Blogging will resume some time after Yom Kippur ends, tomorrow evening Israel time.

And now for US President Barack Obama’s Rosh Hashanah message.

Errr, sorry, my bad. I meant this one.

I’ll be out of blogging action for the next couple of days so please feel free to treat this as an open thread.

In this case, the person in question – Aussie rocker Jimmy Barnes – did not know himself until recently.

When Jimmy Barnes sang a few versus in Yiddish before 1700 Jews this week, the rock star had some unexpected news for his audience at the charity event. He, too, was Jewish.

Through the rock of ages, many stars have had Jewish roots: Bob Dylan, Lou Reed, the Ramones, Kiss and the Beastie Boys. Now we can add Barnsey, the Scottish immigrant kid who was raised a Protestant and played in the Salvation Army band before he became Australia’s howling Working Class Man.

Barnes only made his discovery hours before he told Sydney’s Central Synagogue on Thursday night: ”I rang my mother this afternoon, before the rehearsal. And I said, ‘Mum, I remember when I was about 18, you gave me a Star of David. Why?’ And she said, ‘Oh, my mother gave that to me and her mother gave it to her and I thought I’d give it to you.’ And I said, ‘OK, was your mother Jewish by any chance? And she said, ‘Yes, her name was Esther.’ So, if I’m to get this right, my great-grandmother was Jewish, my grandmother was Jewish, my mother was Jewish, so I must be Jewish.”

The audience response was rapturous. Barnes added: ”The only problem with that – it might be a painful process.”

Well, not quite. Barnes explained to the Herald yesterday: ”It is passed down through the mother so, yes, technically, I am Jewish.” But he added: ”Basically, I’m a Buddhist.”

He had meditated in Thailand, attended black gospel in the US, studied Hinduism in India and had Muslim friends in France.

”I like people of faith, and I believe the more people who have spirituality, the better the world will be. It’s about peace and tolerance.”

He thought little about that Star of David as a teenager. His mother was not a practising Jew. In 2003

the Rabbi Mendel Kastel, then at the Great Synagogue, approached Barnes to perform Hava Nagila. ”I wanted something spectacular to get the community in. Jimmy thought it was a joke at first. But then, graciously, he did it.”

Rabbi Kastel now runs Jewish House, a crisis centre at Bondi that deals with homelessness, drug and alcohol addiction and families in need. Barnes has become a supporter, and he and his son, David Campbell, will perform a fundraiser for the centre on December 1 at the Sofitel Wentworth, Sydney.

About a month ago, the rabbi and Barnes were sharing a Kosher meal in Bondi. At the next table, Central Synagogue’s Cantor Shimon Farkas was dining with the chief rabbi of Tel Aviv, and he invited Barnes to sing at Thursday night’s concert.

And so Barnes was there to sing My Yiddishe Momme. But not before calling his mother that day. He shared his news before treating his audience to a solo, What a Wonderful World.

Update: For those not familiar with Jimmy (the non-Aussies amongst you – he’s a legend Down Under), here is his one of his most famous songs, and the inspiration behind the post’s title.

In the meantime, you can treat this as an open thread. Just remember the golden rule: be excellent to each other.

Chag Sameach!

I’ll leave you with this Japanese-style instructional video on breaking Matzah clean. An oldie but a goodie.

I would also like to remind Matzo Balls Man that this blog is a public place and is kosher for Passover. So no need for any protests.

Blogging will resume some time after Thursday evening, Israel time. Until then, feel free to treat this post as an open thread.

Talk about reform in the Catholic Church.

Outspoken Islamic cleric Abu Hamza has branded Australians as boozers who are hooked on gambling and prostitution.

In another sermon broadcast over the internet, the Coburg cleric urged followers to spread the word of Islam to save Australians.

“They think happiness can be achieved by being intoxicated, by going to the casino and blowing your money away, by going from one prostitute to the other,” he said.

“They don’t know what life is all about, that’s why they are on the booze, why they are binge drinking . . . why unfortunately suicide has skyrocketed, murder, anxiety and depression.”

You can see the offending sermon in the Herald Sun report only. That’s because this is what greeted me when I looked in YouTube to find the video:

Change of heart, or threatened with beating by toothbrush?

As for the speech itself, I did not find it nearly as offensive as the first. Sure, he is being judgmental, but I suspect he did not mean that all Australians are prostitute-visiting boozers. I think he was more attacking the idea of a godless society, but he did it in a way guaranteed to offend the very society which affords him the freedom to espouse his views and put his foot in his mouth.

Meanwhile, to those who claimed in the comments to my last post that there was nothing offensive to women in his marriage sermon, some Muslim women disagree.

His comments on the treatment of women have been condemned by the Islamic Women’s Welfare Council of Victoria and Muslim community leaders, including Yasser Soliman.

“To claim this is Islamic, or that the Koran forces wives to do things such as (these) lectures suggest, is quite insulting to most of the Muslim world,” Mr Soliman said.

Update: Yasser Soliman, executive director of Diversity Connect International and a past president of the Islamic Council of Victoria, has repudiated Hamza’s marriage comments, and even continued the damage control by holding a liveblogging session.

Update: The video is now on YouTube.

And thank you for your support over the years.