Jews

Re "Evil targets God's chosen," Current, July 10 Dennis Prager writes that without the Jews there would be no Christianity and no Islam, but if this were true then he neglects to mention another thing there would not be: war. As a Jew, I find it disturbing to live in a world where we hail our own spiritual faith as somehow more important than another's. Millions have paid the ultimate price for this spiritual arrogance with their suffering at the hands of someone else's belief system.

It wasn't surprising that Rafael Medoff's April 7 Op-Ed article about President Franklin D. Roosevelt's private comments on Jews facing persecution in Europe drew spirited responses (though I do admit that I was a little rattled that most of the letters defended Roosevelt). We published several letters Friday -- one from an American Jew who favorably compared the 32nd president's record on genocide to his successors. In response to that letter, in Saturday's Postscript , Medoff listed several instances in which the Roosevelt administration neglected to do anything meaningful to interrupt the Holocaust -- and in ways that would not have undermined the war effort against Hitler.

It's one of the greatest stories ever told: A baby is found in a basket adrift in the Egyptian Nile and is adopted into the pharaoh's household. He grows up as Moses, rediscovers his roots and leads his enslaved Israelite brethren to freedom after God sends down 10 plagues against Egypt and parts the Red Sea to allow them to escape. They wander for 40 years in the wilderness and, under the leadership of Joshua, conquer the land of Canaan to enter their promised land.

Responding to Rafael Medoff's Op-Ed article Sunday detailing FDR's reaction to Jews facing persecution in Nazi Germany, reader Robert Ouriel wrote in a letter published Friday that "as an American and a Jew, I found [Medoff's] criticism of Franklin D. Roosevelt for his private comments about Jews most unfair. " He continued: "In singling out FDR, Medoff also ignores the squeamishness of America's modern presidents in dealing with genocide. Jimmy Carter, a human rights crusader, did nothing to prevent Pol Pot from exterminating as much as 20% of Cambodia's population.

Most Sundays, you can find Rabbi Shlomo Schwartz among the Tarot card readers, fortunetellers and incense sellers on the Venice Beach boardwalk with a booth of his own: "Jewish Astrology." If you miss the sign, he's unmistakable: a jovial 51-year-old man with a long beard who answers to the nickname "Schwartzie" and who sports a tie-dyed T-shirt and a baseball cap bearing the words "Grateful Yid."

Gregory Cochran has always been drawn to puzzles. This one had been gnawing at him for several years: Why are European Jews prone to so many deadly genetic diseases? Tay-Sachs disease. Canavan disease. More than a dozen more. It offended Cochran's sense of logic. Natural selection, the self-taught genetics buff knew, should flush dangerous DNA from the gene pool. Perhaps the mutations causing these diseases had some other, beneficial purpose. But what?

'Jews on Vinyl' Where: Skirball Cultural Center, 2701 N. Sepulveda Blvd., Los Angeles When: 7:30 p.m. Thursday Price: $10; $8 members, $6 students Info: (310) 440-4500; http://www.skirball.org

In his latest book, "Jesus of Nazareth, Part II," Pope Benedict XVI says that the Jews, as a people, did not kill Jesus. This is ? fortunately ? not a new pronouncement from the Roman Catholic Church. For more than four decades, it has been officially condemning anti-Semitism and rejecting any interpretation of the New Testament that held all Jews, then or now, responsible for the death of Jesus. Since Vatican II's landmark 1965 declaration on Catholicism and non-Christian religions addressed this issue, church officials have sought to forge better relations with Jews by reinterpreting spiritual texts, expressing deep sorrow over the Holocaust and calling on Christians who by their actions or inactions were complicit in the events of the Holocaust to repent.

'Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story' Unrated Running time: 1 hour, 29 minutes Playing: Laemmle's Music Hall, Beverly Hills, and Town Center 5, Encino

Seventy years after Norway helped send hundreds of Jews to Auschwitz, the nation's police have apologized for their role in rounding up and deporting people to Nazi concentration camps. The sober words from the Norwegian national police commissioner mark the first such apology from Norwegian police. After being invaded and occupied by Germany, Norway deported 772 Jews on ships leaving Oslo during the war. Only 32 of the people survived. The vast majority were expelled from Norway on Nov. 26, 1942, when 532 Jewish people were loaded onto the Donau.

