Yes, Virginia there are Jews in Juneau. And they're building the city's first synagogue. (Scroll to bottom of article).

Everything you ever wanted to know about Alsaka's Jewish Community can be found here.

I think my brother-in-law mentioned something about wanting to move to Alaska recently. Go West Young Man!

I usually catch this stuff when it happens in New York, but I'm about a week late. At least the police think they've caught the bad guys.

Two men charged with hate crimes in anti-Semitic graffiti incident

Two men were charged with hate crimes Friday for allegedly writing anti-Semitic slurs on cars parked near a synagogue in Queens, prosecutors said.

Anthony Larosa, 21, and James Connolly, 20, both of Queens, allegedly wrote slurs and drew swastikas with black markers on 18 cars and other surfaces near the Electchester Jewish Center in the Fresh Meadows section, Queens District Attorney Richard Brown's office said in a news release.

I don't know whether it's funny or sad that tonight I've posted a message on tolerance from Saudi Arabia while two young Italian and Irish-Americans (or so it seems by the names) are out defacing cars in a neighborhood of holocaust survivors.

I hope I can remember to watch this on Frontline Tuesday night.

A Jew Among the Germans

As a young boy, Marian Marzynski survived the Holocaust in Poland. But his father and most of his relatives did not. In "A Jew Among the Germans," Marzynski sets out on a personal quest to find out how Germans are going to design a memorial to the six million Jews murdered during the Holocaust. It will be unveiled this May, on the sixtieth anniversary of the end of World War II. Over three years, he encounters artists, architects, and planners who struggle with the big questions of guilt, responsibility, and memory. He struggles to reconcile his own relationship to the German people and meets a young, "third generation" of Germans who declare their distance from their parents and grandparents and how earlier generations have dealt with the Holocaust.

If I do miss it, or if anyone else wants to check, full episodes of Frontline are available here.

There is actually an accomplished politician in Houston named Jew Don Boney.

You can order this photo of Jew Don on his website.

I don't know that I've ever heard of someone with the first name of "Jew" before, and I consider myself a pretty worldly 38 year old Jew. It seems unusual for someone who is an ordained minister. And African-American.

I wonder of he would be considered Jewlicious?

A pretty lenghty article in he Dallas News provides a very detailed history of "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion".

Tearing hatred apart

One of the things that struck me was that several of the defenders of anti-Semitism (including Hitler) are quoted as saying that although they know the Protocols to be forgeries, it doesn't disprove the possibility of a Jewish plot for world domination.

Sounds a lot like the defenders of the Rathergate and Guantanamo Koran stories. It's fake, but accurate!

Uh oh, does Godwin's Law count here?

Thank you, Dr. Khaled Batarfi, for your piece in the Arab News.

Too Much Preaching, Too Little Teaching!

My favorite classmate at an American university was a Jew who was also a Communist. All my life I have heard only unfavorable things about Jews and Communists. How come my beloved friend is both and I never noticed until he himself told me?

Later, I befriended Jews and Communists and found them friendly, compassionate and trustworthy.

Later on, I came to know wonderful people of other faiths and other sects. Never once have I known a bad person who “hates us and conspires to undermine our faith” as I was taught earlier in my life.

This and similar experience, like befriending Catholic and Protestant priests, a rabbi, and atheists, taught me an important lesson in life. We are all the same species. No matter what is your faith, color or race, you are basically mind, heart and soul. We could connect with a simple package of hello, a smile and a handshake.

At the same time, I felt sorry for all those who are still hostage to preachers of hate, suspicion and superiority. There are plenty of these bad apples in every faith, culture and race.

Other opinion pieces by Dr. Batarfi such as "Women Driving in Saudi Arabia? Why Not?" can be found here.

I go to sleep tonight a little more hopeful for the future.

Yup.

Even if the allegations about Quran desecration were completely and absolutely verified, why in the world would you publish the information during wartime? It's not that the Media themselves regard the Quran as sacred. It's just paper to them. And surely they would have to agree that if such actions might somehow gain the cooperation of a potential source of useful information (though that seems extremely unlikely to me), it would be infinitely preferable to physical torture.

But they dwell so blindly within the cocoon of their sheltered world, where it's just awful for somebody to offend "multicultural" people (though just fine to be openly vicious to American Christians or Israeli Jews), that it doesn't occur to them that they could just keep their mouths shut and avoid damaging America and putting Americans all over the world in danger.

They might even realize that by not reporting this story, true or not, they would save Muslim lives. If patriotism couldn't rein them in, then surely simple humaneness should ... one might suppose.

After all, who benefits from the publication of such a story at this time?

Only one group: People who want to bring down or weaken President Bush and everything he stands for, no matter the cost.

Believe me, I'm not a great fan of religions that proslytize. I just don't understand people on the left who think it's OK to make fun of, criticize or otherwise defame fundamentalist Christians and think it's a horrible crime deserving of punishment to offend religious Muslims who believes in world domination. Is our military really going to punishing our soldiers becuase they are infidels and dared to touch copies of the Koran without gloves? Shari'a law has not come to the U.S., but it has arrived at Guantanamo.

Either say f*** them all or respect them all.

Just saying.

Supporting Tom DeLay = wanting to kill judges, at least according to the writers of Lw & Order.

NBC clashes with Tom DeLay on Law & Order

DeLay's name surfaced on Wednesday night on the show's season finale, which centered on the fictional slayings of two judges by suspected right-wing extremists.

In the episode, police are frustrated by a lack of clues, leading one officer to quip, "Maybe we should put out an APB (all-points-bulletin) for somebody in a Tom DeLay T-shirt."

