“Shrimp, crab, lobster, clams, mussels, all these are an abomination before the Lord, just as gays are an abomination. Why stop at protesting gay marriage? Bring all of God’s law unto the heathens and the sodomites. We call upon all Christians to join the crusade against Long John Silver’s and Red Lobster. Yea, even Popeye’s shall be cleansed. The name of Bubba shall be anathema.“
Filed under
Pearl Gluck’s critically acclaimed documentary, Divan: The Couch, which looks at the experiences of ex-Chasidic Jews trying to retain a connection to their heritage (and which, incidentally, I helped work on a little), is coming to theatres this March. The picture will open at Film Forum in NYC on March 17, and will be making its way around the country at various Jewish film festivals in Sedona, Denver, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, and Hartford.
The film’s release will be celebrated March 6, at an all-night Purim bash at The Workman’s Circle, which will feature a Megillah reading by StorahTelling, as well as performances by Frank London, Great Small Works, Adrienne Cooper, & TreyfGender Posse, and which includes a “Midnight Hasidic Drag Mitzva Tanz.” The party starts at 8 (with the Megillah reading) and costs $20 or $15 in costume.
Filed under
NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg marks his Hebrew birthday, February 19th, 2004, with a kosher cake baked by Esty Scheiner of the World Tikkun Center. Dovi and Esty Scheiner, a young couple who were married in Brooklyn on September 11, 2001, decided to turn their darkened night into a world of light, by moving to Lower Manhattan and helping with the rebuilding effort. Their organization is on the web at worldtikkuncenter.org.
Filed under
The JTA brings us this lovely photograph from Wednesday’s exceptionally tasteless protest of The Passion, organized by Amcha and staged at a theatre showing the film on the Upper West Side.
“‘The Passion casts Jews as being Jesus-killers,’ said Rabbi Avi Weiss, veteran activist and president of Amcha-The Coalition for Jewish Concerns. ‘This lie planted the seeds of the Holocaust.’”
Ugh. (c/o The Village Idiots)
Filed under
.jpg)
Meh, maybe it’ll make up for the long string of awful things preceding this post.
Filed under
Is it anti-Semitic? The question has to be placed in the context of the Gospels and it is hard to reproduce the story without risking such inferences. But in my view, Gibson goes much further than what might be forgivable. The first scene in which Caiphas appears has him relaying to Judas how much money he has agreed to hand over in return for Jesus. The Jew - fussing over money again! There are a few actors in those scenes who look like classic hook-nosed Jews of Nazi imagery, hissing and plotting and fulminating against the Christ. For good measure, Gibson has the Jewish priestly elite beat Jesus up as well, before they hand him over to the Romans; and he has Jesus telling Pilate that he is not responsible - the Jewish elite is. Pilate and his wife are portrayed as saints forced by politics and the Jewish elders to kill a man they know is innocent. Again, this reflects part of the Gospels, but Gibson goes further. He presents Pilate’s wife as actually finding Mary, providing towels to wipe up Jesus’ blood, arguing for Jesus’ release. Yes, the Roman torturers are obviously evil; yes, a few Jews dissent; and, of course, all the disciples are Jewish. I wouldn’t say that this movie is motivated by anti-Semitism. It’s motivated by psychotic sadism. But Gibson does nothing to mitigate the dangerous anti-Semitic elements of the story and goes some way toward exaggerating and highlighting them. To my mind, that is categorically unforgivable. Anti-Semitism is the original sin of Christianity. Far from expiating it, this movie clearly enjoys taunting those Catholics as well as Jews who are determined to confront that legacy. In that sense alone, it is a deeply immoral work of art.
See the rest of Sullivan’s review here.
Filed under
“Saudi Arabia is barring visits by Jews after launching a new visa scheme to try to attract more tourists.”
Interestingly enough, the posting to the Saudi website about the new visa restrictions has been removed. Anyone got a cached version? Here’s the original page. (c/o Reb Hershey Novack)
Oh, also, can someone give me some good news please? There’s been entirely too much antisemitism in the news lately…I just need to hear something POSITIVE today.
Filed under
Mel Gibson’s provocative new film, “The Passion of the Christ,” is making some of Hollywood’s most prominent executives uncomfortable in ways that may damage Mr. Gibson’s career.
Hollywood is a close-knit world, and friendships and social contact are critical in the making of deals and the casting of movies. Many of Hollywood’s most prominent figures are also Jewish. So with a furor arising around the film, along with Mr. Gibson’s reluctance to distance himself from his father, who calls the Holocaust mostly fiction, it is no surprise that Hollywood — Jewish and non-Jewish — has been talking about little else, at least when it’s not talking about the Oscars.
Just keeping fanning those flames honey…just keep fanning those flames. Be sure to peep the retraction at the end of the article. Apparently the bitch who wrote this is helping to fabricate the furor.
