The following are all stories from the last few weeks.

Knick’s knack for Hebrew?

Amar’e Stoudemire wants to get into education, but it has nothing to do with basketball. A source close to the New York Knick tells us the power forward is interested in opening a Hebrew school, which would focus on teaching the language and Jewish history. The insider says the idea appears to be on the back burner for the time being but that Stoudemire has discussed it seriously. The 29-year-old renaissance man, who speaks some Hebrew himself, went to Israel during the summer of 2010 to learn more about his Jewish heritage on his mother’s side of the family. He also sports a Star of David tattoo on his hand, and, after returning from the Holy Land, follows a Kosher diet. Another source close to the b-baller tells us Amar’e is “always looking for ways to improve education and resources for all children,” but “no school of any kind is currently in the works.”

LeBronstein?

Shocking — LeBron James played a basketball game in Ohio last night, the same state where they lit his jersey on fire last year.

More Shocking — Dude was a last minute fill-in for a team at the Mandel Jewish Community Center, where he instantly became the best player to ever compete in the Herbert S. Diamond league.

TMZ has learned … LeBron was killing time in his home state … when he got a call from some of his friends who had a 7:30 PM game at the JCC.

We’re told LBJ’s pals were a man short, so they reached out to LBJ to fill in … and King James was happy to oblige.

Obviously , LeBron dominated — and led his squad to a ten point victory.

We’re told LeBron was super nice … taking photos and signing autographs with a bunch of kids who happened to be down the hall rehearsing for the musical “Grease.”

Afterwards, LeBron tweeted “Just got done hooping in the JCC league.  So funny but good run @RichPaul4 had a few 3′s #basketballneverstops.

(Of course, we already knew LeBron likes to hang with us)

Kobe at the JCC

Hanukkah came early for a bunch of Jews in Irvine, CA tonight — when Kobe Bryant rolled up to the local Jewish Community Center and asked if he could borrow the basketball court for a hardcore private training session … TMZ has learned.

Yentas at the JCC tell us … the honchos at the center were more than happy to let Kobe use the facility — and the Black Mamba couldn’t have been nicer.

Kobe and a trainer proceeded to work on shooting drills and cardio training while a gang of the chosen people looked on in amazement.

Coach Kenny

Kenny Anderson has heard plenty in his three decades in the basketball limelight.
 
This was a new one.
 
“A guy missed practice because he had an acting class,” Anderson said. “I didn’t know what to say.”
 
This is basketball at a level that is taking some getting used to for Anderson. This is a guy who was a three-time Parade High School All-American at legendary Archbishop Molloy High School in Queens, N.Y., led Georgia Tech to the Final Four in 1990 and played 14 seasons as a point guard in the NBA, retiring in 2005 with one All-Star appearance on his resume.
 
Anderson now is head coach at David Posnack Jewish Day School in Davie, a suburb of Fort Lauderdale best known for being home of the Miami Dolphins training facility.

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The Rams, who play in Florida’s 2A urban private school league (the second smallest of eight), are a young team. Still, that didn’t make it a lot easier for Anderson to watch the Rams lose their opener on the road 67-32 to Donna Klein Jewish Academy of Boca Raton and then fall 62-46 in the home opener to Upperroom Christian Academy of Fort Lauderdale.

Remember, 40 years in the desert? Right? That has to be in our DNA somewhere.

- “The Fonz” Henry Winkler contending that Jews are more outdoorsy and rugged than stereotypes would suggest.

Winkler is an avid fly-fisherman – when he’s not jumping the shark.

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Answer: Jonathan Lipnicki from Jerry Maguire.

Big transformation, but we’ve seen bigger.

And yes, there’s definite proof in the recent photo that he’s Jewish.

I would add another point: These groups all hate success, believing it is achieved only through trampling the rights of others. And since the Jews and US represent success…well you can connect the dots.

• Israeli scientist Daniel Shechtman – Nobel Prize for chemistry for his discovery of patterns in atoms called quasicrystals, a chemical structure that researchers previously thought was impossible.
• Ralph Steinman and Bruce Beutler - Nobel Prize for medicine for their discoveries on the immune system along with French biologist Jules Hoffmann
• Saul Pelmutter and Adam G. Ross – two of the three Nobel Prize in physics winners, recognized “for the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the Universe through observations of distant supernovae.”

Here is Professor Shechtman last year explaining his discovery.

As a friend of mine likes to say: BDS that, bitches.

Via Tosh

Well done Aish, undoing the damage caused by this guy:

New hotness: Holiday of the Apes!

An article in the official PA daily newspaper claims that Palestinian Christian youth perform a spring march in the streets that includes the chant: “Jews, Jews! Your holiday [Passover] is the Holiday of Apes.” (See PMW web site for examples of the Palestinian Authority referring to Jews as “apes and pigs.”) He writes that these “meaningful messages” are in response to Israel’s security measures in Jerusalem during the holiday of Passover:

“For many years the holy city [Jerusalem] has been deliberately closed to Palestinians, under security-related pretexts and for the Jewish festival of Passover.”

