Pagan Mistaken for Jewess (No, Really!)

A SELF-PROFESSED druid priestess has said a Melbourne bar refused to let her in because of her age and the mistaken belief that she was Jewish.


Details:-

Morgan, 51, who uses only one name, has told the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal that crowd controllers at the Cushion Lounge in bayside St Kilda denied her entry when she went there about 1.30am on Monday, December 12 last year.

But the staff and the bar's manger claim a private function that night was the reason for refusing entry.

Former manager and part-owner Daniel Centofanti...denied his business was discriminatory, though its regular Saturday night crowd was young "trendsetters" in their 20s and 30s.

"One of my head promoters was Jewish, my bar staff and customers were a mix of male and female, homosexual, heterosexual, metrosexual," he told the tribunal.

Mr Centofanti said Morgan phoned him the day after the incident and told him she had "made a lot of money from venues like us".

Morgan denied this.

The St Kilda local said she went to the bar to retrieve her 15-year-old son, who was due home by midnight.

Security footage shows him leaving the bar sometime after midnight, then being refused re-entry and leaving again before his mother arrived.

Morgan said security staff stopped her from entering and allegedly asked, "Haven't you got an X-box or a vibrator at home to keep you happy?".

She said another guard told her "You're a Jew" after seeing her necklace displaying a wiccan star.

"I said to him, 'I'm a pagan, like your people'," she told the hearing.

"I assumed because he was an Islander he was a pagan," Morgan said.

The guard, Clay Auimatagi, told the hearing he would never make an insensitive religious comment but had asked whether the star was a Jewish symbol to defuse an argument between Morgan and another guard, Michael Almatrah.

Ignorant of Nazi Slogan?

The American school system seems to be failing:-

Nazi phrase gets football coach benched

After posting a message on players' lockers last week that was worded the same as a Nazi slogan, Maine South High School's top football coach was suspended for a game, officials said Wednesday.

Dave Inserra, 39, will sit out Maine South's homecoming game against New Trier this Saturday, Principal David Claypool said. The one-game suspension comes after Inserra put up signs saying, "Work will set you free," on the lockers of the varsity team. The German version of that phrase -- "Arbeit macht frei" -- became infamous when used by the Nazis, who posted it at the entrance to Auschwitz and at other concentration camps.

"I regret it ever happening. It was a completely honest mistake," Inserra said. "Ignorance is not an excuse. I should have checked the origin."

Inserra posts a "weekly phrase," intended as inspiration, on the lockers of his team members, he said. Often, the phrases are quotes from famous leaders, including President Theodore Roosevelt and football coach Vince Lombardi, he said. Sometimes, he makes up his own.

Inserra heard "work will set you free" during a school-wide meeting at the beginning of the academic year, he said. The speaker who used it "was talking about teaching," he said. And while some in attendance knew the phrase's origin, he did not, he said.

The phrase fit well with the varsity football team's theme for the season -- "Work hard, work smart, work together," Inserra said.

Last Thursday, Inserra posted fliers saying "Work will set you free" on the varsity team's lockers. The next day, a colleague told him, "This could get you in trouble," he said. He took the signs down immediately and wrote an apology to the entire teaching staff.

Probably played too much football himself when younger.

HaAretz Goofs

Haaretz wrote:-

Since his resignation, Meridor has worked part-time for the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute and the Menachem Begin Heritage Foundation. He also spends time working in his garden in the Gush Etzion settlement of Kfar Adumim.

Er, Sallai's revenant community is located, adminstratively, in the Binyamin Regional Council.

Historical Oddity: The First Non-Smoker's Section in a Public Area?

Karl Radek provides insight into the question in his memoirs on the famous sealed train car trip into Russia:-

There was a constant conflict between the smokers and the non-smokers about a certain location in the carriage. We could not smoke in the compartment, because of the little four-year-old Robert and because of Ilyich, who would not tolerate it. Hence the smokers tried to convert a room which normally served other purposes into a smokers’ lounge.

Hence outside this room there was a permanent crowd of bickering people. So Ilyich cut a piece of paper in two and distributed permits. For every three tickets of category A for the legitimate use of the premises there was one smoker’s ticket. This naturally evoked further discussions about the value of human needs, and we acutely regretted that comrade Bukharin was not with us, as a specialist in Böhm Bawerk’s theory about marginal utility.

