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JTA IS HIRING!

By Jta · February 9, 2012

Spread the word! JTA is hiring for the following positions:

• News Editor (NY)
• Reporter (NY)
• Foreign Correspondent (overseas)
• Israel Correspondent

To apply, send an email to the address in the job descriptions below. NO CALLS please.

Connecting the dots: Susan G. Komen, J Street and Bill Clinton

By Ami Eden · February 9, 2012

Will Susan G. Komen ever get its groove back following the uproar over its decision to cut funding to Planned Parenthood? Already the organization has reversed itself on the funding decision and now Karen Handel, the Susan G. Komen official that many critics suspected of playing a lead role in the initial decision, is out.

In her post-resignation interviews (see video after the jump), Handel defends Komen and its founder and CEO Nancy Brinker instead of taking aim at Planned Parenthood. The only problem is she's undermining Brinker's credibility in the process.

From the start up until now, Brinker has insisted that initial decision had nothing to do with abortion politics and that Handel, a former pro-life GOP candidate in Georgia, had no role in the matter. Handel, however, says she did play a key role -- and the decision was made at least in part because of anti-choice activists upset that Komen was issuing grants to an organization that provides abortion services.

And it's not just Handel. In an interview with HuffPost, a Democratic board member of Komen and Planned Parenthood, John D. Rafaelli, also contradicted Brinker's account, acknowledging that from the start the decision to cut funding to Planned Parenthood was about getting Komen out of the abortion debate.Read More >>>

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What would an attack on Israel look like? (video)

By Uriel Heilman · February 8, 2012

A video called "The Last Day" that imagines what a future attack on Israel might look like is going viral, with more than 100,000 views since it was uploaded 10 days ago.

With all the talk of a possible attack on Iran, Israelis are justifiably nervous about the domestic consequences. But this alarming video, which shows fighter jets dropping bombs on mountains outside Jerusalem and missiles blowing up nearby hillsides and towns, is probably NOT what the response would look like.

The more likely scenario would look like the assault Israel came under during the 2006 Lebanon War, when Hezbollah fired some 4,000 rockets at northern Israel. While the rocket fire in the next war probably would reach all of Israel, Katyusha and Kassam rockets do far less damage than the explosions depicted in the video; Israel has anti-missile batteries that likely would provide some defense; the Israeli Air Force likely would be defending the homeland and pounding the points of origin of the missiles; Iranian or Arab fighter jets are unlikely to run sorties over Israel, dropping bombs on civilian targets; and Israelis are likely to take cover in bomb shelters, not be caught unawares on major thoroughfares, as depicted in the movie.

In short, it's unlikely to be Israel's "last day."

Not that there's nothing to worry about... 

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Bris competition: How many foreskins ya got?

By Uriel Heilman · February 3, 2012

Back in August, we ran a news item about a mohel in Ukraine who performed his 4,500th circumcision. According to Chabad, which was the source for the story, the mohel, Chabad-Lubavitch emissary Rabbi Yaacov Gaissinovitch, performed 22 in a single day at a Jewish summer camp in Dnepropetrovsk (on Jewish boys who had never been circumcised as infants).

Initially, I was skeptical that the total number was accurate, and before we ran the brief I engaged in a flurry of back-and-forth emails with Chabad. Eventually, I was convinced (the mohel recorded each bris in a notebook, and I was sent a copy of one of the pages).

Now comes a report from The New York Times that puts the 4,500 number to shame. Philip L. Sherman, a mohel from White Plains, N.Y. who circumcises only infants, says he's cut an estimated 20,000 foreskins.

Wow. That's a hell of a lot of bagel-and-lox breakfasts.

The Times says Sherman's figure is his own estimate, and his daily record is nine. Sherman performed his first bris in 1978, which means that, to reach 20,000, he's had to perform an average of 1.6 brises a day for the last 34 years.

Know anyone out there who can beat that?

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Watch the Super Bowl halftime show of cultural misappropriation online

By Adam Soclof · February 3, 2012

Why in ANY god's name did scandal-ridden Atlanta megachurch bishop Eddie Long get wrapped in a Torah scroll?

And did that guy just say Auschwitz and "Birkendol"?
Read More >>>

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Messianic rabbi orders preacher wrapped in ‘Auschwitz’ Torah

By Ami Eden · February 3, 2012

 It's a safe bet that most JTA readers have never heard of Bishop Eddie Long of theAtlanta-area New Birth Missionary Baptist Church.

