JTA: The Global News Service of the Jewish People

Al-Qaida leader: Don’t give Israel credit for 9/11

By Ami Eden · April 22, 2008

Don't expect him to get honored at an ADL dinner, but Al-Qaida's second-in-command wants the world to know – Israel is not responsible for the 9/11 attacks. Check out the report from the Associated Press:

Ayman al-Zawahri accused Hezbollah's Al-Manar television of starting the rumor [about Israel]. "The purpose of this lie is clear — (to suggest) that there are no heroes among the Sunnis who can hurt America as no else did in history. Iranian media snapped up this lie and repeated it," he said.

In an audiotape last week, according to the AP report, the Al-Qaida leader had plenty of negative to say about the regime in Tehran:

Al-Zawahri denounced what he called Iran's expansionist plans, saying Tehran aims to annex southern Iraq and Shiite areas of the eastern Arabian Peninsula as well as stre ngthen ties to its followers in southern Lebanon. He warned that if Iran achieves its goals, it will "explode the situation in an already exploding region.

The rhetoric is a stark change for al-Zawahri, who in the past did not seek to exploit Shiite-Sunni tensions. When the former head of al-Qaida in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was waging a campaign of suicide bombings against Shiites in Iraq, al-Zawahri sent messages telling him to stop, fearing it would hurt al-Qaida's image.

Gunaratna said the change in tone could be because of al-Qaida's failure to win the release of al-Qaida figures detained by Iran since the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, including al-Qaida security chief Saif al-Adel and two of bin Laden's sons.

Gunaratna said that up to 200 al-Qaida figures and their families are under house arrest in Iran and that Tehran has rejected al-Qaida attempts to negotiate their release.

Al-Qaida doesn't have the strength to launch attacks in Iran, but it intends to do so "in the future," he said. "If al-Qaida becomes strong in Iraq ... Iran believes al-Qaida in Iraq could become a major threat."

1 Comment | Share This | Israel, Terrorism |

Ben Stein’s anti-evolution film raises hackles

By Daniel Sieradski · April 22, 2008

Did Darwin's theory of evolution provoke the Holocaust? That's the claim being advanced by actor/economist Ben Stein in his new film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.

Called "one of the sleaziest documentaries to arrive in a very long time" by the New York Times, the film, which debuted last week to dismal modest* box office response, proposes a direct correlation between evolutionary science, Social Darwinism, "godlessness," and Nazism.

Stein's assertions about the evil intentions of evolutionary biologists have some in the scientific community crying foul.

"Unfortunately," John Rennie wrote recently in Scientific American, "Expelled is a movie not quite harmless enough to be ignored. Shrugging off most of the film's attacks—all recycled from previous pro-[Intelligent Design] works—would be easy, but its heavy-handed linkage of modern biology to the Holocaust demands a response for the sake of simple human decency."

Indeed, by Stein's logic, Reb Gedalia Nadel z"tl, an esteemed pupil of the Hazon Ish who advocated reconciling Torah with modern scientific knowledge – particularly on the subject of creation and evolution, would have been a Nazi sympathizer.

Such absurdities aren't preventing Jews from taking the bait, however. On Friday, April 18, the day of Expelled's premier, Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic magazine and a vocal opponent of Intelligent Design theory, received a hostile email from a Jewish viewer of Stein's film, stating: "You people believe that it was okay for my great-grandparents to die in the Holocaust! How disgusting. [...] We Jews will fight to keep people like you out of the United States!"

Shermer forwarded the email to famed geneticist and author of the 2006 atheist manifesto The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins, who penned a public response to the email, refuting Expelled's claims and informing the email's angry author that "you have been cruelly duped by Ben Stein and his unscrupulous colleagues. It is a wicked, evil thing they have done to you, and potentially to many others."

Likewise, in an op-ed published by MSNBC, Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, called the film "immoral," adding that,

To lay blame for the Holocaust upon Charles Darwin is to engage in a form of Holocaust denial that should forever make Ben Stein the subject of scorn not because of his nudnik concern that evolution somehow undermines morality but because in this contemptible movie he is willing to subvert the key reason why the Holocaust took place — racism — to serve his own ideological end.

*[Update] The article I had cited for box office figures has been updated since my initial writing of this entry and now shows that the film performed better than originally anticipated.

14 Comments | Share This | Religion, Science, Shoah |

The pope and a rabbi end up on the Daily Show…

By Ami Eden · April 22, 2008

The Daily Show covers the pope's visit to the United States:

Oh, fine, for those who prefer the real thing...

0 Comments | Share This | Uncategorized |

The News Shticker: Does a snake have legs?

By Ami Eden · April 18, 2008

Hope President Bush remembered to put on his tefillin.

Remember that snake that told Eve to eat the apple?

Did Anna Nicole embrace Jewish mourning rituals?

A portrait of Andy Warhol's Jewish portraits.

The Forward wonders if Will Smith is doing his Jewish homework.

The once unabashedly anti-Semitic British National Party is courting a new constituency: Jews.

2 Comments | Share This | Shticker |

Unpeaceful end

By Ami Eden · April 18, 2008

Here's a sad story:

An Italian woman artist who was hitch-hiking to the Middle East dressed as a bride to promote world peace has been found murdered in Turkey.

