Is Jonathan Krohn Jewish?

No and yes. According to the Times, the young (former) conservative is being brought up as a Christian. So no, definitely Jonathan Krohn is not Jewish by religion.

Update: At 17, Krohn was doing teshuvah - repenting his conservatism - i.e., he adopted liberal ideas and went to study philosophy at NYU. MSNBC reported in the video clip below, wherein Lawrence O'Donnell lauded him for converting to the "bright side".

Update 2: The Times reported on Krohn: "The Growing Pains of Jonathan Krohn" (4/28/2013)

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

As to his religion, according to the Times, Jonathan Krohn's mother was Jewish before she converted to Christianity. According to Jewish law, Jonathan is a Jew. Appropriately, the Times is silent on the issue of whether his Baptist parents gave him a bris. It seems the young Christian conservative did not have a bar mitzvah but he did get a present,

He received a computer from his maternal grandfather for his 13th birthday. “In the Jewish culture in which my mom was raised, 13 is a big deal,” he said. “But since I’m a Jewish Christian, I don’t do a bar mitzvah.” (Decades ago, his mother became a Baptist.)

Even in parentheses, the fact that the boy has a Jewish mother, makes him a (latent) member of the tribe. In 2009 we said: We do envy this young man who has concluded at such an early age that the world is precisely the way it should be, that progress is not needed, that government ought to be curtailed and that Rush Limbaugh is NOT a big fat idiot. We wish we had learned all that by the time we were 14. Even now we are struggling to rid ourselves of the desire for progress and the esteem with which we hold those who dedicate their lives to public service in the quest for better government and leadership in our country. //reposted from 3/8/09 because this little feller is finally talking a bit of sense//

Passover Shabbat Bris for baby Zev Zahavy

We welcomed Barak and Miriam's son, Elana and Maya's Brother, Shaiel, Yair, Gavi and Eitan's cousin, Yitz and Julie's nephew, our grandson Zev Mendel Zahavy, at his Passover Shabbat Bris today in Brooklyn, where he was named after my father Zev of blessed memory, who passed away 11 months ago.

Heebow Video Parody of NFL's Tim Tebow

Here is a silly parody of the Tim Tebow football phenomenon -- Heebow. Worth a few good laughs.

Welcome to our Family Eitan Aviv Zahavy

Two weeks ago we had the honor of saying a few words at the brit milah of our newest grandchild Eitan Aviv Zahavy....

The brit milah Jewish circumcision ceremony begins with the mohel greeting the baby, “Blessed be the one who has arrived.”

He then intones as the baby is placed on the seat of Elijah, “This is the seat of Elijah the Prophet, may he be remembered for good.”

Elijah is known as an intermediary between heaven and earth. The bible tells us that he did not die. He ascended to heaven in a flaming chariot. We welcome this mystical personality to the brit milah or every Jewish child.

The verses that follow recited by the mohel in the introduction to the brit milah in fact invoke and invite three of the praying Jewish personalities to the ceremony – the mystic, the scribe and the priest.

1. For your salvation I wait, O Lord. (Gen. 49) לִישׁוּעָתְךָ, קִוִּיתִי יְהוָה

2. I await your deliverance, Lord, and I observe your commandments.(Ps. 119) שִׂבַּרְתִּי לִישׁוּעָתְךָ יְהוָה; וּמִצְו‍ֹתֶיךָ עָשִׂיתִי

3. Elijah, angel of the covenant, behold: yours is before you. Stand at my right hand and be close to me.

4. I await your deliverance, Lord. (Ps. 119) שִׂבַּרְתִּי לִישׁוּעָתְךָ יְהוָה

5. I rejoice in your word like one who finds much spoil. (Ps. 119) שָׂשׂ אָנֹכִי, עַל-אִמְרָתֶךָ-- כְּמוֹצֵא, שָׁלָל רָב.

