Are Charlie Sheen, Glenn Beck, John Galliano and Julian Assange Anti-Semites?

How does one know when someone's comment is anti-Semitic? I suppose it's the same as how United States Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart explained pornography in the 1964 case of Jacobellis v. Ohio: "I know it when I see it."

There have been several high profile examples of anti-Semitic outbursts recently. And like famous anti-Semitic rants in the past, there has been much debate as to whether these recent cases should be classified as anti-Semitic. In all of these instances, one could argue that "I know it when I see it."

There are times when a celebrity makes a poor choice, but is likely not being intentionally anti-Semitic. Examples are when Roseanne Barr dressed as Adolf Hitler and posed for a magazine and when Prince Harry went to a costume party in a Nazi uniform. However, when Mel Gibson repeatedly espoused his anti-Jewish feelings, there was no question about his motivation or true feelings.

In recent days, we've heard questionable comments by Charlie Sheen and Glenn Beck. We've seen video footage of Dior designer John Galliano expressing his love for Hitler and berating innocent people with anti-Semitic slurs. And a recent report said that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange suggested that British journalists, including the editor of The Guardian, were engaged in a Jewish-led conspiracy to smear his organization.

The Light of German Jewry

This has been a whirlwind week for me in Berlin, where I've spent long days touring with other young Conservative rabbis. We have learned first hand about how Germans have confronted their past and are looking to their future. We have seen the German Jewish community rebuilding itself with a sense of pride and renewal.

This Shabbat, in the Torah portion Tetzaveh, we learn about the ner tamid (the eternal light). We can compare the ner tamid -- a main focal point in the Temple -- with the German Jewish community. Considering the horrific history the Jewish people in this part of the world endured during the last century, it is crucial to remember that this Jewish community's light was never fully extinguished -- it is eternal.

Masorti / Conservative rabbis in front of the Jewish Museum in Berlin (2011)

In the past few days, I have visited a concentration camp and several Holocaust memorials. That is precisely what one would expect our group of rabbis to experience here in Berlin. But that is only the first part of the story. We also visited a liberal rabbinical school (Abraham Geiger College), progressive synagogues (like the Masorti congregation where my colleague Gesa Ederberg serves as rabbi), Jewish centers, a Masorti nursery school, kosher restaurants, and Jewish museums. We learned how German school children are confronting their nation's history during the Shoah.

Justin Bieber in Israel

It doesn't matter that I'm blogging from Berlin because they're talking about teen pop sensation Justin Bieber and his new movie "Never Say Never" here too. It seems that Bieber's 29-year-old Jewish manager "Scooter" Braun is working hard to promote his talented young client and his new movie in the media. I was contacted the other day by Edmon Rodman of the JTA who was writing a story about the inclusion of Bieber saying the Shema Yisrael in the "Never Say Never" movie.

Last year, I wrote about Justin Bieber's prayer circle ritual before concerts in which he includes the Jewish "Shema Yisrael" prayer in Hebrew. Rodman quotes "Scooter" Braun who explains, "Originally Justin and the crew just did a prayer circle before the show that ended with Jesus Christ. I wasn’t into that," so “we started saying the Shema. About the third time, Justin chimed in." "He had memorized it. Now others say it with us, too."

Rodman quoted me in the JTA article:

As noted by Rabbi Jason Miller of Michigan, who writes at blog.rabbijason.com, “Based on the number of concerts at which Justin Bieber performs, I'm guessing that he's actually said the most important statement of Jewish belief many more times in his life than the average 16-year-old Jewish youth.”

What is certain to get people's attention in Rodman's article is that "Bieber is scheduled to bring the Shema to Israel" on April 14, just five days before Passover. While some artists, like Elvis Costello, have canceled performances in Israel, Braun stated that there is no question that the concert will happen as scheduled and that Justin Bieber and his mom, Patti, are excited to visit Israel (specifically Bethlehem).

In fact, Bieber will still be in Israel for the first night of Passover and "Scooter" Braun plans on having a seder. There's no word yet on whether Justin Bieber will lead the Four Questions (traditionally sung by the youngest at the table).

Conservative Rabbi on The Daily Show

My colleague, Rabbi Gideon Estes of Congregation Or Ami, played the straight man last night on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. After Justin Bieber opened the show pretending to be Jon Stewart, Estes had a tough act to follow, but did a great job.