Well, that's about to change... thanks to this video of Long -- at the direction of Ralph Messer, a Messianic Jew and self-described rabbi -- being wrapped in a Torah and then lifted up on a chair bar mitzvah-style with scroll in hand . Messer claimed that the Torah was recovered from Auschwitz.

 The Atlanta Journal Constitution reports that the ceremony is drawing criticism:

A Torah's use in a ceremony ordaining Long as "a king" is offensive to many Jews, said Bill Nigut, Southeast Regional Director of the Anti-Defamation League. ...

More disturbing was the use of this particular Torah in an inappropriate setting, experts on religion say

“The connection of the Torah scroll to the Holocaust and then to Eddie Long is incomprehensible to me,” said David P. Gushee, a professor of Christian ethics at Mercer University. Gushee is a scholar of the Holocaust and has visited Auschwitz several times.

“What was the point? Was it to signal that Eddie Long was suffering persecution like the Jews at Auschwitz?” Gushee asked.

“The connection of the Torah scroll to the Holocaust and then to Eddie Long is incomprehensible to me,” said David P. Gushee, a professor of Christian ethics at Mercer University. Gushee is a scholar of the Holocaust and has visited Auschwitz several times.

“What was the point? Was it to signal that Eddie Long was suffering persecution like the Jews at Auschwitz?” Gushee asked.

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Birthright, in the eyes of Israeli satirists

By Uriel Heilman · January 31, 2012

This season of "Eretz Nehederet," Israel's version of "Saturday Night Live," features a running parody of a Birthright trip to Israel that mocks American Jews for their enthusiasm and naivite (and obesity and JAPpiness, of course) and Israelis for their gold-digging and trigger fingers. Chuckle along:

Part 1 (with English subtitles)

Part 2 (Hebrew):

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Comings and Goings

By Danielle Fleischman · January 31, 2012

Dr. David Rubovits has been named Senior Vice President, Planning and Allocations at the Jewish United Fund/Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago. He has been working in not-for-profit management, program development and organizational leadership for 23 years.

Rabbi Elliot J. Cosgrove will serve as Rabbinical Advisor in Interfaith Affairs and Co-Chair of the Anti-Defamation League’s National Outreach and Interfaith Committee. He will continue to serve in his position as Senior Rabbi at Park Avenue Synagogue in New York City.  

Robert Leventhal was hired at the United Synagogue to lead leadership development initiatives. He was formally a senior consultant at the Alban Institute of Herndon, Va. 

Dennis Ross is reprising his position as Co-Chairman of the Board of Directors and Professional Guiding Council at the Jewish People Policy Institute. Last month he left his position at the White House as the Obama administration's top Middle East strategist. 

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Alexander Levin’s got a name (and cash), but does he have a plan?

By Uriel Heilman · January 27, 2012

Ukrainian Jewish leader and real estate mogul Alexander L. Levin came to New York this week to launch the latest international Jewish organization with a grandiose name. Called the World Forum for Russian Jewry, this one aims to harness the power of Russian-speaking Jews the world over.

At the launch event Wednesday at the United Nations, Levin, who is the president of the Greater Kiev Jewish Community, talked about the need to bridge East and West and how Russian Jews can mediate between Washington and Moscow by influencing governments to stop Iran’s march toward nuclear weapons.

“We will push them to listen to us,” he said.

I wanted to understand more about how he planned on doing this, so I met with Levin on Thursday in a nondescript conference room he was borrowing in midtown Manhattan. Would he be meeting with high-level government officials? I asked him. Sending Russian Jews into the streets to stage demonstrations?

Levin was vague on the details -- not intentionally so, it seemed, but rather because he hadn’t decided on them yet.

The most important thing to get Moscow to change its positions on Iran, Levin said, is for the United States to take a more compromising stance vis-à-vis the Kremlin. And if the U.S. administration won’t compromise, he suggested, the government of the United States could be overthrown.

Huh?

Heschel on Heschel

By Ben Harris · January 23, 2012

Susanna Heschel talks with radio host Tavis Smiley about her sabbatical year in Berlin and her father, the late rabbi and civil rights activist Abraham Joshua Heschel. 

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