6. Those who love your Torah have great peace, and there is no stumbling block before them. (Ps. 119) שָׁלוֹם רָב, לְאֹהֲבֵי תוֹרָתֶךָ; וְאֵין-לָמוֹ מִכְשׁוֹל

7. Happy are those you choose and bring near to dwell in your courts. (Ps. 65) אַשְׁרֵי, תִּבְחַר וּתְקָרֵב-- יִשְׁכֹּן חֲצֵרֶיךָ

All Respond:

May we be sated with the goodness of your house, your holy temple. (Ps. 65) נִשְׂבְּעָה, בְּטוּב בֵּיתֶךָ; קְדֹשׁ, הֵיכָלֶךָ

The mystic speaks through the first verse, taken from Jacob’s blessing to his son Dan from Genesis.

The scribe responds in the second verse taken from Psalms, linking deliverance to the practice of the commandments.

Next, in a non-biblical phrase, the mystic makes a rare call directly to a heavenly figure, to Elijah, who he calls an angel, to come and join the ceremony, to stand over the mohel and aid him in his sacred task of welcoming a new Jew into the covenant.

The mystic then repeats the verse from Psalms, without the concluding invocation of the commandments.

The scribe replies with the assurance from Psalms that he finds joy in the words of the Torah, that he loves the Torah, that the Torah removes all obstacles.

Finally the priest chimes in to assert from elsewhere in Psalms that happiness comes from the Temple. And all those assembled at the brit complete the verse and endorse that belief.

Thus the seemingly diverse introductory sentences that the mohel recites invokes in certain if subtle ways three sources of blessings and three sources of holiness, those of the mystic, the scribe and the priest.

And we can say one bit more. Those at the ceremony at the conclusion wish the baby a life of Torah, Huppah and good deeds.

The mystical element of blessing and holiness, invoked via Elijah at the outset, corresponds to the hope for holiness through the wish to the baby for the mystical union of husband and wife, the huppah.

The scribal element of blessing and holiness, invoked via the Torah, corresponds to the hope for holiness through the wish to the baby for Torah.

And the priestly element of blessing and holiness, invoked via the Temple, corresponds to the hope for holiness through the wish to the baby for good deeds.

And while we find more structured meanings in these passages, the initial sense of the spontaneous recitation of the mohels sundry introductory verses, gives it a freshness that corresponds well with the welcoming of a new Jew into our family.

New Yorker Cartoon: The Bris-A-mole Video Game

Is Brad Greenberg Jewish?

Brad Greenberg says no, he is not Jewish. He admits that he "looks" Jewish. And he admits that his grandmothers both were Jewish. (And that makes him technically a Jew.) He is a proud practicing Christian.

But, you ask, who cares? Who is Brad Greenberg anyhow? Who ever heard of the guy?

True enough. So never mind.

P.S. He is a religion journalist from L. A. who has taken Ari Goldman's place on a blog site at http://www.getreligion.org/. These newfangled blogs are all one big blur to us. Be that as it may for whatever reasons we have the impression that Brad has the capacity to learn new things. And boy does he have a lot to learn.... good luck, guy.

Is there a ceremony for converting from republican to democrat?

In the aftermath of the dramatic conversion of Senator Arlen Specter to the democratic party, the Talmudic Blogger has been doing some research...

Q: Is there a ceremony for converting from republican to democrat?

A: Yes, a politician who wishes to convert from republican to democrat must undergo a circumcision to remove the foreskin from his heart.

The ceremony is accompanied by the recitation of various appropriate biblical verses such as:

Deuteronomy 10:16 - Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiff necked.

Deuteronomy 30:6 - And the Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live.

Jeremiah 4:4 - Circumcise yourselves to the Lord, and take away the foreskins of your heart, ye men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem.

NEJM: The Bris is Healthy -- Circumcision Prevents Diseases -- Nice to Know

We Jews circumcise our male children on the eighth day because we were commanded to do so as a religious sign of our covenant with God.

The fact that after all these years we discover that there are health benefits associated with male circumcision -- as the song in Fiddler on the Roof says, "It doesn't change a thing, but even so... it's nice to know."

The NEJM abstract is here. The WSJ story summarizes:

Circumcision Decreases Risk of Contracting STDs, Study Says
By PHILIP SHISHKIN

Circumcision significantly reduces the risk of contracting herpes and human papillomavirus, says a new study that adds to the growing scientific evidence that the procedure helps stem the spread of some sexually transmitted diseases.

Circumcised heterosexual men are 35% less likely to contract human papillomavirus (HPV) and 25% less likely to catch herpes than their uncircumcised counterparts, according to the study, published in this week's New England Journal of Medicine.