(Found here)

Bet He Gets Treated Better Than Our IDF Soldiers During the Disengagement

Muslim police officer excused Israel guard duty

Britain's most senior policeman has called for an urgent review into the decision to excuse a Muslim police officer from guarding the Israeli embassy in London on moral grounds.

Pc Alexander Omar Basha, part of the Metropolitan Police's Diplomatic Protection Group, asked for special dispensation not to work at the embassy because of his ethical objection to Israel's bombing of Lebanon, according to the Sun newspaper.
The officer is understood to have relatives in Lebanon.

Today Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police commissioner, said he had ordered an investigation into how the decision was made. "Having learned of this issue I have asked for an urgent review of the situation and a full report into the circumstances, " he said.

Superintendent Dal Babu, chairman of the Association of Muslim Police, said that it was important not to blow the issue out of proportion, but that it did risk setting a dangerous precedent.

"As police officers we have to deal with some very, very difficult situations and we need to be objective and make sure that we police all members of the community fairly. We can't pick and choose," he told the BBC.

Earlier a Scotland Yard spokesman said that requests for transfers were dealt with on a case-by-case basis, balancing the needs of the force with the concerns of individuals. "However, the needs of the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) takes precedence and the organisation reserves the right to post an officer anywhere within the MPS," he said.

(Kippah tip: RT)

More U.S. Robustness

And here's the new "better idea":-

The United States is proposing to expand [expand? EXPAND??? - YM] the presidential guard for the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, to 6,000 men from the current 3,500 in a $26 million plan to strengthen Mr. Abbas and reduce the security chaos in the Authority, donors briefed by Washington’s security coordinator for the Palestinians said Wednesday.

The security coordinator, Lt. Gen. Keith W. Dayton, is in talks with Mr. Abbas to reduce the number of overlapping Palestinian security services in order to create a single national police force on the model of Italy’s carabinieri.

They gotta be kidding, right?

Free the Sukkah

I don't always agree with Yekutiel Ben-Yaakov. (Okay, that's an understatement)

But this is seriously funny:-

Dear General Naveh,

Earlier this year, you signed on an order of closure of the Jewish Legion and signed your name to a document that authorized the confiscation of everything that was on the premises of the Jewish Legion kennels and dining hall...The purpose of this letter is not to cry about the insane and suicidal policies of the Israeli government....The purpose of this letter is to demand the immediate release of my Sukah which was arrested and confiscated by you along with tens of thousands of dollars of dogs and equipment last January. In court we will continue to battle against the illegal order you signed your name upon, however in the meantime, please return the Sukah, so that we can celebrate the holiday of sukkot and observe this precious mitzva.

How could the release of my Sukkah in any way jeapordize the security of the state of Israel? Have you gone mad? This type of religious persecution is unheard of even in Russia and even under fanatical fundamentalist Islamic regimes such as Iran.

FREE THE SUKKAH NOW!

Yekutiel Ben Yaakov,

Quotation of the Day, er, Week, er, Summer

"What is this interview? You are not worthy to sit in this room… You've portrayed us, the ministers, as idiots."

Israel's Absorption Minister Ze'ev Boim

(attacking fellow minister Ofir Paz-Pines who, in an interview with Ma'ariv released on Sunday that there was no need for a broad-scale ground incursion during the final days of fighting. He also presented a document shown to members of the Labor party on the Friday before the cease-fire took effect, which listed the Israel's achievements in the war. In the following two days of fighting, some 30 IDF soldiers lost their lives. Paz-Pines called the operation "worthless and irresponsible.")

Would That We Would Hear Olmert Say This

Not long before he died, in 1868, Kit Carson was shown a dime-novel cover featuring a picture of a dashing young Kit “slaying seven Indians with one hand, while he clasped a fainting maiden with the other.”

As the story goes, the old man stared at it for a while, fiddled with his spectacles a bit, and declared,
“That there may have happened, but I ain’t got no recollection of it.”

Also from here.