0 Comments | Share This | Uncategorized |

Mike’s Place

By Ami Eden · April 18, 2008

Joshua Faudem's documentary on the bombing of Mike's Place, "Blues by the Beach," is coming out at the end of the month. It's being released exclusively online, not in theaters or on DVD. Here's the trailer.

Click here to purchase the full film.

Here's a press release:

BLUES BY THE BEACH ONLINE PREMIERE

Blues by the Beach officially debuts on the fifth anniversary of the Mike's Place terror attack in Tel Aviv, Israel. On April 30, 2003 an American producer and his film crew were in the midst of a lighthearted documentary about the popular music bar when two British Nationals participated in a suicide bombing. The film captures the unprecedented before, during and after; footage from this film aired around the world.

This award winning documentary is now available to everyone online through a new video streaming technology from VIVIDAS. There are no downloads and no installation of programs. Within seconds Blues by the Beach is ready for viewing. This innovative technology takes up no computer memory and lets users watch video in a vibrant full-screen mode and connect their laptop to TV.

Blues by the Beach is not distributed on DVD or broadcast on television. The film is playing exclusively at www.bluesbythebeachfilm.com. Pay Per Views are $4.99 each and entitle viewers to three screenings for one month - and any of these three screenings may then be e-mailed to friends and family.

You are invited to preview the free trailer and purchase Pay Per Views at the film's Official Website and Online Cinema www.bluesbythebeachfilm.com. Experience this new video streaming technology and delivery system from VIVIDAS and see Blues by the Beach. As Pulitzer Prize winning dramatist and filmmaker David Mamet writes: 'This is a very, very important film.'

0 Comments | Share This | Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Terrorism, video |

Not everyone in Israel gave Carter the cold shoulder

By Ami Eden · April 18, 2008

"We have been through some tough times, but the doctors and nurses have been at our side throughout the six months we have been here," a Palestinian mother from Nablus today told former President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Roselyn, at Jerusalem's Hadassah University Hospital-Ein Kerem. Saad, her 8-year-old son, is recovering from a bone marrow transplant he underwent to save him from a hereditary blood disease. "Save the Children," a joint project of Hadassah and the Peres Center for Peace, provided much of the support for Saad's treatment and long hospital stay in the Pediatric Oncology and Hematology Department. Pictured with Saad and his mother are, from left: Dr. Michael Weintraub, Head of the Department of Oncology and Hematology; Prof. Shlomo Mor-Yosef, Director General, Hadassah University Medical Center; and President and Mrs. Carter.

0 Comments | Share This | Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Politics |

Debate on Israel prayer moves to blogs

By Ben Harris · April 17, 2008

An interesting spat has broken out over my recent article about how a Brooklyn minyan, Altshul, is grappling with how to pray for Israel.

In one corner, wearing the blue and white shorts, is Ariel Beery (of Blogs of Zion, PresenTense Magazine).

In the other corner, wearing the shorts of many colors, is Daniel Septimus, the force behind Mixed Multitudes, the blog over at My Jewish Learning.

A quick recap:

• Beery fires the opening salvo with some harsh words about how those falling out of love with the prayer (and, one assumes, with Israel generally) are moving away from identification with the Jewish people and becoming more like Protestants.
• Septimus comes back with a post more incredulous that substantive, and the conversation moves to the comments. Beery: Judaism (in its Zionist incarnation) sees the Jews as a corporate body first, then a religious group. Septimus: How can you expect all Jews to relate to the collective in the same way?
• Altshul arrives at a resolution: They will have a moment of silence during which people can say either the traditional prayer for the state or an alternative version (it's the first one on this page) or presumably none at all. Beery: That's the worst solution of all, sacrificing "collective purpose for individual comfort." Septimus: There will be no Jewish peoplehood if it requires that we all agree.

What I don't get about Beery's view is this: He has a problem with Judaism as religion because it's too narrow and limiting ("acts to tear apart our historical community"), but on the prayer for Israel he wants one version for everyone. Why no parallel worry that a prayer for Israel serves to separate the Zionistically Jewish from the spiritually/culturally/religiously/humanistically Jewish?

2 Comments | Share This | Israel, Religion, Ritual, Zionism |

Anna Nicole found comfort in Jewish ritual

By Daniel Sieradski · April 17, 2008

According to ContactMusic, late Playboy pinup and B-movie starlet Anna Nicole Smith embraced Jewish mourning rites after her son Daniel died from a drug overdose in 2006.

In a new book called Anna Nicole Smith: Portrait Of An Icon, the tragic star's stylist pals Pol Atteu and Patrik Simpson reveal the actress found great comfort in Judaism after her son's death in September 2006. They even feature photographs of the late star posing in front of a mirror that has been covered in accordance with Jewish mourning rites. Atteu and Simpson write, "Anna embraced all religions, and followed the Jewish tradition out of respect for (companion) Howard K. Stern by covering all the mirrors in the house because she was in mourning."

1 Comment | Share This | Pop Culture |

Kosher for Passover

By Uriel Heilman · April 17, 2008

It's hard enough cooking for Passover. How about writing a Passover cookbook? Kosher by Design's Susie Fishbein talks to the New York Times about making do without grains, corn, seeds or legumes – chametz, that is. In its Passover Dining section, the Times also discovers that kosher wine actually can be delectable, especially if it's from northern Israel; offers an idea for Indian gefilte fish and pairs chicken with a maror pesto.

0 Comments | Share This | Kashrut, Passover |