The study, led by scientists from Johns Hopkins University and Makerere University in Uganda, relied on data from the same randomized control trials in Africa that already showed that circumcision cuts in half the risk of contracting human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which can cause AIDS.

The researchers hope the latest findings on HPV and herpes will help turn circumcision into a more widespread medical procedure. "The scientific evidence for the public-health benefits of male circumcision is overwhelming now," says Aaron Tobian, a pathologist at the Johns Hopkins Hospital and one of the study's authors.

In the study, researchers randomly assigned 1,684 men in Africa to undergo circumcision and tracked their health against a control group of 1,709 uncircumcised men over the course of two years ending in 2007.

HPV and herpes are among the most common sexually transmitted diseases in the U.S., far more common than AIDS. HPV can cause genital warts and cervical cancer. There are no cures for herpes and HPV.

Just over half of male newborns in the U.S. get circumcised, according to research published earlier this year in the American Journal of Public Health. The percentage has declined over the past decade, in part because the American Academy of Pediatrics said in 1999 that the evidence is "not sufficient to recommend routine neonatal circumcision."

Opponents of circumcision say the procedure isn't medically essential and causes unnecessary distress to the baby. They add that proper hygiene and safe sex can prevent disease.

The academy's guidance, issued before the landmark African trials, remains in effect. Partly as a result, Medicaid plans in 16 states don't pay for circumcision, according to the American Journal of Public Health. Circumcision rates in states with Medicaid coverage for the procedure are nearly 70%, while in the states without such coverage just 31% of male newborns get circumcised, the Journal said. Medicaid is the state-federal insurance program for the needy.

Lack of Medicaid coverage for circumcision -- combined with data showing higher incidence of sexually transmitted diseases in uncircumcised men -- "may translate into future health disparities for children born to poor families," says the study in the American Journal of Public Health.

In light of the new data coming out of the African trials, the American Academy of Pediatrics says it is reviewing its circumcision guidelines, a process that should be finished by the end of the year. "There's no argument that the trials that have been done are really compelling," says Susan Blank, chairwoman of the academy's task force on neonatal circumcision. "That is just one piece in the discussion of circumcision." The academy's panel also includes experts on urinary-tract infections, ethics and health-care finance among others, she says.

Words at a Bris: From the Throne of Eliyahu to the Covenant of Avraham Avinu

From the Throne of Eliyahu to the Covenant of Avraham Avinu
by Tzvee, March 2, 2009, 6th Adar, 5769, Bergenfield, NJ, USA

We’ve been honored today to participate in the bris of a new baby, our fifth grandchild, given the name Gavriel Osher Chaim.

The bris is a simple ritual service with just a few prayers and blessings and yes, of course a significant little physical procedure, a circumcision.

Let’s look at two parts of the bris ceremony: the throne of Eliyahu, and the covenant of Avraham blessing.

We are told that because of Eliyahu’s complaints against Israel in I Kings 19:14, G-d commanded Eliyahu to appear at every bris to guarantee that Israel will not forsake the covenant.

וַיֹּאמֶר קַנֹּא קִנֵּאתִי לַיהוָה אֱלֹהֵי צְבָאוֹת, כִּי-עָזְבוּ בְרִיתְךָ בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל

And he said: ‘I have been very jealous for the LORD, the G-d of hosts;
for the children of Israel have forsaken Thy covenant…’

So when we placed the child on the chair that we designated as the throne of Eliyahu, this is composite prayer we said at the bris:

(1) This is the Throne of Eliyahu the Prophet, may he be remembered for good. For Your deliverance I hope, O Lord.

I have hoped for Your deliverance, Lord, and I have performed Your commandments.

(2) Eliyahu, angel of the Covenant, here is yours before you; stand at my right and support me.

(3) I rejoice in Your word, like one who finds great spoil.

Those who love Your Torah have abounding peace, and there is no stumbling for them.

Happy is the man You choose and bring near to dwell in Your courtyards; we will be satiated with the goodness of Your House, Your Holy Temple...

Like many rituals, the several lines of the poetic text of this one at first seem only loosely linked. Let us look at the text more closely.