Just a Reminder: How America Treated its Indigenous Population

In 1864, [Kit] Carson, by then a U.S. Army colonel commanding nearly a thousand men, reduced the Navajo to starvation by burning their crops and killing their livestock. The campaign, intended to force the Navajo to agree to relocate, was both brutal and unrelenting. Carson estimated that his men destroyed nearly two million pounds of food. In the Canyon de Chelly, a Navajo stronghold, Carson’s troops burned and chopped down three thousand peach trees. Then they burned the Navajos’ baskets and smashed their pots, so that they couldn’t carry or store what little food they had left. “If there was ever a grandeur or majesty to warfare, surely none could be found here,” Sides writes. In the end, nine thousand Navajos left their land, only to be led on a disastrous three-hundred-mile march known as the Long Walk.

Found here.

Here She Is...Robust Rice

P.S. The highway leading to Bet El, through which one also enters Ramallah, is to be closed today for several hours so that Robust Condi can safely travel to and fro.

Okay, Yankees

My late Mom saw Babe Ruth hit home runs in Yankee Stadium and my late Father taught me how to play, being a three-sewer man playing stickball in the South Bronx in the late 1920's and 30's.

I can recall going to watch Mickey Mantle and Yoggi Berra when I was barely 6. So, here's a picture of another Yankee, Derek Jeter, just for fun.

Foxey

Abe Foxman, former member of Betar in NY in the 1950s, and who turned out to be a moderate and one who could have done so much more for Israel, finds the right idea, finally, in this letter in today''s NYTimes:-

It is disappointing that despite the reality of the last year, you dredge up the old mantra that there must be pressure on Israel to make concessions to move the peace process forward.

Israel withdrew from Gaza unilaterally last year, giving up settlements, and this year Ehud Olmert was elected prime minister on a campaign to withdraw from much of the West Bank.

Instead of building on Israel’s initiative, the Palestinians launched missiles at southern Israel and elected a terrorist group committed to Israel’s destruction.

This, together with Hezbollah’s military buildup and attacks on Israel from inside Lebanon, made a mockery of the idea that Israeli concessions are the key to Palestinian and Arab change.

You should focus on convincing the Palestinians that progress will come only when they fundamentally change their approach and accept Israel, stop terror, end the teaching of hate and negotiate in good faith.

Then, and only then, will the lives of Palestinians and Israelis change for the better.

And to think, he really knew all this way before Israel "occupied" anything.

Probe?

MK Avraham told Ynet on Sunday, “I support any probe ordered by the attorney general. I am confidant that my actions did not constitute criminal behavior and I intend to fully cooperate until the facts are made clear.”

Ahem. Is that a double entendre? From the woman who wants Katzav out of office?

And this is MK Ruchama Avraham:



Ah, this probe:-

Mazuz: Launch criminal investigation against MK Avraham

Attorney General Menachem Mazuz has instructed police to launch a criminal investigation against Kadima Knesset Member Ruhama Avraham and Shlomo Tirosh, the CEO of the Agrexco agriculture products company.

Two years ago Avraham and fellow MK Eli Aflalo traveled to the United States and Europe at Agrexco’s expense, in violation of a Knesset Ethics Committee decree. At the time Agrexo’s CEO told the State Comptroller’s Office that the trip was aimed at assisting Israeli farmers on the issue foreign worker employment and expose the MKs to Israel’s agriculture markets in the US.

But Tirosh’s justification for the trip did not suffice the Comptroller’s Office, which said in a statement, “No reasonable explanation was given as to the connection between the issue of foreign workers and the trip abroad; if the purpose was to familiarize the MKs with Agrexco and its markets, then no explanation was given as to why the MKs spent most of the time in the US but only one day in Europe, which is the center of Agrexco’s export business.

The comptroller said Tirosh should have been more attuned to the public’s sensitivity regarding such trips, especially in light of the fact that a group of MKs embarked on a similar trip at the Knesset’s expense only a year prior to Avraham and Aflalo’s visit to the US and Europe. The comptroller also questioned Agrexco’s decision to send to MKs from the same party (both Avraham and Aflalo were Likud party members at the time).

Katzav Still Has A Long Way to Go

Seems America is way out there in sex scandal involving politicians:-

“You always seem to have politicians doing bizarrely self-destructive things, especially involving sex,” says Lawrence Kestenbaum, creator of “Political Graveyard,” a history Web site that includes an exhaustive cataloging of transgressions by politicians.

Under the heading “Politicians Who Were Ever in Trouble or Disgrace,” the section contains 420 entries, in chronological order, many of them involving present and former members of Congress. Among the escapades:

• Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts, was reprimanded when it was revealed that a male lover had been running a prostitution business out of his Capitol Hill apartment.

