Stan Guthrie makes the case in Christianity Today for evangelizing Jews:

I love and respect the Jewish people and their faith. After all, Jesus was a Jew, and Christianity is firmly rooted in the Hebrew Scriptures. Certainly the Holocaust and the church’s horrific anti-Semitism have changed the context for evangelism. We have much for which to apologize. But we cannot apologize for the gospel, which is Good News for Jewish people precisely because they—like all human beings—need Jesus.

The ZOA’s Mort Klein is pushing ahead with his calls on Barack Obama to quit his church. In addition to the organization’s press release from last week, Klein now also has an Op-Ed. In each case he veers off course a bit in trying to argue that Obama’s pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., has no grounds for harboring any racial bitterness.

In the press release, as a parenthetical P.S., Klein is quoted as saying:

(Obama excuses some of Wright’s statements by saying, “Wright was a child of the 60’s.” In fact, Rev. Jeremiah Wright went to high school in Philadelphia from 1955 to 1959. The high school he attended was my own alma mater, Central High School. Central, the second oldest public high school in the country, was a magnet school attracting the elite, most serious academic students in the city. The school was 80% Jewish and 95% white. My experience was that the African-American students were treated with the same respect as the white students. The African-American students loved Central as much as the white students did. Many of them come to Central’s reunions. Also, it is interesting to note that Rev. Wright’s father was a prominent pastor and his mother was a teacher and later vice-principal of the Philadelphia High School for Girls, also a distinguished academic high school.)

What started out as a tag-on turns into the lead in Klein’s Op-Ed. Here’s the opening few graffs:

The whole world now knows that for nearly 20 years, Senator Barack Obama has attended Chicago’s Trinity United Church and that his pastor is Rev. Jeremiah Wright. In his speech on race on March 18, Senator Obama criticized some of Rev. Wright’ statements but also essentially excused and rationalized Wright’s sermons. He summarized the reality for many African-Americans growing up in past decades – inferior, segregated schools; discrimination; lack of economic opportunity, inability to provide for one’s family – before stating, “This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up.” Half right. African-Americans suffered, many even horrifically, in the past. But Rev. Wright was not one of them.

How do I know?

It happens that, as a Philadelphian, I attended Central High School – the same public school Jeremiah Wright attended from 1955 to 1959. He could have gone to an integrated neighborhood school, but he chose to go to Central, a virtually all-white school. Central is the second oldest public high school in the country, which attracts the most serious academic students in the city. The school then was about 80% Jewish and 95% white. The African-American students, like all the others, were there on merit. Generally speaking, we came from lower/middle class backgrounds. Many of our parents had not received a formal education and we tended to live in row houses. In short, economically, we were roughly on par.

I attended Central a few years after Rev. Wright, so I did not know him personally. But I knew of him and I know where he used to live – in a tree-lined neighborhood of large stone houses in the Germantown section of Philadelphia. This is a lovely neighborhood to this day. Moreover, Rev. Wright’s father was a prominent pastor and his mother was a teacher and later vice-principal and disciplinarian of the Philadelphia High School for Girls, also a distinguished academic high school. Two of my acquaintances remember her as an intimidating and strict disciplinarian and excellent math teacher. In short, Rev. Wright had a comfortable upper-middle class upbringing. It was hardly the scene of poverty and indignity suggested by Senator Obama to explain what he calls Wright’s anger and what I describe as his hatred.

New Republic honcho Marty Peretz is impressed by this take on Wright; N.J. Jewish News editor Andrew Silow-Carroll — not so much.

My two cents: Wright has supplied Klein with plenty of decent ammunition to make his case that Obama should quit the church (after all, the candidate himself suggested that he might have done so, if not for the fact that his longtime pastor was retiring). But this attempt to challenge the idea that Wright might be carrying some legitimate racial grudges around is ridiculous — especially coming from Klein, who runs an organization that raises money and lobbies in D.C. based on the premise that we here in America can feel solidarity with Israelis living thousands of miles away.

It would be like if I wrote an Op-Ed saying, “It’s true that there are many Israelis who have been killed in terrorist attacks. Yet that can’t be why Mort Klein is so angry about Palestinian incitement. Take it from me. I went to high school just a few blocks away from his home in suburban Philadelphia. And it’s a really nice neighborhood — there’s been no terrorist attacks there. So, yes, Israelis might have a right to be angry about terrorism, but not Mort, everything is swell where he lives.”

Jewschool’s Ben Dreyfus posits that Haftarat Zachor + Megillat Esther = The Lord of the Rings (and wonders which is totally plagiarized).

What, if anything, does it mean that the comic book industry was so heavily populated by Jews (and, while the Forward is on the topic, Mister E lights the menorah).

With the NCAA tournament underway, ESPN takes a look at Tennessee basketball coach Bruce Pearl. Jewish federation leaders know him as Mordechai Shmuel.

Help wanted: Cute kid to be Jewish secret agent and a Jewish family willing to swap its mother.

Natalie Portman loses her Hasidic co-star.

With help from JTA digital master Daniel Sieradski and a big hat tip to Daniel Treiman.