(1) We first invoke our hope and trust in deliverance of G-d. We adjure G-d that we have observed his commandments. This bris is the first commandment given to the Jewish people. Our testimony that we are faithful to it is compelling evidence.

Now (2) we are momentarily puzzled. We call on Eliyahu, angel of the Covenant, and we say, “Here is yours before you; stand at my right and support me.”

What does this mean? We gloss over this because it is such a powerful statement.

“Here is yours,” means that here in the newborn life of every child is the potential for the deliverance of humankind. What a bold statement! But that boldness and conviction is the heart of our Jewish faith. Every new life is an act of creative energy and value that at its outset has infinite potential.

We realize at the same time that we cannot stand on our own against all the forces of time and history. We ask Eliyahu to support us so that the promised redemption will come.

We next appear to say (3) that we rejoice at the words of Eliyahu, like a finder of great spoils. But the ambiguity of prayer makes us stop and reconsider. Are we still addressing Eliyahu, the herald of our redemption or are we back to the real time or history? Of course it is that we rejoice in the word of G-d – in the Torah and its commandments, as one would delight in finding a great material bounty.

We’ve left Eliyahu and we are speaking of the value of the Torah, now and today and through the generations. We are so blessed to be part of a community and a family that loves Torah. And the promise of that love is “abounding peace” and a life without the blocks of “stumbling.”

These sentiments are said as matters of fact. But really they are our prayers and wishes. And we wish further for happiness and goodness in the courtyards and houses of the Torah.

We make deliberately vague our statements of what in our prayer is concrete promise and what in our prayer is hope and aspiration -- because we know now at the bris of the newborn and throughout our lives that -- with all our self-assurance and education and scientific achievements, at every moment of the day our destiny is in the hands of G-d.

Finally let us consider for a moment the core blessing of the milah ceremony recited by the father at the moment the circumcision is performed.

Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, who has sanctified us with His commandments and commanded us to enter him into the Covenant of Abraham our father.

Here we are. The real father and mother having just given birth to a miracle. A new world has been created with its infinite potential. The struggles of pregnancy and childbirth have reminded both parents of the travails of this world and kept them firmly anchored in the needs and struggles of the present moments.

And this new little baby is surely the center of the universe, a mystical gift and a timeless personality. The child so totally dependent on his parents’ care and attention, right here and right now, every few hours throughout the day and night. There really is no time for these parents to wax historical or become philosophical.

What could be more jarring than this reminder at the bris? We are told that we are not celebrating the here and now of the travails of these parents and this infant. We are bringing another Jew into the covenant with G-d with the entire Jewish people from antiquity to this very day.

Yes, this reminder is a humbling one. And at the same time it is an empowering one.

We are humbled to recall that we are part of a larger covenantal community. Regarding the covenant with Avraham, my teacher Rav Soloveitchik says, “The patriarchal covenant relates to the fundamental essence of a person. It teaches man how to feel, or to experience, as a human being…. The Patriarchal covenant teaches us how to feel our Jewishness.”

I believe he meant to say it teaches us how to accept our position in the universe as part of an ancient ongoing entity that has had a relationship with G-d for millennia.

And that thought should be comforting and even empowering to us. It reassures us that we now are not introducing this newborn to an awesome task of imposing magnitude -- of finding his own relationship with G-d.

We’ve been connected to G-d as the Jewish people over the generations. And to this bond of Jewishness our newborn child now enlists.

And so we complete our task, our ceremony and then we smile and greet the little boy with the exclamation, “Yehudi chadash” – we welcome into the covenant our newest Jew.

The Happiness of Being a Sandek

I'm was so happy to have been the sandek at my grandson's bris 2 Iyar 5766.

For those who are not expert in such things, the sandek holds the baby while the mohel circumcises him. I briefly spoke after the bris and explained what I had learned courtesy of Michelle Klein in A Time to Be Born: Customs and Folklore of Jewish Birth. Most of this is in one of her footnotes:

Sometimes the father performs the job of sandek, but more often it is a grandparent or a rabbi or some other person who will serve as a role model for the boy.

The word sandek derives from the Greek syndikos, which is the same word in Late Latin and means a delegate, someone entrusted with a special affair.

