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The news last week that George Steinbrenner, principal owner of the New York Yankees, had died unleashed a spectrum of commentary, ranging from the begrudgingly positive to the excessively fawning. For the average baseball fan growing up in the 1970s and 1980s, familiar with the constant turmoil that surrounded the Boss and his beloved Bronx Bombers, the rehabilitation of Steinbrenner’s legacy is nothing short of miraculous.

It’s a miracle that he himself put together.

This is really the tale of two Steinbrenners. The first came along in 1973, when he led a group of investors to buy the Yankees for ten million dollars. The Steinbrenner of the early days was crass, callous, and cruel. The Yankees quickly improved and won two World Championships before the end of the decade. Whether they won because of or in spite of their owner’s behavior is debatable. It’s also beside the point.

George Steinbrenner excused his conduct as necessary in order to win. He put winning ahead of everything else. Winning was the ends that justified the means—and the meanness. “I sign the paychecks,” was his reasoning for treating employees as nothing more than disposable puppets in the grandiloquent theater that was Yankees Baseball. Sixteen games into the 1985 season, he fired the Yankees greatest living legend, Yogi Berra, after publicly promising him a full season to lead the team. And he didn’t even have the courtesy to tell him himself; the deed was done through another executive. Berra was humiliated and stayed away from the Yankees for over a decade.

He famously fired a stadium electrician for a malfunctioning loudspeaker, and a secretary for ordering the wrong sandwiches. “You live up to his impossibly perfect image of the New York Yankees or Steinbrenner would exact retribution,” wrote Joe Posnanski wrote in Sports Illustrated.

Harvey Greene, a former Yankees PR director, said, “The phone would ring in the middle of the night and you knew it was either Mr. Steinbrenner or a death in the family. After a while you started to root for a death in the family.”

Steinbrenner’s antics were tolerated for another decade until he finally crossed the line in 1990—paying $40,000 to a degenerate gambler to spy on his All-Star outfielder, Dave Winfield—and was banned from the game by then-commissioner, Fay Vincent.

But it turns out that there was another side to George Steinbrenner that was not as well known.

Just ask Ken Waldrep, who, in 1974, while playing football for TCU against Alabama, was hit on a play and became paralyzed. Steinbrenner was watching the game from the stands. He helped pay Waldrep’s medical bills and for a specially equipped van. He also kept up with him, lending moral, in addition to financial, support.

Ask Eddie Robinson, the famous football coach of Grambling University. When Robinson’s Urban League Classic football game, which raised funds for nearly 500 scholarships, was straining financially, Steinbrenner loaned them Yankee Stadium to host the event.

Ask Fay Vincent, the aforementioned baseball commissioner who banned Steinbrenner from the game. Vincent recalled the first conversation he ever had with Steinbrenner. Steinbrenner phoned Vincent, asking to “help him raise money for a former football coach at Williams College (which we both attended) who was ill in Florida with Alzheimer’s and needed full-time nursing. George and I shared enormous affection for this coach, and for years we and several others helped him and his wife in their old age.”

Ask Lorraine Blakely, who was almost killed, at age seven, in a freak accident that left her with a crushed skull. Steinbrenner wrote a check to cover the brain surgery of this young girl, after he learned from a newspaper that her father was between jobs and the doctor refused to operate until he was paid.

One former employee reminisced about the time his mother came to New York for a visit, and how Steinbrenner treated her like a queen during her stay. But his behavior toward the employee himself, remained cold. Lou Piniella, the former Yankees player and manager, summed it up: “George is a great guy, unless you have to work for him.”

But by the time Commissioner Bud Selig reinstated him in 1993, a new George Steinbrenner began to appear. By that point, the team (through general manager Gene Michael) had done much to rebuild its depleted minor league system—a system Steinbrenner had helped to deplete by trading away future talent for aging stars. As such, Steinbrenner became the greatest beneficiary of his own exile. Think Jeter, Posada, Pettite and Rivera.

Steinbrenner was still tough on his employees but the cruelty, for the most part, was gone.

Fast forward to 1999, a humbled Steinbrenner arrives at the Berra Museum and Learning Center in New Jersey to make amends. “You’re fifteen minutes late,” Yogi quipped, as Steinbrenner approached.

“Yogi, I’m afraid I’m fourteen years late,” Steinbrenner tearfully responded.

This split personality, which George Steinbrenner finally corrected late in life, is common to many of us. Too often, we can be very kind to guests, but not so nice to our own families. We can be the most charming people in shul, but too tough on our own children. We can smile at strangers but snap at our spouses.

On a national level, too, we are guilty of this dichotomy. Rav Berel Wein, shlit”a, often spoke of people who “love Judaism but hate Jews.” We criticize members of Klal Yisrael who don’t measure up to our standards. We may even belittle others for taking a different path towardAvodas Hashem.

And we tell ourselves that we do this for constructive purposes. It’s love of our families that make us so hard on them. It’s our love of Torah and Yiddishkeit that makes us so critical of others. The end justifies the means. Like George Steinbrenner, we just want to win.