Ben Harris reported earlier this week on Hillel’s upcoming conference and the related debate over how to deal with anti-Israel activities on campus. In a related exchange…

The ZOA’s president, Morton Klein, has posted an opinion piece criticizing the Harvard Hillel for hosting an exhibition of photographs and testimony by Israeli soldiers who served in the Palestinian territories:

If an exhibit about Babe Ruth’s baseball career showed only his 100 worst games, one would be led to believe – erroneously – that Ruth was an awful player. The same is true with Harvard Hillel’s exhibit, showcasing a fraction of Israelis’ conduct not remotely reflecting their typical behavior.

Indeed, the exhibit promotes an anti-Israel lie. Human rights activist Natan Sharansky praised “Israel’s willingness to endanger the lives of its own soldiers in order to save the lives of hundreds, if not thousands, of Palestinian civilians.” Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz proclaimed, “No country in history ever complied with a higher standard of human rights.”

There is nothing about the Harvard Hillel exhibit that would bring Jewish students closer to their heritage or cultivate their love and advocacy for Israel – goals that Hillel says it is dedicated to achieving. The exhibit could cause students to disassociate from their heritage, and feel shame or disgust about Israel, which is unwarranted and disastrous for our Jewish future.

The president of Harvard Hillel issued an open letter in response:

I write to clarify our situation because your press release and letters of condemnation do not in any way reflect the reality of Harvard Hillel or the Harvard campus. In fact, what you have said and not said is confusing and damaging. For instance, much of your condemnation confuses International Hillel and Harvard Hillel. International Hillel is not responsible for programming at Harvard Hillel. Why do you attack them page after page? And why do your attributions of blame to them apply to us in this situation?

Truth from a skyscraper in New York City looks different than on the ground of a campus in Cambridge. Every campus and every Hillel has its own unique culture. …

Harvard Hillel neither sponsors nor supports “Breaking the Silence”. We have indeed provided a venue for the exhibit. We have provided space in response to the request of two important student groups. Both groups are explicitly Zionist, although each group has a different function and self-understanding. The Harvard Students for Israel, our Israel advocacy group, one of the largest in the country, requested after consulting with the Progressive Jewish Alliance, a sponsor of the exhibit, to move “Breaking the Silence” from a prominent location on campus into the Hillel building. Their concerns were serious. First, they felt that the exhibit needed to be housed where it could be thoroughly and responsibly contextualized – not open to an ongoing heavy flow of traffic with little written or oral explanation. Second, they wanted to ensure that the exhibit not function as a discrete free-standing program but be a component of a larger educational program that could provide alternative perspectives, including a critique of the exhibit. Third, they wanted to avoid ugly, divisive, public displays that, while a delight to the media and outsiders, would be destructive to the Harvard Jewish community and to the reputation of Israel.

The Orthodox Union’s man in Washington, Nathan Diament, explains in the Jewish Press why the organization decided not to oppose a resolution at the JCPA Plenum backing a two-state solution, even though the O.U. has been raising serious concerns regarding negotiations with the Palestinians: (more…)

If Juno were Jewno …

(Jewschool has more on the story behind the video)

Britney removes her Kabbalah tattoo and … does lunch with Mel Gibson. On Shabbos!!!

Before the deadly construction accident last weekend, a Jewish octogenarian and retired contractor tried to warn New York officials that a crane on E. 51 St. wasn’t properly braced.

(With help from JTA digital master Daniel Sieradski)

The Forward’s Rebecca Spence writes about Hollywood’s growing interest in Israeli television shows:

As Hollywood executives roll out the red carpet for television shows imported from overseas, Israel is emerging as an unlikely new starlet.

In the wake of this season’s new HBO drama, “In Treatment” — the Israeli television hit remade for an American audience — a spate of fresh shows from the Jewish state is now making its way across the Atlantic.

“There is a land rush on Israeli properties right now,” said independent producer David Himmelfarb, who has an exclusive deal with ABC Studios, the television production arm of The Walt Disney Company. “It’s almost like a farm team for Hollywood, is what it’s becoming,” he said, referring to the Israeli television industry.

Rami Kashou, the Ramallah-born fashion designer who finished a close second on Season 4 of Bravo’s Project Runway, plays the checkpoint card in a Q & A with Jewcy.

What about [opening a studio] in your home country?

I’d love to open up in more than one country, but with checkpoints in the Middle East, it could be hard. But it would be nice to have my work in different countries, to make it more accessible.

Here’s a Project Runway montage of Kashou…

The Forward has hooked up with The Jewish Channel to produce three shows: a round table featuring the paper’s staffers, an interview show with J.J. Goldberg and a movie-themed program with arts & culture editor Alana Newhouse.

In one recent segment on Newhouse’s show, she and the TJC crew looked at the Jewish-Rastafarian documentary Awake Zion.

tjctv.com/blogs/are-dreadlocks-the-new-peyos/

InterfaithFamily.com is holding its first-ever video contest…

We are looking for all types of videos, including but not limited to: wedding videos demonstrating interesting, engaging, interfaith wedding ceremonies; humorous videos dealing with interfaith issues regarding life-cycle events, holidays, and everyday life; interviews with people involved in interfaith relationships and how they are dealing with the issues they face; conflict resolution; cartoons; parodies (in good taste); and music videos. InterfaithFamily.com reserves the right in its sole discretion to decide which videos to upload to its website, and not to upload any video that does not meet these criteria or that we deem unsuitable.

(All types of videos?)