This name, which was not mentioned in the Talmud, implies that this role was formalized in Byzantine times. Yalkut Shimoni (Jerusalem: 1960), vol. 2, Psalm. 35 discussed the origins of this word.

Judeo-Arabic speakers have said the word comes from the Arabic word sandouk, meaning a box, because it was once the custom for the mohel to bring all his equipment in a long narrow box.

After emptying the box in the room of the circumcision, he placed it below the mezuzzah, and the sandek sat on this during the rite.

The sandek was thus he who sat on the sandouk.

Another explanation is that sandek is derived from the Hebrew shen dak, literally a "thin tooth," which refers to the thin tooth of flint used by Zipporah to circumcise her son (Exodus 4:25): Ben R. Simhon, 1994, op. cit., p. 92. ...

A kabbalistic interpretation proposed that the four Hebrew letters of the word form the initials of four Hebrew words--sod, nah?ash, dam, kodesh, which depict mystical aspects of the rite, in kabbalistic imagery: Pritzker, A., "Brito shel Avraham avinu," Yeda Am 1 (1954): 22. [repost from 5/06]

Steven Jobs the Mohel? Did Apple Circumcise Too Much From the New MacBook Air?

Did Apple Circumcise Too Much From the New MacBook Air? That's not my analogy, not my question. I admit to thinking of some wild comparisons and even blogging a few.

But Newsweek editor Stephen Levy goes a bit too far even for me in his review of the new MacBook Air in today's Washington Post.

One Jewish analogy too many. I get the impression that Levy thinks Jobs circumcised a bit too much off the new notebook.

The Slimming of the MacBook
By Steven Levy

Early in my writing career, I had an assignment to follow around a mohel -- the guy who does ritual circumcisions in the Jewish tradition. My subject learned the trade by watching his dad, a renowned figure in the field. One day, father told son he was ready to handle the tools himself. Why now? the son wanted to know. "Most students ask me how much to take off," the senior explained. "You asked me how much to leave on."

Apple faced a similar question when designing the MacBook Air, the sub-notebook computer that goes on sale next week. The category -- ultra-portable laptops weighing less than four pounds -- has been known for sharp compromises in price, performance and features, all in the service of the high-tech equivalent of a crash diet. What to leave on and what to take off?

Certainly, Apple has fulfilled its goals in terms of thinness. The Air is a sleek sheath of aluminum so slim that it can slide under my office door. Packed inside the shell, which is 3/4 inch at its thickest point, trailing off to a wispy 0.16 inches, are 2 gigabytes of memory, a bright 13.3-inch screen (lit by cutting-edge LED technology) and a full-size keyboard.

Did I mention that it's really skinny? When I slip it in the sleeve of my backpack where my 6-pound MacBook Pro usually travels, the pocket still looks empty. Surely this is salve for the shoulders of anyone who springs for the $1,799 to buy it.

The Air shines most, of course, when it's out in the open. The gentle curves and the absence of protrusions make this an instant object of techno-lust. Most importantly, its diminutive dimensions pretty much evaporate the eternal quandary of whether to take your computer with you.

The compromise story is more complicated. Apple was unstinting in including an excellent keyboard with its great automatic backlighting feature that radiates illumination in dim conditions. Its brain is the powerful Intel Core II Duo processor (though running at a lower speed that Apple offers in other laptops). And the battery life is acceptable -- I didn't have time for a definitive study but was getting only slightly less than the five hours per charge that Apple promises. Also, the Air breaks ground as the first Apple computer to integrate some of the multi-touch technology introduced on the iPhone.

But in service of slimness, something had to go, and depending on how you use computers, these compromises might be negligible, or they might be deal-killers.

To maintain its Zen-like profile, the Air has a minimal selection of ports -- one USB, one for video output to a bigger screen and a single jack for earphones. That's it. Many people will choose to pay $29 for a "dongle" that plugs into the USB port to allow the Air to be plugged into Ethernet. There's no slot to plug an EVDO card for cellular broadband, so if you want that, you must use a different USB dongle connecting to a card. No Firewire port either. Because so many things may vie for the single USB port, it might be wise to buy a hub that multiplies a single USB socket to many, even at the risk of spoiling the Air's sleek figure.