Aharon Hakohein, whose yahrtzeit just passed on Rosh Chodesh Av, was known as the “oheiv shalom verodeif shalom—lover of peace and pursuer of peace.” Aharon pursued shalom relentlessly. As we get closer to Tisha B’av, the anniversary of the destruction of theBais Hamikdash because of sinas chinam, we are reminded to take a page from Aharon Hakohein’s playbook and not simply look for opportunities of ahavas Yisrael, but to pursue them.

We, like Mr. Steinbrenner, already have it inside of us. We just have to shift a little bit, like a batter adjusting his hitting stance, and let it out.

By Judy Mandelbaum

The only surprising thing about this story is that it took so long to materialize. After all, people have been recreating buildings, both lost and otherwise, at a growing rate for decades: Colonial Jamestown and Williamsburg have returned from historical oblivion, Ivorian dictator Felix Houphouet-Boigny built a semi-replica of St. Peter’s in Yamoussoukro in 1985/89, Warsaw rebuilt its obliterated royal palace and Berlin is set to follow suit, the Mormons reerected the lost Temple in Nauvoo in 2002, and Las Vegas has spared neither expense nor good taste in its drive to recreate the world’s best-known monuments. 

Finally last week, a Brazilian Pentecostal megachurch called the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God announced that it plans to reconstruct the Temple of Solomon in São Paulo. The new temple/church will measure 126 by 104 meters (413 by 341 feet) and stand 55 meters (180 feet) high, making it twice as tall as the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro. Featuring a replica of the Ark of the Covenant, it will provide space for a whopping 10,000 worshippers.

The Bible has the following to say about the design of the original Solomon’s Temple (1 Kings 6:14-38): 

So Solomon built the temple and finished it. And he built the inside walls of the temple with cedar boards; from the floor of the temple to the ceiling he paneled the inside with wood; and he covered the floor of the temple with planks of cypress. Then he built the twenty-cubit room at the rear of the temple, from floor to ceiling, with cedar boards; he built it inside as the inner sanctuary, as the Most Holy Place. And in front of it the temple sanctuary was forty cubits long. The inside of the temple was cedar, carved with ornamental buds and open flowers.  

All was cedar; there was no stone to be seen. And he prepared the inner sanctuary inside the temple, to set the ark of the covenant of the LORDthere. The inner sanctuary was twenty cubits long, twenty cubits wide, and twenty cubits high. He overlaid it with pure gold, and overlaid the altar of cedar. So Solomon overlaid the inside of the temple with pure gold. He stretched gold chains across the front of the inner sanctuary, and overlaid it with gold. The whole temple he overlaid with gold, until he had finished all the temple; also he overlaid with gold the entire altar that was by the inner sanctuary. Inside the inner sanctuary he made two cherubim of olive wood, each ten cubits high. One wing of the cherub was five cubits, and the other wing of the cherub five cubits: ten cubits from the tip of one wing to the tip of the other. And the other cherub was ten cubits; both cherubim were of the same size and shape. The height of one cherub was ten cubits, and so was the other cherub. Then he set the cherubim inside the inner room; and they stretched out the wings of the cherubim so that the wing of the one touched one wall, and the wing of the other cherub touched the other wall. And their wings touched each other in the middle of the room. Also he overlaid the cherubim with gold.

Designed by Brazilian architect Rogério Silva de Araújo, the new structure will follow these instructions to the letter, using stones imported from Israel for a cool $8 million. The only difference is the scale: the São Paulo project will be several orders of magnitude larger than anything Solomon ever imagined.The design includes a parking lot for 1,000 vehicles, a suite of TV and radio studios, as well as classrooms seating 1,300 children. In a TV announcement, Bishop Edir Macedo said: “[Solomon's] Temple … used tons of gold, pure gold …We are not going to build a temple of gold, but we will spend tons of money, without a shadow of doubt. [The stones] are just like the ones that were used to build the temple in Israel; stones that were witnesses to the powers of God, 2,000 years ago. … It is going to be a knock-out, it is going to be beautiful, beautiful, beautiful — the most beautiful of all. The outside will be exactly the same as that which was built in Jerusalem.” On the church’s website, he predicted that the temple would become the site of many miracles, “where the sick will be healed, the oppressed will be liberated, [and] the demons will be banished.” 

So far, the response from the Jewish world has been something less than ecstatic. This reaction from a South African Jew on an on-line forum may be typical: “Build a replica of the Temple for idolatrous purposes. What a slap in the face of religious Jews who are still struggling to rebuild it in Jerusalem. It is insensitive of these Christians to do this. I don't think they realise how uncomfortable this makes most Jews feel. What if they built a replica of the mosque in Mecca? Would the Muslims be happy?” But I suspect the reaction from most Jews will be a sleepy "so what else is new?"