Daily Show correspondent John Oliver went down to Texas to file a story about the campaign of a Jewish Republican man to be re-elected speaker of the Texas State House. Estes, wearing his Jewish Theological Seminary tallit (prayer shawl), was interviewed by Oliver about the opposition to Joe Strauss being re-elected because he is Jewish and not a Christian conservative.

At the end of the segment, John Oliver celebrates his creation of a new high holiday called "Yom Chechechecheh" with the Hebrew School children at Estes' congregation.

Check out the video below:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	RabbiJason.com
Conservative Rabbi Gideon Estes on The Daily Show
www.thedailyshow.com

Joe Lieberman Tapped for Egyptian Government Post

While I'm no Jon Stewart or Andy Borowitz when it comes to political satire, I have had the following funny situation playing in my head ever since the riots in Egypt began:

PRESS CONFERENCE IN CAIRO, EGYPT

Joe Lieberman: Thank you for joining me here today in Cairo. I know it's only been a few weeks since my press conference where I announced  I'll retire from the Senate and not seek re-election. However, I have a major announcement to make yet again. Hosni Mubarak, the president of Egypt, has appointed me Foreign Minister over this country.

CNN Reporter: Mr. Lieberman, when will you begin?

Joe Lieberman: The appointment is effective today... it's immediate in light of the chaos that currently plagues Egypt. I will be the second in command. And no Jewish man has ever held such a position of power in Egypt.

Fox Reporter: Uh, that's not actually true sir, have you read the Jewish Bible?

Joe Lieberman: Right, good point. Well, I am the first man named Joseph to...

Fox Reporter: No, that's not quite right either Mr. Lieberman.

Joe Lieberman: Well, anyway, there's a lot of work to be done. I'd like to thank the Pharoah, er, I mean the President for his faith in me. You know when he called me on the phone to ask me to come down here, he said he never dreamed that the political situation could get so bad. But I told him that he had in fact dreamed that it would get this bad. I keep telling him that.

AP Reporter: What will be your first order of business to calm the masses who are rioting in the street?

Joe Lieberman: I came up with this great idea to stockpile food because you just never know. I've been in pits before and I think that in time we can get these people to start building. Thank you very much for your time today and God Bless Egypt!

Al Jazeera Reporter: Have a good Shabbos Vizier Lieberman!

Let's Hair It for the Jew Fro

As a follically-challenged guy, I've always been impressed by (and a bit envious of) the Jew Fro. It's certainly an underreported aspect of Jewish cultural life. My uncle sported a Jew Fro in high school back in the early 70s, which I'm convinced was only because he knew he'd be bald later in life (he was). Male patterned baldness runs in the family and his father (my grandfather) wore a toupée.

The Jew Fro, the Jewish version of the Afro, has become more talked about of late as Jewish celebrities like Jonah Hill, Seth Rogen and Andy Samberg have popularized the fashion. Three years ago I posted to YouTube.com a clip from the movie "Knocked Up" in which Katherine Heigl's character admires Seth Rogen's character's curly hair. She asks what product he uses to get it to look that way, and he tells her that it's called "Jew." The video clip has been viewed close to 18,000 times since I uploaded it. Websites with photos of the best Jew Fros (South Park creator Matt Stone, Art Garfunkel, Nick Jonas, film critic Gene Shalit, music producer Phil Spector, Bob Dylan, Richard Simmons, etc.) are popping up everywhere. A t-shirt that reads "Chicks Dig the Jew Fro" is a top seller on the Web.

Now, Moment Magazine has published an article about the Jew Fro that traces its history all the way back to the Bible. Just because Samson was a Nazirite and didn't cut his hair doesn't mean he sported the Jew Fro. It is an interesting take on the hairstyle though. Svetlana Shkolnikova writes:

Yet society continues to subtly perpetuate the idea that sleek and straight is beautiful, making the curly hair of both Jewfros and Afros contentious, particularly for women, says Shari Harbinger, director of education for the curly hair salon DevaCurl. She struggled with her curly hair growing up, choosing to blow dry it straight and even resorting to harsh Japanese relaxers. The curly-straight struggle haunts some of Hollywood’s biggest stars, as Sarah Jessica Parker confesses in the 2005 book Stars of David. “I always feel that people think that straight hair is pretty and curly hair is unruly and Jewish,” she says. When she receives excessive praise from men for straightening her hair for a part, she jokingly responds, “‘You’re an anti-Semite!’ Because I just feel it’s a little stab at the Jews.”