There's also no built-in optical drive. (That's the component that reads and writes CDs and DVDs.) Apple's main compensation is a new feature called Remote Disc. This allows you to borrow the optical drive of a different computer so you can burn CDs, play DVDs and (most importantly) install software to restore a damaged operating system. Clever idea, but trickier than it sounds. Macbook Air owners would be nuts if they didn't buy Apple's new $99 SuperDrive external disk drive. (Of course, that's one more suitor for that lone USB port.) More disturbingly to power users, the maximum built-in storage option -- the only one -- is an 80-gigabyte hard drive. Apple insists that if it used the 160-gig hard drive it offers in its high-end iPod Classic, it would blow the profile of the MacBook Air. Eighty gigs isn't much these days; you can get a bigger drive on even the low-end MacBook.

In one sense, this is a prescient look forward to the day when people will store their digital assets remotely, "in the cloud," as this concept is described. But since it's still a couple of years before my voluminous iTunes collection of movies and songs will be stashed in the ether, I need a computer with a standard-size drive, and the Macbook Air will work for me only as a second machine, a luxury item for on-the-go use.

While these omissions may be troubling -- especially to someone in a down-turning economy deciding whether to spend a premium sum for a computer with sub-premium storage -- the fact is that simply using the Macbook Air, as I'm doing right now in writing this review, is rather copacetic. Though I can quibble with a few of Apple's choices of what to take off, the product's dimensions and design definitely show that that the losses were not in vain. The things that Apple left on were the ingredients for a quality computer. And did I mention how thin it is?

The Onion on the Circumcision News

Monday, April 2, 2007

U.N. Urges Circumcision To Fight HIV

Citing studies that say that circumcision can cut the chances of contracting HIV by up to 60 percent, United Nations health agencies are urging heterosexual males to undergo the procedure. What do you think?

Raymond DeShaw,
Baggage Porter
"I don't like it. Governments should stick to telling women what to do with their bodies."

Lisa Ishikowa,
Systems Analyst
"Let's hope that Africans are more adept at outpatient surgery than they are at handling condoms."

Robert Galloway,
Loan Officer
"Unfortunately I have already been circumcised. Is there any benefit in cutting off even more of my penis?"

WHO endorses circumcision

From the BBC...

WHO agrees [with] HIV circumcision plan

Foreskin cells are thought to be more vulnerable to HIV infection International experts have backed the use of male circumcision in the prevention of HIV. The World Health Organization and UNAIDS said circumcision should be added to current interventions to reduce the spread of HIV. Three African trials have shown that circumcision halved the rate of HIV infection in heterosexual men. The recommendations largely apply to countries where rates of heterosexual transmission is high. Modelling studies have shown that if male circumcision was more widely available, millions of lives, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa would be saved. WHO and UNAIDS said access to the procedure should be urgently scaled up in areas with high rates of heterosexual infection and low rates of male circumcision...[more ]

Really Biblical: Take your oath while holding your male member

There has been an outcry about what's the proper way to swear in a America, a country that some say must be united by the bible. We've written about it several times in this blog.

Of course if you really want to perform a biblical oath you might want to consider this manner, as summarized by R. David Freedman.

"Put Your Hand Under My Thigh" - The Patriarchal Oath

By R. David Freedman
In Genesis 24:2-9 Abraham has his servant Eliezer put his hand under the Patriarch's thigh to swear "by the Lord, the God of heaven and earth" that the servant will not arrange a marriage for Abraham's son Isaac with a Canaanite woman. Similarly, in Genesis 47:29-31 the dying Patriarch Jacob has his son Joseph swear to him that he will bury Jacob not in Egypt, but alongside Jacob's own parents in the Cave of Machpelah; and the oath-taking ritual again calls for putting a hand under the Patriarch's thigh.
Talmudic tradition¹ takes these verses to indicate that the oath was sworn while the circumcised membrum of the Patriarch was held in hand, and derives from this interpretation the rule that all Jewish oaths must be sworn while some ritual object is held in hand. Ordinary people must hold a Torah scroll; scholars may hold any ritual object.

In the Times Herald Record today (New York's Hudson Valley and the Catskills) there is an opinion by Kathleen Parker, a syndicated columnist that she calls, "The wolf who cried racist."