Bishop Macedo founded the church in Rio in 1977, inspired by the work of a Canadian Pentecostal missionary called Robert McAlister. It now claims some eight million members in 180 countries. Its doctrines include the notions that immersion baptism into the movement endows believers with supernatural powers, that sancification can be achieved during a believer’s lifetime, and that private donations to the church will be rewarded with financial prosperity.If this last claim is true, then by merely constructing the temple, which is to be financed by $200 million in donations from the faithful, Brazil will certainly have washed away its poverty crisis by the time the project is completed four years from now.

Hey, I've never been one to stand in the way of progress. The ghetto-dwellers of São Paulo need all the help they can get these days. But if the solution to world’s ills is really that easy, why didn’t anyone think of this before?

Source: Salon

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has accepted Academy Award-winning director Oliver Stone’s second apology over comments he made in an interview to Britain’s Sunday Times, in which he downplayed the Holocaust, defended Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and complained about Jewish influence in the United States.

“I do agree that it was wrong of me to say that Israel or the pro-Israel lobby is to blame for America’s flawed foreign policy.  Of course that’s not true and I apologize that my inappropriately glib remark has played into that negative stereotype,” the director said.

In a statement released Wednesday night, ADL national director Abraham Foxman welcomed the apology, saying, “I believe he now understands the issues and where he was wrong, and this puts an end to the matter.”

Stone’s publicist, Rubenstein Communications, released a previous apology on Monday, stating, “In trying to make a broader historical point about the range of atrocities the Germans committed against many people, I made a clumsy association about the Holocaust, for which I am sorry and I regret.”

The first apology came after Diaspora Affairs and Public Diplomacy Minister Yuli Edelstein slammed Stone on Monday for the comments. Edelstein said that Stone’s statements to the newspaper were racist and anti-Semitic and made him sick.

“Beyond the ignorance he proves with his comments, his demonization of the Jewish people could be a sequel to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” the minister said. “When a man of Stone’s stature says such things, it could lead to a new wave of anti-Semitism and anti-Israelism, and it may even cause real harm to Jewish communities and individuals.”

In the interview, Stone said America’s focus on the Holocaust was a product of the “Jewish domination of the media.” He said his upcoming Showtime documentary series Secret History of America would put Hitler and Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin “in context.” “Hitler did far more damage to the Russians than the Jewish people, 25 or 30 [million killed],” Stone said.

When asked by the interviewer why so much of an emphasis had been placed on the Holocaust, Stone responded, “The Jewish domination of the media. There’s a major lobby in the United States. They are hard workers. They stay on top of every comment, the most powerful lobby in Washington. Israel has f***** up United States foreign policy for years.”

Stone, who recently met with Ahmadinejad, said American policy toward Iran was “horrible.”

“Iran isn’t necessarily the good guy,” he said. “But we don’t know the full story!”

By contrast, Stone praised Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez as “a brave, blunt, earthy” man, who does not censor the Internet in his country.

Stone also raised an uproar when he defended Hitler at a press conference in January.

“Hitler is an easy scapegoat throughout history and it’s been used cheaply,” he said at the time. “He’s the product of a series of actions. It’s cause and effect.”

Simon Wiesenthal Center director Rabbi Marvin Hier responded then that “to talk about ‘placing Adolf Hitler in context’ is like placing cancer in context, instead of recognizing cancer for what it really is – a horrible disease, just as we must recognize Hitler as the ultimate expression of evil.”

Source: Jpost

Manhattan, NY – Citibank has filed for an injunction against the former Toy Building to block the landlord, Yitzchak Tessler, from evicting a branch location from the building’s commercial space.

Citibank says it stopped paying the monthly rent in March and has since placed more than $296,300 in escrow amid claims that the landlord failed to pay for utilities and keep the building, at 1107 Broadway between 24th and 25th streets, in safe condition. The building, a stalled condominium conversion, is currently being foreclosed on by Lehman Brothers.

“In violation of the lease, 1107 Broadway has failed to make all necessary repairs (including structural repairs) to keep the premises in good working order and condition,” attorney Cari Lewis, representing the plaintiff, alleged in the injunction request filed July 20.

The lawyers for Tessler counter that Citibank withheld rent in violation of its lease, which it signed in 2004. They also claim that Citbank continues to operate a branch at the location despite filing complaints with city officials about alleged safety issues.

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“There were some violations that were issued as a result of Citibank calling various agencies to complain,” Mitchell Kosoff, attorney for Tessler, told The Real Deal. “The owner of the building is making arrangements with the Department of Buildings to ensure that the building continues to be in compliance with all applicable rules and regulation. None of these violations, however, is a basis for Citibank to withhold its rent pursuant to its lease.”

The dispute comes at a time when bankrupt Lehman is trying to foreclose on the 16-story building, which Tessler wanted to convert into a 165-unit condo. The investment firm filed suit in May seeking $136.8 million from Tessler, after he allegedly defaulted by not making payments when the loan came due in 2008. Tessler, president and chief executive of Tessler Development, is being held personally accountable for the default, as he signed guarantees linked to the mechanic’s liens and other default items, according to Lehman’s suit.