My favorite part of the article is that the author quotes Professor Shuly Rubin Schwartz, the dean of the undergraduate program at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, where I studied in the Rabbinical School. She claims the Jew Fro's birth came about because Jews "figured out how to own their own hair" and "Jewish women in turn thought, 'Why are we sitting under the hair dryer?'" The article doesn't show a photo of Shuly Schwartz, who herself sports a curly Jew Fro (see photo below).

Whether it's Jewish men or Jewish women, they should be proud of their curly locks of hair. For me, I'll just remain envious of the moppy curls of Jew Fros while I embrace my receding hairline.

Open Letter to Glenn Beck

What follows is the Wall Street Journal full-page ad of an open letter from the Jewish Funds for Justice and signed by 400 rabbis calling on Fox News to sanction commentator Glenn Beck for his "over-the-top" attacks on George Soros. Kudos to Simon Greer and Mik Moore of Jewish Funds for Justice on this initiative.

Glenn Beck:
George Soros, who as a child in Hungary survived the Holocaust by living with a non-Jewish family "used to go around with this anti-Semite and deliver papers to the Jews and confiscate their property and then ship them off. And George Soros was part of it. He would help confiscate the stuff. It was frightening. Here's a Jewish boy helping send the Jews to the death camps."
November 11, 2010

Roger Ailes:
There are some "left-wing rabbis who basically don't think that anyone can use the word 'Holocaust' on the air."
November 16, 2010

"[NPR] are, of course, Nazis. They have a kind of Nazi attitude. They are the left-wing of Nazism."
November 17, 2010

Rabbis to Rupert Murdoch: 'Sanction Glenn Beck'

An open letter on the occasion of UN Holocaust Remembrance Day

January 27, 2011 - Dear Mr. Murdoch, We are rabbis of diverse political views. As part of our work, we are devoted to preserving the memory of the Shoah, and to passing its lessons on to our future generations and to all humankind. All of us have vigorously defended the Holocaust's legacy. We have worked to encourage the responsible invocation of its symbols as a powerful lesson for the future.

We were therefore deeply offended by Roger Ailes' recent statement attributing the outrage over Glenn Beck's use of Holocaust and Nazi images to "left-wing rabbis who basically don't think that anybody can ever use the word 'Holocaust' on the air."

In the charged political climate in the current civic debate, much is tolerated, and much is ignored or dismissed. But you diminish the memory and meaning of the Holocaust when you use it to discredit any individual or organization you disagree with. That is what Fox News has done in recent weeks, and it is not only "left-wing rabbis" who think so.

Abe Foxman, National Director of the Anti-Defamation League, a child survivor of the Holocaust, described Beck's attack on George Soros as "not only offensive, but horrific, over-the-top, and out-of-line." Commentary Magazine said that "Beck's denunciation of him [Soros] is marred by ignorance and offensive innuendo." Elan Steinberg, vice president of The American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors, called Mr. Beck's accusations "monstrous." Rev. Welton Gaddy, president of the Interfaith Alliance, called them "beyond repugnant." And Deborah Lipstadt, professor of Holocaust Studies at Emory University, says Beck is using traditional anti-Semitic imagery.

"I haven't heard anything like this on television or radio -- and I've been following this kind of stuff," Lipstadt said. "I've been in the sewers of anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial more often than I've wanted."

We share a belief that the Holocaust, of course, can and should be discussed appropriately in the media. But that is not what we have seen at Fox News. It is not appropriate to accuse a 14-year-old Jew hiding with a Christian family in Nazi-occupied Hungary of sending his people to death camps. It is not appropriate to call executives of another news agency "Nazis." And it is not appropriate to make literally hundreds of on-air references to the Holocaust and Nazis when characterizing people with whom you disagree.

It is because this issue has a profound impact on each of us, our families and our communities that we are calling on Fox News to meet the standard it has set for itself: "to exercise the ultimate sensitivity when referencing the Holocaust." We respectfully request that Glenn Beck be sanctioned by Fox News for his completely unacceptable attacks on a survivor of the Holocaust and that Roger Ailes apologize for his dismissive remarks about rabbis' sensitivity to how the Holocaust is used on the air.

Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson

Vice President, American Jewish University, Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies

Rabbi Ellen Weinberg Dreyfus

President, Central Conference of American Rabbis

Rabbi Dan Ehrenkrantz

President, Reconstructionist Rabbinical College

Rabbi Daniel Nevins

Dean, Jewish Theological Seminary Rabbinical School

Rabbi Yael Ridberg

President, Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association

Rabbi Steven Wernick

Executive Vice President, United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism

Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie

President, Union for Reform Judaism

All organizations are listed for informational purposes only.

