Mishegas

Mishegaas

  • Better late than never, David Dworin offers some interesting remarks on “The Next Big Jewish Idea.” Saul Kaiserman at New Jewish Education gives my post on the subject a nod as well.
  • The Iraqi parliament is set to pass a law drafted by the Bush administration that will put US and UK oil companies in full control of Iraq’s oil reserves for the foreseeable future. Say, does anyone else remember when… Clearly, this was not a war for oil. Just keep spinnin’.
  • Alternet outlines the disturbing Christianization of the US’s military and law enforcement establishments.
  • Ariyeh Eldad of the National Union party has launched an Israeli youth movement that advocates forcible transfer of Palestinians.
  • An Israeli television anchor and former Kadima candidate came under fire from the ADL for stating that Israel’s contestants for the Eurovision song contest should not be Arab-looking.
  • NPR reports on a new Holocaust museum run by an Israeli Arab in Nazareth that has angered both Arab and Jewish locals.
  • When I met Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein this summer, I thoroughly washed up to my elbows after realizing I’d just shaken hands the man who sold Israel’s soul to the Evangelical church. However, after reading about how he’s using the money to help impoverished Bedouin in the Negev and other struggling non-Jewish communities in Israel, I feel kind of bad for misjudging the guy…
  • Pajamas Media, the blog network founded by Roger L. Simon and Little Green Footballs’ Charles Johnson (and with which several jbloggers including Judith Weiss and Allison Kaplan Sommer are affiliated), suffered extraordinary humiliation this weekend after neocon nutter and PM contributor Michael Ledeen falsified reports that Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khameini was dead. Ledeen has also been connected to this summer’s much-hyped scare of an Iranian nuclear attack on Jerusalem.
  • The blog world is all a tizzy over recent remarks made by former Presidential candidate/decorated NATO General Wesley Clark regarding the Jewish Right’s obsession with bombing Iran. “The Jewish community is divided,” said Clark, “but there is so much pressure being channeled from the New York money people to the office seekers.” US News & World Report‘s Michael Barone claims that Clark’s statement is “a sign that pro-Israel sentiment is not as strong in Democratic politics as it used to be.” Funny, I see it as a sign that being pro-Israel doesn’t necessarily mean supporting a neoconservative agenda. But hey, what do I know? I’m just a self-hating Jew.
  • The Jewish Journal strikes gold with a previously unreleased sermon delivered by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to congregants of Hollywood’s Temple Israel at a Friday night service in February 1965.
  • Check out Shalom Auslander’s brilliantly wonderful contribution to the Sunday Times Magazine, “Love Child.” (Via Jewbiquitous)

12 thoughts on “Mishegaas

  1. Thanks so much for the posting MLK. I am going to make this my topic on Sunday for my 10th grade class. Does anyone know of a non-fictionalized account/dvd of the Mississippi Burning?

  2. As for the MLK article. The Jewish gospel thing has been done before . . . the band’s called “The Afro-Semitic Experience.” They’re not only inovative, but extremely talented and I recommend that you all check them out.

  3. wtf are you talking about? i don’t even read your blog, nor did the post from your blog register with technorati. how could i have possibly known it existed to link to it?
    why are there so many crazy people on the internet who believe if you don’t fawn at their feet (that you don’t even know are there) that you’re engaging in censorship?

  4. fyi…listen to the MP3s of MLK sermon. Beautiful..all about how we BOTH were slaves, both used…I downlaoded and put it on CD…listened to it on my way home from work. how awesome if a Rabbi,,,ANY Rabbi could give a sermon with that much fire in his gut…people would not sleep or go use cell during sermons

  5. I understand you might not read my blog but we did exchange Emails and go back and forth on Jewschool with comments. I also know for sure you read the blog because you made a comment from your IP address, that has hit th blog before.
    Don’t play cute with me, Mr. Mobius.

  6. About the next big Jewish idea. Religion is by it’s very nature
    “conservative”. (How else do you keep it going for 4000 years?) The problem with all these Big Jewish ideas is they’re all “progressive” (by their own self-definition). Perhaps that’s where the solution lies. Less progressing, more conserving.

  7. All those ideas worth conserving were once upon a time new innovations. What do we capture, the willingness to confront the new, or ideas that were new in the past?
    Probably a mix of both. The point is, our ethical monotheist ancestors were revolutionaries, and one way to keep it real is to be be revolutionary ourselves.
    Moses – freedom fighter who murdered an Egyptian. Married outside his people. Didn’t speak well. Confronted authority. Didn’t turn his children into princes. Died alone, and his only monument is a book.
    Now there is a role model….

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