Re "What FDR said in private," Opinion, April 7 As an American and a Jew, I found Rafael Medoff's criticism of Franklin D. Roosevelt for his private comments about Jews most unfair. FDR understood that the best way to end the Holocaust was to defeat Hitler, which he did at the cost of hundreds of thousands of American lives. In singling out FDR, Medoff also ignores the squeamishness of America's modern presidents in dealing with genocide. Jimmy Carter, a human rights crusader, did nothing to prevent Pol Pot from exterminating as much as 20% of Cambodia's population.

In May 1943, President Franklin Roosevelt met with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill at the White House. It was 17 months after Pearl Harbor and a little more than a year before D-Day. The two Allied leaders reviewed the war effort to date and exchanged thoughts on their plans for the postwar era. At one point in the discussion, FDR offered what he called "the best way to settle the Jewish question. " Vice President Henry Wallace, who noted the conversation in his diary, said Roosevelt spoke approvingly of a plan (recommended by geographer and Johns Hopkins University President Isaiah Bowman)

CAIRO - The battle between censors and filmmakers over "Jews of Egypt" ended this week when authorities granted permission for the documentary to be shown despite fears it may agitate Egypt's anti-Israeli hatred amid months of political unrest and nationwide protests. The film by director Amir Ramses raised a dilemma over security versus artistic freedom at a time when the rise of conservative Islamist voices has sharpened religious and cultural differences. The documentary explores the life of Egypt's Jewish community before the second Arab-Israeli war in 1956.

Later this month, President Obama will visit Israel, a country intended by an act of international law to be the reconstituted Jewish national home. The visit will be highly charged, but at the same time, many Israelis have low expectations for what could come of it. The president's protracted but unsuccessful attempts to stifle Iran's nuclear weapons program, his insistence on zealously challenging Israel's right to a united Jerusalem and his inability to pressure the Palestinian Authority to fulfill its obligations are among the chief reasons for the lack of excitement in Israel.

A federal appeals court revived a lawsuit Tuesday by female prisoners who contend that the California prison system is violating their rights by refusing to hire a full-time Wiccan chaplain. A district court rejected the inmates' suit, but a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the inmates may have a valid claim. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation hires chaplains for five faiths: Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim and Native American.

Re "Holocaust's children," Column One, Jan. 4 Doris Small's story, in which she escaped Nazi Germany before World War II thanks to the rescue mission Kindertransport, is indeed very moving and poignant. But let's not forget that there was an effort by a few Americans to actually try to do the same thing the British government was doing then. It was Eleanor Roosevelt who in 1939 urged her husband to support a bill in Congress to allow 20,000 Jewish children to come to America and be temporarily adopted by American parents for the duration of the hostility.

In the dusty clutter of yard and estate sales, the lost heroes of Jewish American song and comedy are waiting to be reclaimed and celebrated in all their kitschy splendor. And they can't help but wonder: What's taking you so long? There's vaudeville comedienne Mae Questel, who supplied the voice of Betty Boop, and her loud-mouthed 1969 record, "Mrs. Portnoy's Retort." (Take that, Philip Roth.) On the cutting edge of liturgical singing, there's Sol Zim, who calls himself the Tom Jones of cantors.

EVENTS Jews on Vinyl This multisensory exhibition guest-curated by authors Roger Bennett and Josh Kun tells the story of the Jewish experience in America. Starting with records in the '40s and ending in the '80s with the holy triumvirate of Barry Manilow, Barbra Streisand and Neil Diamond, the exhibit is set in a campy 1950s living room equipped with listening stations. Like Bennett and Kun's book, "And You Shall Know Us by the Trail of Our Vinyl: The Jewish Past as Told by the Records We Have Loved and Lost," this Skirball show will take you deep into the Jewish musical memory.

Jews worry for a living. Their dark history and, in the case of American Jews, their legitimate concerns about the security of the state of Israel impel them to do so. But sometimes those concerns are overblown and reflect a kind of collective cosmic oy vey that gets in the way of sound and rational judgment. Such is the case in the matter of Chuck Hagel's nomination to be President Obama's next secretary of Defense. Some of the comments attributed to Hagel about lobbies, Israel and the like come from an interview he gave me for my last book about American Middle East policy, particularly his use of the term "Jewish lobby.

Most postmortems of the 2012 elections have focused on its implications for the future of the Republican Party, the rise of the Latino vote or the continued polarization of the country by party and region. But here's a takeaway you probably haven't encountered: Catholics are coming on strong. This is from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life: “Catholics have seen the biggest gains among the 533 members [of Congress] who are scheduled to be sworn in on Jan. 3. Catholics picked up seven seats, for a total of 163, raising their share to just over 30%. Protestants and Jews experienced the biggest declines in numerical terms.