE/NOT FAVORABLE: Hillary Clinton is the clear leader, with a 53 favorable rating. That's not such a shocker, given the liberal and Democratic leanings of American Jews and her longstanding ties to the community. But some people will be surprised to see Rudy Giuliani – a Republican – at number two, with 41%. Next comes Obama and Edwards in a tie at 38%, then McCain at 31%, Romney at 15% and Thompson 11%.
Clinton's and Giuliani's strong showing are even more dramatic when broken down by party. Among Jews who identify as Democrats, Clinton scored a 70% favorable rating, compared to 48% for Edwards and 45% for Obama. Giuliani registered 75% among Jewish Republicans, followed by McCain at 49% and Romney and Thompson at 32%.
(To get a sense of how volatile the overall electoral picture is: Survey respondents were not asked about Mike Huckabee – currently the GOP frontrunner in Iowa – because he did not meet the threshold of 10% in national polls.)
Among all Jews, the highest not favorable rating went to Thompson with 43%, then Romney at 41%, McCain and Giuliani at 38%, followed by Clinton with 29% and Obama and Edwards at 26%.
Does that 41% favorable rating mean Giuliani could surpass President Bush's 19% showing among Jews in 2000 and 24% showing in 2004? Well it's certainly impressive – at this stage in the game – that Giuliani could score that high, with Jewish Republicans accounting for about only a quarter of those who view Giuliani favorably. That said, given the Democratic and liberal leanings of the American Jewish community, it seems like a safe bet that there are plenty of Jewish Dems and independents who like Giuliani, but will still end up voting for the Democrat, especially if it's Clinton.
* PARTY/IDEOLOGICAL BREAKDOWN: Fifty-eight percent of Jews identified as Democrats, 26% as independent and 15% as Republican. Forty-three percent described themselves as liberal to some degree, 31% identified as moderates and 25% said conservative to some degree.
Not surprisingly, given those figures, slightly more than 60% said that the Democratic Party is more likely to make the right decision about the war in Iraq and more likely to ensure a strong economy; Republicans scored 21% on Iraq and 26% on the economy. Democrats also got the nod on dealing with terrorism, but by a slimmer, 53%-30% margin.
* ISSUES: Here's a startling stat – only 6% of American Jews identified Israel as the issue that will be most important for them in the election. Does that mean Jewish voters care less about the Middle East than generally assumed? More likely, in my opinion, is a theory often advanced by Democratic strategist Steve Rabinowitz – Jewish voters tend to assume that when it comes to Israel, not much separates the candidates, so they can focus in on other issues. The other important point making on this front is that 16% cited the war in Iraq, 14% pointed to terrorism & national security and 6% selected the energy crisis – so even the voters that place the highest priority on Middle East-related issues, don't simply view the situation through the Israel lens.
The overall order on the issue ranking was: economy & jobs (23%), health care (19%), war in Iraq (16%), terrorism & national security (14%), support for Israel (6%), immigration (6%), energy crisis (6%), education (4%) and not sure (5%).
This section of the study is misleading without some explanation: Callers were given a list of issues from which to choose – and the list was based on a similar poll commissioned by The New York Times. The idea, the AJC told JTA's D.C. bureau chief, Ron Kampeas, was to allow for a comparison between Jews and non-Jews.
In theory, that's certainly worthwhile. The problem is that two of the issues that many Jews feel the most passionate about – abortion and the separation of church and state – were not on the list. No matter how good an economic program or plan for universal health care a candidate has, Jewish voters will run away if he or she calls for a federal ban on abortion and/or is perceived as wanting to lower the church-state wall in a significant way.
And, finally (for now) check out these stats on immigration and energy. Seventy-nine percent of American Jews said that illegal immigration was either a serious or somewhat serious problem. Let's just say, however, Jews see things differently than Lou Dobbs: Two-thirds said that America's policy should be to allow illegal immigrants to stay if they meet certain criteria, compared to 15% who said they all should be deported and 14% who said they should be allowed to work for a limited amount of time.
And arguably the most dramatic finding: 99% of American Jews think like Thomas Friedman on at least one point – they think achieving energy independence is either very important or somewhat important. Sixty-nine percent say the best way for the U.S. to handle its energy needs is to develop alternative sources, compared to 7% who pointed to greater energy production, 11% who said greater energy conservation and 11% who chose all three. And 73% of American Jews reject the argument that "the United States should develop independent sources of energy even at the risk of damaging the environment."
6 Comments |
Share This
|
2008 Election |
Recent Comments
Blog Roll