It is a balanced column that rightly notes with criticism the showboating aspect of Dennis Prager's crusade against Keith Ellison for his desire to swear on the Koran. She also notes with praise the desire by Prager, a Jew, to live in a bible based culture rather than a Koran governed society.

In multi-culti America, there's no worse offense than being a "racist," and no word has suffered more abuse.

We've had a taste of that recently as Muslim and Jew have slugged it out over whether a Koran can be used at a private swearing-in ceremony for Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to the U.S. Congress.

Dennis Prager, a popular talk show host and columnist, who happens to be Jewish - as well as a thoroughly decent fellow - wrote a column recently protesting Ellison's insistence on injecting his religious preference into an American tradition:

"Forgive me, but America should not give a hoot what Keith Ellison's favorite book is. ... If you are incapable of taking oath on that book (the Bible), don't serve in Congress."

Prager has been pilloried from all sides. In the blogosphere, he's been called everything from racist to Islamophobic. Former New York Mayor Ed Koch called Prager a "bigot" and a "schmuck," and is demanding his resignation or removal from the board of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, on which both men serve.

Most entertaining has been a similar demand from CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations), lest Muslims worldwide get a negative impression about "America's commitment to religious tolerance."

Irony must be basking.

CAIR routinely demonstrates intolerance for any opinion deemed insensitive to its views and targets individuals and institutions for cyber-posses and technomobs. Ask any cartoonist who has drawn an image of you-know-who.

Back through the looking glass, Prager says his objections have nothing to do with race or religious intolerance but with a concern for American solidarity. His premise is that the country is in danger of unraveling if we continue to erode traditions that are the common threads of the republic.

Prager asserts that the Bible has been used for swearing-in ceremonies since George Washington. Which is true, except when it isn't.

Not every elected official has used the Bible, including some Jews (Koch, a U.S. representative from 1969-77, used a Hebrew Bible for his initial swearing-in) and some Quakers, including Herbert Hoover, whose beliefs prohibit the swearing of oaths.

The U.S. Constitution, meanwhile, leaves plenty of wiggle room for those who prefer not to make religious statements. Eugene Volokh, constitutional law professor at UCLA, has written that requiring someone to swear on the Bible would violate the Constitution's provision that "no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."

It appears that Prager is, at least technically, wrong. But his concerns are not those of a hatemonger. Prager is merely the quarterback in the latest scrimmage over ideas in post-9/11 America.

There is a growing sense, both here and in Europe, that Western civilization is under siege by the radical Muslim world, the expressed goal of which is to convert the rest of us. There's not much wiggle room in Sharia law for optional religious practices. Or, we note, accessorizing wardrobes.

On a certain level, one can understand Prager's view that introducing the Koran into American government is a taunt to traditional values.

On another level, those same values allow us to see Ellison's legitimate wish to swear on the holy book of his choosing. What Christian or Jew duly elected in a predominantly Muslim country would want to be forced to swear on a Koran?

The punch line, of course, is that our religious tolerance is shared by few Muslim nations, some of which won't allow a Bible to enter the country. Our better angels may yet be our worst enemies.

Obviously, Ellison could forgo the Koran and affirm as others have. That he insists on the Koran is probable cause to infer that he's trying to make a statement and assert himself as a Muslim in the U.S. Congress.

Before 9/11, that singular act might not have drawn attention. But that was then.

Hoisting the red flag, as Prager has done, isn't an act of bigotry ? or even schmuckery. It is the understandable reflex of a man, who, as Prager himself puts it, knows that a Bible-swearing nation has been, and will be, a better place for Jews to live than one that swears on the Koran.

Genius is not required to grasp that concept, but civility is critical to debating these issues. Name-calling and showboating righteousness - or demanding punitive action against those who voice an unpopular opinion ? is the wrong way up a dead-end street.

Radical Islam loves that sort of dogmatic intransigence.

Kathleen Parker is a syndicated columnist. Her e-mail address is kparker@kparker.-com.

http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061219/OPINION/612190324

NIH: Bris Milah may prevent HIV

Important findings. [Let's hope that is the WHO doctor's real name and not a spoof.]