Citibank initially filed suit in June, seeking to block the eviction, alleging not only was the building unsafe, but that the building failed to maintain working sprinkler systems and then that the bank was forced to pay all of the building’s Consolidated Edison payments since March, totaling tens of thousands of dollars.

According to the DOB website, there are 49 open violations at 1107 Broadway. A stop-work order was issued against the building in October 2008 for failure to maintain a site safety officer at the site. A second stop-work order was issued in May 2010 after the construction permits were revoked.

In addition to the restraining order, the Citibank suit demands that DOB issue an immediate vacate order and that the landlord pay damages of more than $1 million.

Tessler was not immediately available for comment. Beth Huffman, a spokesperson for Dechert, which represents Lehman, declined to comment, and DOB officials were not immediately available for comment.

Here is the official music video for Waving Flags, this was filmed with campers from Camp Simcha and footage was taken of them performing this in Times Square

It all went so very wrong.

Police have launched a manslaughter investigation. If the priest is found guilty, he could spend up to three years behind bars.

Source: NY Daily News

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak sent Shas spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef a personal letter, denying that his health is deteriorating.

"I want to reassure you, I have recovered completely and I would like to emphasize that I am in good condition, despite some reports in the Israeli and other media," he stated.

The letter was written in response to a letter Yosef wrote two weeks ago to wish the Egyptian leader good health, in light of the media reports. It was given to Mubarak by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when the leaders met in Cairo.

Mubarak's response was written a week ago and publicized Monday.

In it, he thanked Yosef for his good wishes, and ends with a statement anticipating "your cooperation to advance the peace process, along with other supporters of peace."

Yosef has met the Egyptian president in person and talked with him by phone on numerous occasions.

Yosef himself filled various positions in the Cairo rabbinate and religious courts between 1947 and 1950. In his letter, Yosef addressed him as "Your highness, President of Egypt Muhammad Hosni Mubarak, may his glory be exalted," saying, "May you continue to lead your countrymen in majesty, courage and strength, for a lifetime and in peace; may you succeed in all your doings."

In his response, Mubarak addressed the rabbi as "dear friend and greatest of teachers."

On Tuesday it was reported that President Shimon Peres would be meeting with Mubarak in Cairo at the beginning of next week. The two are expected to discuss diplomatic matters, including Mubarak's request that Israel make further gestures to the Palestinians and lengthen the current moratorium on building in the settlements.

When Faryn Hart settled into her seat at the weekly Shabbat table set for 20 at her home in Johannesburg, South Africa, she also settled into the role her grandmother expected her to play.

Yes, she would study medicine. Yes, she would marry an engineer. Yes, she got an A on her exam. And yes, she'd take another helping of whatever was coming from the kitchen.

Even as the ballerina and popular Hebrew day school student effortlessly spit out the right answers, her mind was awash in torment. As the food was passed around–fried sole, fish cakes, salad oozing with mayonnaise–her instincts to binge and purge became uncontrollable.

"I was not present," Hart, now 24, recalled. "I was in the conversation but completely thinking about the food. It wasn't about the ritual, it was about the ego. Perhaps it was a way to deal with the discomfort of a family that put so much pressure on me."

The eating disorder Hart struggled with throughout high school and at the University of Florida reflects an alarming trend that's long been a hidden problem for Orthodox Jewish women.

Though statistics are few, eating disorder expert Dr. Ira Sacker found in a 1996 study that one in 19 Orthodox Jewish teenage girls in Brooklyn had an eating disorder–about 50 percent higher than the general population.

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The Philadelphia-based Renfrew Center, which treats patients with eating disorders at nine U.S. locations, reported this year that 13 percent of its Florida and Philadelphia patients identify as Jewish–up from 5 percent just three years ago.

Renfrew recently launched a first-of-its-kind treatment track geared specifically for Orthodox Jewish patients.

"It could no longer be swept under the rug," said Adrienne Ressler, Renfrew's national training director. "But we were not as aware of all that was involved in the treatment of this population."

There were no such programs when Hart sought treatment two years ago, so she constructed her own program when she took a job as a manager at the eco-friendly Hostel in the Forest sustainable farm and retreat center in Brunswick, Ga.

"It's not this evil thing anymore," Hart shared of her relationship with food. When she toils in the garden's acre of produce, she often thinks, "this is what a zucchini looks like–it's beautiful. It's magical."

The Orthodox Union sought Renfrew's help last year, just a few months after the organization released "Hungry to be Heard," a documentary that profiles observant Jews who struggle with eating disorders, and a community reluctant to acknowledge them. The two organizations have since hosted conferences and workshops in New York and Bethesda, Md.

"It took a lot of courage for the Orthodox Union to approach us," Ressler said. "They wanted to help families get past the shame of admitting they have a problem–(one) that may reduce the chance of making a good marriage contract."

The challenge of treating Orthodox Jewish patients is twofold: dealing with the logistics of kosher food requirements, and addressing the subtleties and complexities of the tight-knit culture that surface during recovery.

