A Justice Yes… But was She ever a DJ?

What a week for Jewish news around the planet. First, the SGOTUS is now a SCOTUS. Solicitor General of The United State, Elana Kagan is now on the Supreme Court of the United States, after getting the needed votes in the U.S. Senate. For those who keep count, there are now three female justices on the court and three, count ’em, 3 Jews in black robes. The vote was 63-37. I am no grad of Pardes, nor a Bronfman Fellow, but in gematria “63” is BONEH or “Insight” and “37” is OL (with an Aleph) or to be “Foolish.” Hey.. this is the Torah, dudes. So trust it. Those 63 had insight and the 37 were…

Kagan (or Lady KaGa, as we call her on the Upper West Side) may have been a lawyer, a teacher, a dean, and a clerk, but was she ever a bat mitzvah DJ? I think not. But who was. The Jewish Forward has posted the vimeo video of actor Paul Rudd’s job as a bat mitzvah party DJ. Yes. Before he was in Dinner for Shmuck’s, well, he acted like a … well.. like a mensch, actually. A mensch in a lemon chiffon tux jacket. To see the video, please visit, this link

Speaking of tux jackets, and the limbo, word from the State of California is that Prop 8 may be in jeopardy. The Jewish Journal of LA asked local Cali rabbis to submit their comments on the latest legal decision. Comments from Rabbis Schulweis, Edwards, Goor, and more are included in this link. A little further North of Camp Jewlicious and Los Angeles, the San Francisco JWeekly, covers the story of more than 160 Orthodox religious leaders who have signed their names to a statement asserting support for gay Jews. According to Oakland’s Rabbi Judah Dardik, the “Statement of Principles on the Place of Jews With a Homosexual Orientation in Our Community,” “is not designed to change halachah, nor is it a step in that direction. It is designed to address the place of homosexual Jews in our community, to affirm that every Jew has a home in Jewish life.”

This is an issue that is unfinished. Something else unfinished is A FILM UNFINISHED, an Israel documentary which is playing in LA. Opening in NYC is LEBANON, the Israeli war film by Samuel “Shmulik” Maoz. The New York Times, comparing it to Restrepo and The Hurt Locker, says, ” ..in its creative audacity, the precision of its psychological portraiture and, above all, in its uncompromising moral seriousness, “Lebanon” accomplishes about as much as any war movie can.” And maybe after this week on the Lebanese border, the Lebanon War is also unfinished.

You heard of wandering Jews. But what of the wandering synagogue? The Washington Post reports on the oldest shul in DC, the 134 years old Adas Israel building, which has served as a shul (dedicated by President U.S. Grant), a museum, church, and a Pork BBQ joint, and has been moved once already, will move again to make way for a highway. Anyone need a red brick 273 ton synagogue?

A man who saved more than one synagogue was Reginald Levy, the British aviator and pilot of the Belgian Sabena jet which was hijacked by Black September terrorists in May 1972. Levy passed away this week at 88. He was credited with keeping the hijackers and passengers calm and giving extensive data to Israeli commandos who later stormed the jet and freed the passengers. The commandos included Binyamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak.

On the topic on commandos… Jesse Singal writes a scathing Op-Ed piece in The Boston Globe. According to Singal, the head of the ADL, Abe Foxman, not only opposes the Cordoba House mosque in downtown Manhattan, but he opposes the attention Jews give to “tikkun olam.” Singal writes, “It has been bizarre watching a civil rights organization take these positions — and disappointing. On the toughest, most controversial issues, the ADL seems willing to endorse some of the very ideas it was created to fight”