• Donald (Buz) Lukens, Republican of Ohio, who was convicted of a misdemeanor for having sex with a 16-year-old girl.

• Dan Crane, Republican of Illinois, and Gerry Studds, Democrat of Massachusetts, both of whom were censured by the House for having sexual relations with teenage pages — Mr. Crane with a female in 1980, Mr. Studds with a male in 1973.

The “Politicians Who Were Ever in Trouble or Disgrace” section comes with the devastatingly simple disclaimer “Very Incomplete!”

Mr. Kestenbaum says improprieties in the political realm tend to resonate more than in others. First, they tend to become public, necessitating apologies and, in many cases, resignations. He points out that if Mr. Foley were a purchasing manager at some store, he might actually keep his job.

“The political world tends to be very judgmental,” Mr. Kestenbaum says. This creates towering spectacles of dishonesty, famous last words that are often caught on tape. Mr. Clinton created the gold standard for this when he looked into a camera and indignantly declared, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.”

Mr. Foley gets triple bonus points for hypocrisy. As co-chairman of the House caucus on missing and exploited children, he has been a fierce advocate for tough sanctions against people who sexually exploit children over the Internet. Not that Democrats have been pointing this out relentlessly since the news broke or anything.

How Britain Undermines Itself

A hardline Muslim teacher who caused a furore by denouncing pupils for celebrating Christmas has been made a Government schools inspector.

Israr Khan's Ofsted appointment was described by a former colleague as 'absolutely astonishing'.

Mr Khan, now headmaster of an Islamic school, launched into his tirade during a concert rehearsal at Washwood Heath Secondary School in Birmingham in 1996 after the choir including around 40 Muslim youngsters, had sung a number of popular Christmas songs, including carols.

He leapt from his seat, yelling: "Who is your God? Why are you saying Jesus and Jesus Christ? God is not your God - it is Allah."

It has been claimed that Washwood Heath school was then a 'hotbed of Islamic fundamentalism'. Rashid Rauf - the airline terror bomb suspect whose extradition is currently being sought from Pakistan - was a pupil there at that time.

Mr Khan left Washwood Heath a year later to found the independent Islamic Hamd House Preparatory School in Small Heath, Birmingham, where he is headmaster.

Earlier this year, he was appointed as a governor of Anderton Park Primary School, in Sparkbrook, Birmingham.

A former Washwood Heath colleague laughed openly when told of Mr Khan's role as an Ofsted inspector where he has the responsibility for passing or failing schools.

He said: "Given the man's history, it's absolutely astonishing. It's just the cheek of the man that he's been able to reach that position. He always was an extremely clever man.

One Muslim father, who asked to be known only as Mohammed, said: "By his previous actions, he seems to represent what I would call a hardcore attitude to Islam."

An Ofsted spokesman said: "Israr Khan was appointed as an additional inspector via a highly competitive recruitment and selection process. He has undergone all the relevant security checks."

Now, what is Israel doing up north with all its own radical Muslims?

Michael Jackson's Kids are...Jewish

Will wonders never stop?

Another lengthy legal battle involving Michael Jackson seems to over, as the popstar and his ex-wife Debbie Rowe have reached a settlement in their ongoing child custody battle.

Attorneys representing the former couple have said that they've settled their three-year custody battle over their two children, nine-year-old Prince Michael Jackson Jr. and eight-year-old Paris Michael Katherine Jackson...Lawyers for both sides declined to comment on any details...Since Jackson was rung up on child molestation charges in 2003, Rowe has been seeking to reinstate her rights to visit their two children after giving up custody in 2001...Rowe and Jackson tied the knot in 1996 and were officially divorced by 2000..."Everything changed," Rowe said in a declaration after requesting temporary custody in 2003. In addition to the charges filed against her ex, she cited Jackson's association with members of the Nation of Islam, a group whose leader she feared was anti-Semitic.

"I am Jewish, as are-by definition-my children.

I worried about how my children would be treated by these new advisers to Michael," Rowe said.

Yes, okay, she's Jewish (she says) but let's get back to Michael.

His ex-wife, Debbie Rowe claims that he is not the biological father of Prince Michael Jr. and Paris. The kids are said to have been conceived through artificial insemination. Rowe claims that, although the singer knows the truth, he still insists not to reveal the children the identity of their mother.