(c/o Eschaton)
Filed under
boingboing has directed our attention to this rather peculiar article about Aryanfest, “an ‘international’ gathering of Nazi skinheads, Ku Klux Klan members and other white supremacists that took place inside McDowell Regional Mountain Park just north of Fountain Hills a couple of weekends ago.”
Gotta love the slug: “Aryanfest was hardly the badass event it billed itself. Shaved-headed men hugged each other like they were at a gay pride picnic.” Haha!
Filed under
North Korean school children are being given The Diary of Anne Frank to read in accompaniment of a lesson plan which draws comparisons between the Nazi regime and the US government. “Anne Frank’s diary is a big plea…for freedom and for peace, but I think in North Korea, the diary is being used to promote war.”
“We were not told that [the book] will be misused in schools. We had no idea,” says Buddy Elias, Frank’s cousin and her last remaining direct relative. “If Anne Frank knew what North Korea was doing with her diary, she would weep.”
Yuh huh. If Anne Frank knew how George Bush has perverted our American democracy and taken advantage of our outrage over 9/11 to advance a war for his own personal profit, killing thousands in the process, I’d think she’d weep as well. Bush is still a Nazi in my book, no matter how much you want to try and convince me otherwise, and I think Anne would weep over the current state of affairs, worldwide. Kim Jong-Il is a scumbag, no doubt, but those students…I think a few of ‘em are kind of on point. (Though, clearly not the dunce who wants to fight to the death.)
(c/o Wonkette)
Filed under
Today marks the 10th anniversary of the death of stand up comedian Bill Hicks. Hicks, who was notorious for his scathing commentary on evangelical Christianity would have had a field day with all this Passion business, thus making this “yahrzeit” a particularly relevant one. To quote one of Hicks’ routines discussing the Christian charge of Jewish deicide, “If I thought the Jews killed God, I’d worship the Jews. Those are some pretty powerful people right there…”
Filed under
Just submitted my cover art for this week’s issue of Jewsweek.
Just when you thought they couldn’t possibly make a movie any bloodier than Kill Bill. Where’s Gregg Easterbrook now, huh?
Filed under
Fliers attacking Jews and blacks were sent to more than 25 police departments in Westchester just days after the county offered a training session to help police identify and track hate groups.
District Attorney Jeanine Pirro Wednesday that her Bias Crimes Unit was investigating, but added that because the material did not urge violence, mailing it to police was not a crime.
“This is a package that obviously spews hate and one that is very disconcerting,” she said.
The fliers, culled from the Internet, included pages titled “Jew Watch,” attacking the Anti-Defamation League, and a call for white men and women to join the Ku Klux Klan. The return address on the manila envelops listed only Concerned Citizen of Westchester and indicated it was from Yonkers.
Filed under
A report delivered by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to the Internationl Court of Justice in the Hague explicity details the harm to Palestinians said to result from Israel’s security fence, however it does not mention a single act of terrorism committed against Israelis. Need any more evidence of the UN’s bias against Israel?
Filed under
The Labor Zionists of America (those would be the good, lefty Zionists) are on the hunt for a new Executive Director. Click here for details.
Filed under
The Yada Blog reports, “Jesus wasn’t the only one who died in The Passion of The Christ. A woman died of an apparent heart attack Wednesday while watching the climactic crucifixion scene at a showing in Wichita, Kansas. It seems seeing this film can cause some serious health risks.”
Filed under
A Christian backlash? Never! Of course not! Not in a million years!
A billboard unveiled on Ash Wednesday, the same day that a controversial movie depicting the last hours of Jesus Christ premiered, is sparking criticism from people of all faiths.The large-size outdoor marquee, which sits on the property of the Lovingway United Pentecostal Church at Colorado and Mississippi, says, “Jews Killed The Lord Jesus” and the word “Settled!”
“It’s settled,” said Maurice Gorden, Loveway pastor. “The word of God is the final word.”
Personally, I still prefer this sign. And I hate to say it though, but it looks like Abe Foxman was right. Oh, and another thing—just for the record: I didn’t kill Jesus. The Hebrew Hammer did.
[Update 2/27] “The pastor of an East Denver church has apologized for a ‘Jews Killed Jesus’ sign, following a protest by dozens of people and the intervention of the United Pentecostal Church International.” Wow! See Abe? Things have changed!
Filed under
The Soncino Edition of the Babylonian Talmud is now available online in translation in hypertext format.
Though all readers should take this translation with a grain of salt, since all translation is interpretation, it is an important resource to have in our vernacular seeing as it was originally written in Aramaic since that was their vernacular at that time. (If you want to do your own translating, all you need is Jastrow’s online dictionary. Well okay you may need more than that but still it’s pretty cool…)
Thanks to my Aramaic Professor David Marcus for pointing me to the site.
It may or may not be notable that they write that: “This website is inspired by Rabbi Professor Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi of the British Commonwealth, and to a lesser extent, the current President of the United States, George Bush.”
[Editor's Note] See Micha Ghertner’s comments regarding this translation here.
Filed under
For more links, visit our Community directory.