When Rocky Horwitz, 19, was admitted to Renfrew's facility in Coconut Creek, Fla., two years ago, the center wasn't equipped for kosher dietary laws. The staff ordered in from a kosher restaurant, but being served eggplant Parmesan–while the rest of the patients ate bean fajitas–added stress to an already fraught situation.

"I was freaking out that I was having more calories (than the other patients)," Horwitz recalled. "My plate looked different from everyone else's. My portion looked bigger."

Julie Dorfman, nutritional director for Renfrew's Philadelphia center, recalled tensions when Orthodox patients were served a cheese sandwich while others were served pizza.

"Some foods are categorized as 'scary,'" Dorfman said. "The fat in a cheese sandwich is contained, not as visual. But the grease on the pizza is visible and there's the temptation to blot it with a napkin."

Since then, the Renfrew kitchens in Florida and Philadelphia have been retooled to serve kosher dairy and kosher vegetarian fare.

Dietitians and therapists were also taught how to discern problems related to religious rituals from those related to an eating disorder.

"The control of food that's necessary in Judaism is very different than control of food around someone who has an eating disorder," said David Hahn, a psychiatrist at Renfrew's Philadelphia center. "It may look the same, but it's not."

At the same time, though, treatment staff have learned to be wary of patients who actually use their kosher observance as a stumbling block to recovery.

Becca Shrier, 27, a graduate of Renfrew's Florida program before the Orthodox track was implemented, often relied on her kosher practice–fasting from breads or pasta during Passover, for example–to secretly limit her caloric intake.

"I used my religion as an excuse to engage in my eating disorder over and over again," she recounted.

The problem is as much cultural as kosher, experts have learned. They discovered that a skinny bride in her early 20s is often idealized as the ultimate prize, as well as her quick evolution into a mother of a large brood.

"I speak to boys who tell me they want someone who's a size zero or size two," said Frank Buchweitz, director of community services and special projects at the Orthodox Union.

Such issues are now incorporated into Renfrew's group therapy sessions and Jewish-themed classes, starting with the text of a traditional prayer sung by husbands on Shabbat.

"There's many things your wife is supposed to be–gracious, kind and wise," Hahn said. "Thin is not one of them."

By : Lev Raphael

In case you missed it, The Jewish Hall of Fame just got bigger. The latest addition is a superstar: Shakespeare.

Like other fringe beliefs, the theory that Shakespeare’s plays were actually written by a Jew has been kicking around the Internet, but it just got a major print boost with a glitzy 3000-word cover story in Reform Judaism, a magazine claiming the widest Jewish circulation in the world.

Who’s the Jew? A poet named Aemilia Bassano Lanyer, who’s supposedly filled the plays with previously-ignored Jewish allegories and coded references to her own name. Now that’s genius, fooling the whole world for four hundred years.

The driving force behind Lanyerism is John Hudson, a graduate of the Shakespeare Institute at the University of Birmingham whose biography is hard to pin down since it’s never described the same way when he’s interviewed or profiled. He sounds like a cross between a social theorist and a media consultant and is currently a “scholar-in-residence” of a New York theater company dedicated to his take on Shakespeare. His John the Baptist seems to be Toronto Globe and Mail reporter Michael Posner, who covered Hudson twice before writing the Reform Judaism story.

Hudson’s starting point is the same tired song about Shakespeare being a dumb hick who never went anywhere, so how could he write brilliant plays that changed the world. He must be a fake because we don’t have his diary, his letters, his rough drafts, his library card, blah blah blah. We’ve been hearing different forms of this lament for about 150 years, as James Shapiro explains in the recently-published Contested Will. Dozens of candidates have been offered for our approval, from Marlowe to Bacon to less famous writers.

Which brings us to Aemilia Bassano Lanyer (1569-1645), best known outside academic circles as a candidate for the Dark Lady of the Sonnets. Lanyer was one of the first English women to publish a book of poetry, described by one Lanyer scholar as arguing for “women’s religious and social equality.” The centerpiece is a long poem about The Crucifixion. No surprise, it paints Jews as “wolves” who bite Jesus and “use all meanes they can devise/To beate downe truth, and goe against all right.”

Hudson is convinced that Lanyer was Jewish, claiming that Lanyer’s father was a hidden Jew. He’s ignoring that Jewishness has historically been transmitted by the mother. But whatever her father was, he died when she was seven anyway, and her mother was not Jewish. In fact, Aemilia Bassano Lanyer was baptized a Protestant and educated among Protestants.

Nevertheless, Hudson believes she spoke Hebrew, knew the Zohar, Pirke Avot and Talmud, even though there was only one copy of the Talmud in England at the time. Where her secret Jewish knowledge and commitment came from is anyone’s guess.

What’s Hudson’s real proof of her authorship of the plays? There isn’t any. It’s all supposition and pseudo facts dressed up as stone certainties.

Like this one: Lanyer was the mistress of the Lord Chamberlain who later became patron of Shakespeare’s acting company, so she had to know the theater intimately. Really? Unlike Shakespeare, she had no acting experience, wasn’t a partial owner of an acting company and so couldn’t have been as deeply involved with the craft as Shakespeare clearly was.