The writer says that the Easter services in Jerusalem have lost their Palestinian flavor because of western Christian pilgrims:

“The festivities at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre have begun to assume a western character, because of the massive presence of foreign Christian pilgrims and the limited presence of Palestinians.”

But the writer insists that in Palestinian Authority cities, the festivities have retained their Palestinian flavor. He describes youth chanting that the Jewish holiday of Passover is the “Holiday of the Apes”:

“The spring carnival has retained its [Palestinian] flavor in towns such as Bethlehem, Beit Sahour and Ramallah… with the demonstrations of the Scouts, songs, dances, and popular Palestinian hymns about Christian-Islamic unity and internal Christian unity. These hymns carry meaningful messages, in response to the Israeli prohibition [to enter Jerusalem], as seen in the calls of the youth who lead the procession of light, waving swords and not caring if anyone accuses them of anti-Semitism: … ‘Our master, Jesus, the Messiah, the Messiah redeemed us, with his blood he bought us, and today we are joyous while the Jews are sad,’ and, ‘Jews, Jews! Your holiday is the Holiday of the Apes, while our holiday is the Holiday of the Messiah.’”

[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 19, 2011]

Anyone who believes the PA wants peace is truly bananas.

When the book was produced he chose to publish under a pseudonym but now David Littman publicly acknowledges that it was he who masterminded the printing of this little book. It has been re-formatted for the web in accordance with his wishes, as a tribute to his life and work. I can’t even begin to say what this man has achieved but he started out rescuing hundreds of Jewish children from Morocco and carried on in more amazing ways. I’ll tell you a little secret: I attended the semi-secret ”Hero of Silence” Order award ceremony when he was officially decorated for the operation which took place at MLM (The Israel Intelligence’ Heritage & Commemorative Center in Glilot). Since 1986 he has worked tirelessly as one of the very few sane voices at the UN in Geneva as a human rights defender on many taboo subjects.

David Littman is a true hero, a legend in wicket keeping and a gentleman the likes of which they don’t make any more. To this day Canford School, Dorset has not seen a better keeper!

I will include Anwar Sadat’s letter to Hitler, after the link to the complete book which follows the brand new preface that David has just released for this re-publication. It is is his wish that this book and interesting extracts from it, be published far and wide in the digital age. I’m kicking this off here but the call is going out to other bloggers, take it, read it and repost anything you find interesting:

Preface to the Fourth Edition

This fourth edition of Arab Theologians on Jews and Israel is now available on the internet. It will allow a worldwide public to read what was discussed at the Fourth Conference of the Academy of Islamic Research at Al Azhar (1968) and preached by ulema in mosques 40 years ago on Jews, Judaism and Israel – throughout the Arab-Middle East, and taught in schools.

In January 1971, while browsing in the library of St. Anthony’s College, Oxford University, awaiting a friend, I came across the 1970 English edition of the Proceedings of this Al Azhar Conference, published by the ‘Cairo General Organization for Government Printing Offices’.

Only a few months earlier, I had met professor Yehoshafat Harkabi in Tel Aviv, author of a seminal work, Arab Attitudes to Israel (1971; Hebrew edition, 1968), who informed me of the contents of the Arab edition which he showed me, particularly the lecture by Kamal Ahmad Own on “The Jews are the Enemies of Human Life as is Evident from their Holy Book”.

On discovering the English translation by chance, the article by the ‘Vice-principle of Tanta Institute’ caught my eye, as well as a fascinating trove of vivid ‘explanations’ on Jihad and other theological subjects. I immediately informed Professor Harkabi and suggested that it might be a good idea to publish extracts from the 935 page edition (no official copyright was indicated) which I would prepare, and our joint introduction. It could be published by Editions de l’Avenir in Geneva and would be widely distributed by the Centre d’Information et de la Documentation sur le Moyen Orient (CID) in Geneva, recently founded, with friends, by my wife and I, whose publications we directed then. I met Professor Bernard Lewis in London, who encouraged me on the project, suggesting less than 100 pages and a brief introduction.

In September 1971 the verbatim first edition was printed in English – followed by a French edition – with our joint introduction under a pseudonym, “D.F. Green”: ‘D’ for my first name, David; ‘F’ for Fati, the abbreviated first name of Harkabi, who predicted that it would become a landmark publication in its own field ; he proved to be right. Before his untimely death in 1994, he gave me his consent to reveal our joint names, behind the pseudonym, “D.F. Green”. I preferred Muslim Theologians… as the title, but Fati preferred not to ruffle religious feathers.