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Jewish Hockey Player Claims Anti-Semitism, Now a Senator

There would probably be more anti-Semitism in the National Hockey League if there were only more Jewish players. TMZ reports that the NHL's Anaheim Ducks are being accused of abusing Jewish Player Jason Bailey. The 23-year-old was a 3rd round draft pick in 2005 and he "claims from the moment the Ducks assigned him to play for an affiliate team called the Bakersfield Condors ... his coaches unleashed a 'barrage of anti-Semitic, offensive and degrading verbal attacks.'"

Bailey says the coaches also forced him to travel apart from the team and he was "rarely given any ice time" in games because he's Jewish.

According to the documents, filed by Bailey's powerhouse lawyer Keith Fink, Bailey complained to the Ducks about the hostile work environment -- and the team reacted by instructing the coaches to pen apology letters to Bailey in which they both admitted to using hurtful language.

Bailey was eventually traded to the Ottawa Senators in 2009 -- and insists the Ducks were "happy to be rid of him."

I'm curious to hear how NHL commissioner Gary Bettman, who is Jewish and an Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity brother, will deal with these allegations against the Anaheim Ducks. Hopefully, Jason Bailey will be treated better in Ottawa.

(Hat tip to Mark Eaton)

Jon Stewart Can Only Go Shofar

Last night, Jon Stewart decided to blow a shofar on "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" to alert his viewers to some breaking news (Keith Olbermann leaving MSNBC). He called it a News Shofar and announced "Something happened!" but never actually blew the shofar.  Instead he just put the shofar to his mouth and kept repeating the words "Hey Look" in a staccato fashion. It sort of sounded like a Tekiah blast followed by Teruah.

Technically, it didn't look like a ram’s horn, but rather a gazelle’s horn. (Either one is sufficient to use on Rosh Hashanah.) Since Jon Stewart is a producer for The Colbert Report, I think he just borrowed the shofar that Stephen Colbert used to sign off at the end of his show back in 2009.

I wonder what it would take for Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert to come to my synagogue on Rosh Hashanah for a shofar duet?

Seeing Jon Stewart (Jewish) and Stephen Colbert (not-so-much) blowing the shofar got me thinking about Jewish rituals in which other celebrities have engaged. Here are a few that I was able to dig up:

Howie Mandell putting on tefillin

The Bob Dylan Tefillin

The Beastie Boys Playing Dreidel on Hanukkah

George Costanza, I mean Jason Alexander, Giving a Sermon in Synagogue

Ryan Gosling Leading Prayers (He looks like Eminem here!)

 Leonard Nimoy Duchenen (Blessing the Congregation)

Krusty the Klown Reading Torah

Rabbi Ben Stiller Teaching Torah

Darth Vader Waving the Lulav 

ESPN Joins the Who Is a Jew Debate

Since commenting here about how the assassination attempt of Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords has brought the "Who Is a Jew" debate back into the spotlight, I have had some really intriguing conversations with colleagues about how we define Jewish status. A number of colleagues, including Rabbi Irwin Kula, Rabbi Kerry Olitzky, Rabbi Alana Suskin, and Rabbi Sue Fendrick, posted comments and contributed to the discussion on this blog. A Reform colleague and I have had an ongoing private discussion about patrilineal descent. She told me that some Reform rabbis are questioning whether Gabby Giffords would even be considered Jewish according to the Reform movement's definition (there's been no mention of her Jewish education or upbringing which would be required by the Reform movement's policy on Patrilineal Descent).

My rabbinical school classmate, Rabbi Micah Kelber, noticed that the "Who Is a Jew" debate has even made its way into the sports world. Watching ESPN's "First Take," Kelber caught commentator Skip Bayless putting his foot in his mouth while referencing how Judaism defines Jewish status through lineage. He blogged about at Jewcy.com:

Today Skip Bayless of ESPN’s First Take made a tiny, but amusing mistake while debating whether it is appropriate to call Blake Griffin of the Los Angeles Clippers the first great white star because while his father is black, his mother is white. To support his argument, he appealed to the Jews for help in determining someone’s identity.

His slip of the tongue: “I would just like to point out that in some cultures, like in the Jewish culture, if the mom is white, you’re Jewish.”

I don't think that's what he meant or else there'd be a whole lot more Jewish people in the world. I never thought the question of Jewish status would be taken up on ESPN. Maybe it's better if it didn't. In fact, maybe it's better if we all moved on to other subjects now.