And this: Shakespeare set over a dozen of his plays in Italy- but class, he never went there! How is such a thing possible? It must be because Lanyer went to Italy herself. Oops–there’s no record of that. Still, the plays have Italian in them, and “there would have been no way for Mr. Shakespeare to learn Italian in Stratford.” That’s a ridiculous point, since it assumes Shakespeare’s education began and ended in his home town, but at least Hudson doesn’t call him Little Willy.

Okay, what else? The plays are filled with musical references and we don’t have any hard evidence that Shakespeare went to recorder concerts or even played air viol. But Lanyer’s family included many Court musicians, so she’s obviously the best candidate for having written the plays, and far more believable as an author than Shakespeare. Got it?

Then there’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream ending with a Jewish apocalypse. Truly. When Pyramus and Thisbe die in the play-within-a play and Oberon bids Puck and the fairies to bless the three newlywed couples in Theseus’ palace, that’s actually an apocalypse. For Hudson, the whole play is really about the Jewish War with the Romans.

Here’s my favorite “proof”: Among the hundreds of characters in Shakespeare’s three dozen plays we find a Bassanio, an Emilia, and an Emillius–but wait, there’s more! In the 1623 text of Othellopublished after Shakespeare died, Desdemona’s maid Emilia now echoes a sad traditional English tune her mistress sang, though she didn’t do that in a previous version. The song’s refrain of “willow, willow, willow” has to be a reference to the Willoughby family that helped raise Lanyer, and Lanyer must have revised the text. Gadzooks!

Reading Hudson on Lanyer reminds me of Jimmy Durante’s boast about his jokes: “I got a million of ‘em.” As you sort through Hudson’s defenses of his fanciful theory at the social publishing sitescribd.com, it’s hard not to wonder if he’s engaged in some profound kind of satirical performance art. Now that would be fascinating.

Unfortunately he’s serious and gaining ground. Shakespeare scholar David Bevington recently told me he’s now getting asked about the Lanyer theory when he does lectures, and readers of theReform Judaism story have told me they were convinced Lanyer wrote the plays, or at least shaken in their belief that Shakespeare was their author.

Does it matter? Absolutely. Just as it matters if you believe Mossad blew up the Twin Towers or that President Obama was born in Kenya. Shakespeare Denial in its newest, Jewish incarnation is another example of the rise of conspiracy theory to a respectable forum where people treat it seriously, instead of saying: Are you for real?

Russia's newest export is bad girls named Anna.

Hot on the stiletto heels of sultry spy Anna Chapman comes Anna Fermanova, busted for trying to smuggle night-vision scopes to Moscow.

And just like redheaded double agent Chapman, foxy Fermanova left a trail of very revealing photos of herself on Facebook.

Fermanova, who was born in Latvia, was arrested at her home near Dallas on July 15 after returning from a four-month trip to Moscow – where her husband lives, court papers say.

Her lawyer told the Daily News the case "looks a lot worse than it really is."

"She's a nice Jewish girl who lives with her sweet Latvian parents," said Scott Palmer, a Dallas criminal defense attorney.

"There's no terrorism link. There's no espionage."

But court documents make Fermanova sound like quite the femme fatale.

They say a confidential informant tipped off federal immigration agents in February that Fermanova was in the market for weapons accessories.

Agents stopped her a month later at Kennedy Airport when she checked in for a Moscow-bound flight.

They found a $7,000 Raptor 4X Night Vision Weapons Sight in the blond bombshell's suitcase, along with two other night-vision devices worth $4,000 each, records say.

Fermanova told the agents she bought the scopes online for her husband's hunting buddies in Russia.

Asked if she knew taking them out of the country was illegal, she said she "signed something about that" but was "not really sure what she was signing," the papers say.

She admitted removing identifying marks from the scopes and blacking out serial numbers with a marker "so they would be less noticeable," court records show.

Agents confiscated the scopes but allowed her to fly to Moscow – then arrested her when she returned to U.S. soil this month.

Fermanova was charged with "knowingly and intentionally" attempting to export "defense articles on the United States Munitions list" – charges that carry 10 years in prison.

Her passport was seized and she was put under house arrest after posting $50,000 bond.

Her lawyer said she's going "stir-crazy" at her parents' home in Plano - a two-story brick house in a middle-class subdivision where the family refused to answer the door yesterday.

She is expected in Brooklyn Federal Court later this summer.

"She bought them legally. They are available for purchase on the Internet, you just need a license to export them," Palmer said.

"They were for her husband's buddies who are hunters in Russia," he said. "They were basically buying something in the U.S. that's available in Russia but is extremely expensive."

The former cosmetology student and English teacher is studying communications at the University of Phoenix, Palmer said. She emigrated with her parents from Latvia as a baby and is now a U.S. citizen.

She was arrested in 2003 for forging a $76 check, fined and given three years of probation, according to court records.

The suspected smuggler is described in court papers as 5-foot-6, 135 pounds, with a belly-button piercing.

Her Facebook page is bursting with pictures that show she was paying attention in beauty school.