"Michael knows the truth - that he is not the natural father of Prince Michael Jr. and Paris. He has to come clean. I have no information whatsoever about the identity of the semen donor for either child as such (semen) was obtained anonymously from a semen bank under an agreement of confidentiality."

Now, besides discovering Deborah is Jewish, what's really wondrous about this?

Well, back in 1995, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) said it was deeply troubled by the anti-Jewish epithets in a song on Michael Jackson's new album, "HIStory."

Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director issued the following statement:

We are deeply troubled by the anti-Jewish lyrics in Michael Jackson's new song, "They Don't Care About Us." At best, if the lyrics were intended to be a protest against prejudice as Mr. Jackson claims, then they were inartfully crafted and can easily be misunderstood and misused.

At worst, his use of anti-Jewish epithets and stereotypes casts doubt on Mr. Jackson's explanation that his song was intended to be a statement against all forms of hatred. The words are hateful and hurtful, and hate is too serious a subject for subtleties. Why single out Jews?

Here's some more on his anti-Jewish outbursts.

Poor Michael.

Poor Debbie.

Poor kids.

Read the Comments

If you go here on the Hirhurim blog, and then click on the "comments" section, you'll be able to read a long altercation between me and Lawrence Kaplan and one 'Mycroft' regarding various issues such as the disinvitation of Lord Caradon to YU in 1968, Rabbi JB Soloveichik's conceptualization of Amaleik and other matters including was Betar full of 'hot heads'.

Ten-Minute Matisyahu Fabrengen

(Kippah tip: Failed Messiah)

What We Lacked: Yet Another 'Peace' Initiative

The International Crisis Group today launched a new global advocacy initiative designed to generate new political momentum for a comprehensive settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Major funding support for the initiative — to cost around $400,000 in its first year — was announced at the Clinton Global Initiative meeting in New York.

“After the chaos of the last few months, there is a new sense of urgency about finding a comprehensive, just and sustainable peace”, said Crisis Group President Gareth Evans. “There is also broad international understanding of what is needed to ultimately resolve the conflict. But the spark has to be somehow lit, and a serious new process started”.

Crisis Group’s initiative will have five dimensions:

An international publicity campaign, in the first instance mobilising respected former presidents, prime ministers, foreign and defence ministers, congressional leaders and heads of international organisations around a statement of support for a comprehensive settlement, and a new process to achieve it — involving a possible international conference to kickstart negotiations, and the leadership role of the Quartet (U.S., EU, Russia, UN) being reinforced by greater participation from the Arab League and regional countries.

The statement now circulating, to be released in the first week of October, has already been signed by more than 80 such U.S. and global leaders, including Zbigniew Brzezinski, Frank Carlucci, Gro Harlem Bru ndtland, Joschka Fischer, Christopher Patten and Desmond Tutu.

A series of brainstorming sessions, bringing together officials and regional experts, to help inform the actions of the UN Secretary-General, his Middle East envoys, the other Quartet players and relevant regional countries. The first such meetings were held in New York on 1 and 13 September, and more will follow.

A high-level group of former U.S. Government officials will be convened to generate bipartisan support for the U.S. administration to engage fully in efforts to achieve a comprehensive resolution. The first round of consultations on this track took place in Washington DC on 18 September.

A Crisis Group task force of respected international figures will be established, after a detailed settlement strategy has emerged from these consultations, to visit key international capitals and build support.

Crisis Group will continue to produce a series of reports and briefings on the Arab-Israeli conflict, as well as the domestic situations in Palestine, Israel, Lebanon and Syria, and the closely related situations in Iran and Iraq, to provide information, analysis and guidance to policy-makers.

Crisis Group’s initiative is designed to help fill the present policy vacuum, stem the slide toward greater instability, and provide a viable alternative to moderates in the region on both the Israeli and Arab sides.

“With prevailing moods in the region, and among the key international players, any move toward compromise will be extremely difficult”, said Crisis Group’s Middle East Program Director Robert Malley. “But the extreme fragility of the situation, and the renewed willingness of leading Arab countries to find a path to peace, offer a significant opportunity for new ideas to emerge and to be pushed forward”.

Contacts: Andrew Stroehlein (Brussels)
Kimberly Abbott (Washington)

You do remember Malley, right? The objective observer (cough, cough)?

Here.

Here.

Here.

And here.