The NY Times puts on it's liberal, Oslo-like blinders on in it's whitewashing of Palestinian attacks on Israel. This is part of their opinion regarding Mahmoud Abbas' visit to Washington:

Obviously, Israel wants more, and Israeli officials are right when they say that Mr. Abbas must actually dismantle factories in Gaza where they say militants are using the cease-fire to build rockets to lob at Israel. More rockets are the last thing either Israelis or Palestinians need, and if Hamas and other militant groups are indeed resting up and restocking their ammunition to launch more attacks, then Mr. Abbas would do well to crack down now.

Actually, now that I'm reading this a second time, I'm even more disgusted. Is it the Times argument that maybe rocket factories don't exist in Gaza? And that Hamas and other groups are NOT actively attacking Israel but are simply taking a time out?!?

I'm on vacation, so I'm not going to go search for links about the fourteen recent attempts at suicide bombs and the dozens if not hundreds of missiles launched both at Gaza settlements and inside the green line towards Sderot and other towns.

I'm really, really disgusted. How is the world going to see Israel as anything but obstructionist if the situation on the ground is whitewashed like this? Look how hard the Palestinians are trying to be nice, and the Jews keep killing and arresting them! Bad Jews! Bad!

I have wrotten the following to the Times:
To the Editor:

In "Mr. Abbas Goes to Washington" (editorial, May 26) you suggest that Hamas and other militant groups may be "resting up and restocking their ammunition to launch more attacks" as if there haven't been any recent attacks.

There has not been a time out on attacking Jewish targets since the "cease-fire" was declared. Hundreds of rockets have been fired at settlements in Gaza as well as towns in Israel proper. Only recently it was reported that over a dozen suicide bombers have been stopped in the last two months at West Bank checkpoints. Just because these last few months of attacks hasn't resulted in multiple deaths doesn't mean that the militants have been inactive.

Not terribly important, but an example of lazy headline writing and reporting in general.

Child Population Dwindles in San Francisco

First of all , there in nothing in the article that claims that the percentage population of children in San Francisco is decreasing, only that it is lower than in some other major cities.

And when the reporter tries to look for reasons, she comes up with this:

San Francisco's large gay population — estimated at 20 percent by the city Public Health Department — is thought to be one factor, though gays and lesbians in the city are increasingly raising families.

You mean the fact that 20% of the population does not procreate is a maybe factor? Does the author feel that the amount of gays rasing children is anywhere near enough to counterbalance the average 1.87 children produced by heterosexual couples?

NOTE: This post has no relevance to my feelings on homosexuality or gay rights, nor does it claim an agenda on the part of the reporter. My point is the poor reporting, which generally doesn't even let us know where the information is sourced from.

This isn't something you get to see video of too often...

18-wheeler explodes on I-20

Media bias or plain falsehood - you decide.

"In fact, as the rhetoric suggested, the stakes were far broader, with Republicans maneuvering to strip Democrats of their right to filibuster and thus block current and future nominees to the appeals court and Supreme Court." - from the Associated Press' account of the deal reached in the Senate this evening.

Is that a constitutional right or a G-d given right?

Senators Avert Showdown Over Filibusters

The Bad, The Good and the Who Knows the real truth?

Victory for Moderation: Palestinian official denounces hate speech

First, the bad news, in the form of an excerpt from a recent sermon broadcast on Palestinian Authority-controlled television:

"The day will come when we will rule America. The day will come when we will rule Britain and the entire world – except for the Jews. The Jews will not enjoy a life of tranquility under our rule because they are treacherous by nature, as they have been throughout history. The day will come when everything will be relieved of the Jews – even the stones and trees which were harmed by them. Listen to the Prophet Muhammad, who tells you about the evil end that awaits Jews. The stones and trees will want the Muslims to finish off every Jew."

Now the good news: Nabil Shaath, the PA minister in charge of state television, has condemned the sheikh who made the remark and has vowed never to broadcast that kind of sermon again. What's more, the Palestinian minister specifically defended the right of Jews to worship unmolested, saying, "We condemn assault of Judaism as a religion, and as Muslims we reject such remarks."

More vacation blogging. I don't think I've ever sseen this before. Missing....AGAIN!

Just felt like posting this picture after seeing something similar on the front page of the NY Times. Barbara Bush at the Western Wall.

More vacation photos - just to show you how ugly it was in Boston in the morning and how gorgeous it was 6 hours later off Matha's Vineyard.

Just a little vacation blogging. There was a butterfly exhibit at the Boston Museum of Science. Not worth the extra admission, but I did get a nice shot of one of the winged critters.

I am so going to miss Daniel Okrent. 13 Things I Meant to Write About but Never Did

I was thinking about one of his points the other day (before he made it of course). Now that I see it in print, I feel a lot better.

9. It's a story, say, about the New York City public schools. In the first paragraph a parent, apparently picked at random, testifies that they haven't improved. Readers are clearly expected to draw conclusions from this.

But it isn't clear why the individual was picked; it isn't possible to determine whether she's representative; and there's no way of knowing whether she knows what she's talking about. Calling on the individual man or woman on the street to make conclusive judgments is beneath journalistic dignity. If polls involving hundreds of people carry a cautionary note indicating a margin of error of plus-or-minus five points, what kind of consumer warning should be glued to a reporter's ad hoc poll of three or four respondents?

That's exactly how I felt about reading the following report. (Just expand the notion of a few parents commenting about local schools to a few people quoted on behalf of 20% of the all people on the Earth.)

Guantánamo Comes to Define U.S. to Muslims

Bill Whittle's SANCTUARY. Why doesn't he just label his pieces TRUTH 1, TRUTH 2, etc?