She has been seen dressed up as a sexy pirate, showing off her bikini body at the beach, and cradling glasses of white wine with girlfriends.

Her activities and interests include loving, partying, smiling, hair and "generally being happy," according to Facebook.

Source: NY Daily News

U.S. basketball star Amar'e Stoudemire is apparently on his way to Israel for a voyage of discovery after learning he has Jewish roots.

"On the flight to Israel. This is going to be a great trip," announced the power forward, who plays in the NBA for the New York Knicks, via the micro-blogging site Twitter.

According to an Army Radio report, Stoudemire plans to spend time in Israel learning Hebrew, having recently learned he has a Jewish mother.

"The holy land. Learn about it," he wrote, adding "ze ha'halom sheli" – Hebrew for "this is my dream."

News of Stoudemire's trip quickly had Israeli basketball fans buzzing with speculation that they might one day see him playing alongside another Jewish NBA star, Israel's Omri Casspi, on the national team.

So far there is no indication as to whether Stoudemire is here to stay – although for the moment, Israel seems to be getting along just fine without him, beating Great Britain 86-82 in Tueday's training game.

The city agreed Tuesday to pay more than $7 million to settle a wrongful death civil suit lodged by the fianceé and pals of Sean Bell, an unarmed man gunned down by cops on his wedding day, sources said.

"The police were there doing their lawful duty. Bell was intoxicated and tried to run them over," Palladino said. "The taxpayers are now on the hook for $7 million. There's something seriously wrong with that picture."

Source: NY Daily News

Some want a wife. Others long for children, a miracle cure for illness or a quick fix for their finances.

Believers are seeking divine intervention for as little as $90 at www.westernwallprayers.org, a Jerusalem-based Web site that dispatches a squad of “agents” to pray at one of Judaism’s holiest sites on behalf of those who can’t get there themselves.

Batya Burd, a devout Jew who lives in Jerusalem’s Old City, set up her proxy prayer [organization] to provide spiritual succor and, she says, religious miracles for the faithful while raising funds for those who devote their lives to biblical study. [The organization is recognized as a non-profit in Israel with a non-profit counterpart in America].

The 33-year-old mother of two, who gave up a career as a corporate lawyer in Canada to come to Israel, collects emailed requests from around the world, then composes personal prayers for each [donor] and assigns them an agent.

The emissary recites the prayer at Jerusalem’s Western Wall — a remnant of the ancient Jewish temple compound — every day for 40 days. Many visitors to the holy site write their prayers on slips of paper, which they press into the wall’s crevices.

“When I looked at the needs around me here in Jerusalem they were mostly financial, whereas the needs of people where I come from were mostly spiritual,” said Burd in a cafe overlooking the Western Wall. “This was a way of merging both.”

Burd has composed prayers for 700-800 people and says she has several “miracles” under her belt, including a man who met his soul mate, a woman who won the lottery and two people who say their cancer disappeared after they signed up for prayer.

Skeptics will argue that believers looking for results will always find them, and that many so-called answers to prayers are simply canny coincidences. Some might say it’s a scam.

But Burd believes fervently in the power of prayer and challenges Skeptics to try it themselves.

“There are always Skeptics, but without experiencing it you’re just ignorant,” she said. “The more sincerely you believe in something, the more God allows it to happen.”

“A LITTLE HELP FROM ABOVE”

The minimum donation is $2 a day, which will pay a member of Burd’s 35-strong squad of observant Jews to pray at the Western Wall for 40 days. A total of $720 will get you exclusive prayer at the wall and at an Old City synagogue.

A special request and at least $1,800 will pay for 10 observant men to pray together for 40 days deep in the tunnels under the Western Wall that are off-limits to public worship.

Burd splits the money between the members of the prayer squad, who live in Jerusalem and devote most of their time to biblical study rather than secular work, so do not earn big salaries.

Although 70 percent of her [donors] are Jewish, Burd also gets requests from people of other religions, or of none at all. Most come from the United States and Canada, but some hail from as far afield as India, South Africa or Mexico.

Burd denies it’s a quick fix for cash-rich but spiritually poor Westerners, arguing [donors] are also asked to pray themselves every day during the 40-day period and to take on good deeds — a process she says brings them closer to God.

“We hope they will become more connected to God, more connected to themselves and better human beings,” said Burd.

She believes she herself was an answer to her husband’s prayers, after he completed the 40-day prayer marathon to ask for a wife after a string of failed dating forays.

“He was set up with all the right girls but could just never find the right person,” Burd said. “People were ready to give up on him so he decided to get a little help from above.”

About the same time as her future husband was asking for a wife, Burd says she decided it was time to settle down. Days later a friend announced she knew just the man, and five dates later, the two were married.

Was it a miracle?

“It was certainly out of the ordinary for it to be so clear and to get married so fast,” said Burd. “I guess I’ll only really know when I die.”