Circumcision May Cut Risk of H.I.V.
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Circumcising adult men may cut in half their risk of getting the AIDS virus through heterosexual intercourse, the U.S. government announced Wednesday, as it shut down two studies in Africa testing the link.

The National Institutes of Health closed the studies in Kenya and Uganda early, when safety monitors took a look at initial results this week and spotted the protection. The studies' uncircumcised men are being offered the chance to undergo the procedure.

The link between male circumcision and HIV prevention was noted as long ago as the late 1980s. The first major clinical trial, of 3,000 men in South Africa, found last year that circumcision cut the HIV risk by 60 percent.

Still, many AIDS specialists had been awaiting the NIH's results as a final confirmation.

''Male circumcision can lower both an individual's risk of infection, and hopefully the rate of HIV spread through the community,'' said AIDS expert Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

But it's not perfect protection, Fauci stressed. Men who become circumcised must not quit using condoms nor take other risks -- and circumcision offers no protection from HIV acquired through anal sex or injection drug use, he noted.

''It's not a magic bullet, but a potentially important intervention,'' agreed Dr. Kevin De Cock of the World Health Organization.

Male circumcision is common at birth in the United States. But in sub-Saharan Africa, home to more than half of the world's almost 40 million HIV-infected people, there are large swaths of populations where male circumcision is rare.

The WHO plans an international meeting early next year to discuss the studies' results and how to translate them into policies that promote safe male circumcision -- done by trained health workers with sterile equipment -- while teaching men that it won't make them invulnerable.

Why would male circumcision play a role? Cells in the foreskin of the penis are particularly susceptible to the HIV virus, Fauci explained. Also, the foreskin is more fragile than the tougher skin surrounding it, providing a surface that the virus could penetrate more easily.

Researchers enrolled 2,784 HIV-negative men in Kisumu, Kenya, and 4,996 HIV-negative men in Rakai, Uganda, into the studies. Some were circumcised; others were just monitored.

Over two years, 22 of the circumcised Kenyans became infected with HIV compared with 47 uncircumcised men, a 53 percent reduction. In Uganda, 22 circumcised men became infected vs. 43 of the uncircumcised, a 48 percent reduction.

The researchers are offering all of the studies' uncircumcised men the chance to undergo the procedure, and 80 percent of the uncircumcised Ugandans already have agreed, said lead researcher Ronald Gray of Johns Hopkins University.

Side effects were rare, including some mostly mild infections that were easily treated. The rate of side effects was comparable to those seen in circumcised U.S. infants, said Robert Bailey of the University of Illinois at Chicago, who led the Kenyan trial.

NY Times: Bris Milah Prevents Disease

Religions do not need science to prove their value. But, it never hurts to have a little external validation now and then.

Vital Signs
Outcomes: Circumcision May Reduce Risk of S.T.D.’s
By NICHOLAS BAKALAR

Men who are circumcised may have a significantly reduced risk of acquiring a sexually transmitted disease compared with those who are not, a New Zealand study has found.

Researchers followed a group of 510 boys born in 1977, giving them frequent periodic medical examinations until they were 25. Thirty percent of them had been circumcised by age 15. A little less than 3 percent reported a medically diagnosed sexually transmitted disease at age 21, and an additional 6.6 percent reported one at 25.

After statistically adjusting for family education, socioeconomic status, number of partners and self-reported unprotected sex, researchers concluded that the odds of acquiring a subsequent S.T.D. were 3.19 times higher for men who were uncircumcised. The study was published this month in Pediatrics.

David M. Fergusson, the lead author of the study and a professor of medical psychology at Christchurch School of Medicine, warned that the results were not conclusive. “We are cautious about the findings,” he said. “They depend on self-reports, and not all studies agree with ours. But our results definitely suggest that circumcision may reduce rates of S.T.D.’s. We think we’re correct, but it’s best not to be dogmatic about it.”

Dr. Fergusson declined to offer advice to parents. “Decisions to circumcise children should not be made on the basis of one study,” he said. “They should be based on all the evidence. There is certainly evidence of benefit, but the complicated decision parents face is weighing the benefits against the risks of a surgical procedure. Even if we assumed all the evidence favored circumcision, most children wouldn’t benefit from it. We estimate that you would have to circumcise 20 boys to prevent one case of sexually transmitted disease.”