Between September 1971 and September 1976, three editions were published in English, two in French and one in German, a total of over 70,000 copies – available in bookstores via the main Swiss distributor, Payot. It was also widely circulated (c. 10,000 copies) by the CID in Switzerland (and the United Nations), in several European countries and the USA, and much appreciated by Israel’s Foreign Ministry Information Office which bought many thousands of copies, especially the 3^rd English edition. However, after President Anwar El Sadat’s historic visit to Jerusalem in November 1977, they stopped using our ‘sensitive’ booklet, which also contained several revealing texts by Sadat on Jews and Israel (see pp. 87-91), starting with his 1953 “Letter to Hitler” (allegedly still alive), published in the Cairo weekly Al Musawwar.

On reading D.F. Green’s introduction 40 years later, one notes that there has not been an iota of change in the Arab-Muslim world on this subject in their media, especially on certain TV government programs, sermons in mosques, in schools, (widely documented by MEMRI, Palestine Media Watch and other bodies), and with rare condemnation or shame. One paragraph says it all then and now:

“Arab spokesmen contend that they differentiate meticulously between Zionism and Judaism and that they are against Zionism and not against Judaism. There cannot be a more trenchant disproof of this allegation than the arguments used at the Fourth Conference of the Academy of Islamic Research, at least as regards it participants. The odium of Zionism is described as emanating from the perversity of Judaism. Zionism and Jews are treated synonymously.”

And we concluded our introduction, dated ‘London, August 1971’ with a vain hope:

“May this booklet be a small contribution towards the cause of peace in the Near East. This is by no means a cynical pretention (..). It is to be hoped that this small publication may serve as a general exhortation against the dangers lurking in the ideologization (or worse, in the theologization) of a political conflict. When such books published under government auspices cease to appear, a step toward reconciliation will have been made.”

David G. Littman
Switzerland, April 2011

Arab Theologians on Jews and Israel 4th Edition
Here is just one of the many, many gems to be found in this amazing little book.

ANWAR EL SADAT : A MODERATE STATESMAN
SADAT’S “LETTER TO HITLER” (1953)

In September 1953, several news agencies reported that Hitler was still alive. On the basis of this report, a Cairo weekly, “Al Musawwar”, asked a number of Egyptian personalities the following question: “If you wished to send Hitler a personal letter, what would you write to him?”

Colonel Anwar El Sadat was one of those questioned. His answer reads as follows:

“My dear Hitler,

I congratulate you from the bottom of my heart. Even if you appear to have been defeated, in reality you are the victor. You succeeded in creating dissensions between Churchill, the old man, and his allies, the Sons of Satan. Germany will win because her existence is necessary to preserve the world balance. Germany will be reborn in spite of the Western and Eastern powers. There will be no peace unless Germany once again becomes what she was. The West, as well as the East, will pay for her rehabilitation — whether they like it or not. Both sides will invest a great deal of money and effort in Germany, in order to have her on their side, which is of great benefit to Germany. So much for the present and future.

As for the past, I think you made some mistakes, like too many battlefronts and the shortsightedness of Ribbentrop vis-à-vis the experienced British diplomacy. But your trust in your country and people will atone for those blunders. You may be proud of having become the immortal leader of Germany. We will not be surprised if you appear again in Germany or if a new Hitler rises up in your wake.

Anwar El Sadat”

(Al Musawwar, No 1510, September 18th, 1953)
Emphasis added by the editor (D.F.G.)

 

Jews, Jews, Jews, Jews, Jews!

The headline above was produced by the Instamash-Bloginator3000, a device, invented by Israeli scientists working in the Jewish settlement of Neve Manyak, that can reduce thousands of blog posts to a single thought. And it also corrupts Iranian centrifuges! I plugged 3,000 of my blog posts into this wonder machine, and this is the headline that came out!

No, no, I kid! (I kid because I love.) There is no Jewish settlement named Neve Manyak. The headline above actually refers to the disproportionate interest drunks and lunatics take in Jews and their meddling and mysterious ways. In the last several days, we’ve had Charlie Sheen angrily outing his producer, Chuck Lorre, as “Chaim Levine“;  Glenn Beck accusing Reform rabbis of conspiring to build a Muslim caliphate (or something); John Galliano drunkenly praising Hitler (advice to Galliano’s lawyer: Tell the press your client was referring to another Hitler, maybe a hitherto-obscure designer of hats); the Iranian regime complaining that the 2012 Olympic logo secretly spells out the word “Zion” (they’re wrong, of course; the logo secretly spells out “Mark Spitz is Jewish, and Jason Lezak is Too, So Go Drown Yourselves in the Caspian Sea)); and now, Julian Assange is arguing that The Guardian — the English-language newspaper least friendly to Israel on Earth — is engaged in a Jewish-dominated conspiracy to smear him.

One of the great advantages of being Jewish — and there are many (we invented both ethical monotheism and whitefish salad, after all) — is that though there are only about 14 million of us on the whole planet (18 million before World War II, Mr. Galliano), people can’t stop talking about us! It is very exciting to be a part of so many different fantasies.