Visit Western Wall Prayers.org

Western Walls Prayers Is a Registered Tzedaka and Tax Deductible

This past Motzei Shabbos Shragy Gestetner gave a small private concert to the members of Clearview Bungalow. Below is a small video clip

Antique shopper Rick Norsigian has entered the pickers Hall of Fame. 

The Fresno, Calif., painter paid $45 for 65 glass negatives at a garage sale 10 years ago – and now has expert confirmation the images were created by famed photographer Ansel Adams. 

Current value: at least $200 million. 

It's not known how the nature images on the glass plate negatives made their way from Adams's collection 70 years ago to a Southern California garage sale in 2000. But the man who sold the lucky finds to Norsigian said he bought them in the 1940s at a warehouse salvage in Los Angeles. 

Art appraisal expert David W. Streets believes these photos were taken between 1919 and the early 1930s, long before Adams became nationally recognized in the 1940s, according to CNN.

"This is going to show the world evolution of his eye, of his talent, of his skill, his gift, but also his legacy," Streets says. "And it's a portion that we thought had been destroyed in the studio fire." 

Norsigian, who has spent the last decade trying to prove the worth of his discovery, is now ready to cash in by selling original prints of the photographs to museums and collectors. 

As parents arrived early Monday morning to drop their kids off for summer camp at the B’Nai Shalom Synagogue in Olney, Md., they were greeted by a derogatory name for Jews spray-painted on the building.

“I started welling up with tears and tried to conceal it from our 3-year-old,” said concerned parent Laurie Blumstein.

But the anti-Semitic vandalism didn’t stop there. Swastikas were spray-painted across the entire building and sidewalk and German references to the Holocaust were found on lampposts even parking spots.

“The words ‘Arbeit Macht Frei,’ which translate to 'work will set you free,'” said Rabbi Ari Sunshine. “Those are the words that are written above the entrance to the Auschwitz concentration camp.”

Rabbi Sunshine believes the vandalism happened sometime overnight. Montgomery County police are investigating more than a dozen different slogans and symbols as a hate crime, including change found at the door, which Rabbi Sunshine believes insinuates Jews are money hungry.“The remarks about Jews, the German writing, this was done by someone who knew German or was copying it from something," said synagogue member Elaine Senter. "I don’t think it was done by kids. It just was too perfect.”

As hurtful as the images and words are, the rabbi said, he decided not to have them painted over early Monday morning. He wanted his congregation and members of the community to see what happened to try to use the act of hate to bring the community together.

“If we just cover over the words and the symbols and get rid of it in the next hour or two hours, without a chance for people to come together and work at that and symbolically stand together as we remove these words, then a great teaching opportunity will have been lost,” the rabbi said.

The synagogue planned to hold a special service Monday night at 7:30 p.m. where the public is invited to talk about what happened and help with the clean up process.

Also in Olney, mailboxes of two residences in the 18500 block of Rolling Acres Way were spray-painted red. Several swastikas, the symbol “14/88,” and the symbol “SS” were spray-painted on the yards and trees at those residences. The “88” is sometimes a coded reference to Heil Hitler, as each word begins with the eight letter of the alphabet, and the “14” is thought to stand for the number of words in a white supremacist credo.

Anyone with information about the vandalism should contact police at 240-773-5330.

The United States pledged in a deal inked yesterday to underwrite expenses for the creation of Israel's Arrow 3 missile defense system, the Jerusalem Post reported .

Washington last year affirmed its intention to maintain funding for the Arrow missile shield, as it had done since the project was conceived more than two decades earlier. Jerusalem, though, feared the Obama administration would ax funding for the effort as it pursued various defense spending reductions.

The Arrow 3 system, slated to enter operation in 2012-2013, would be able to shoot down enemy missiles at greater distances and higher altitudes than Israel's current Arrow missile shield. The weapon is likely to require $100 million in development expenses.

U.S. Missile Defense Agency head Lt. Gen. Patrick O'Reilly signed the pact with Brig. Gen. Ofir Shoham, head of the Israeli Defense Ministry's MAFAT Research and Development Directorate 

A French literary conference has been cancelled after pro-Palestinian activists refused to share a platform with an Israeli author who is a Holocaust survivor.

Novelist Esther Orner, 73, was set to appear at the March 2011 event hosted by the University of Provence.

But an anonymous group of Egyptian and Palestinian writers refused to take part in dialogue with an Israeli, prompting Ms Orner to speak out in the French media.

The controversy led university president Jean-Paul Caverni to cancel the entire conference.

Ms Orner accused the protesters of trying to delegitimise Israel by ousting her from the event, which was called Writing Today in the Mediterranean Region: Exchanges and Tensions.

She said: "I understand that it is not personal against me, but it greatly upset me because I see it as systematic – not against me, but against Israel.

“This time I chose not to keep quiet because I see these cancellations as a move against the existence of the state of Israel."

Born in Germany, Ms Orner fled to Israel after the Holocaust but has lived in France as well. She has translated the work of Yehuda Amichai and compiled an anthology of translations of Israeli women.

The cancellation comes less than a year after a conference in Luxembourg was cancelled because of objections over Ms Orner participating.