Our Most Recent Reports and Conversations
A Conversation With Max Blumenthal about his book,
Republican Gomorrah. The Christian right has grown by attracting people who were seeking to transcend their
personal sense of sin through its authoritarian structure. Now that authoritarian religious movement controls the Republican Party,
says author Blumenthal in conversation with Rabbi Haim Dov Beliak of JewsOnFirst.org.
Blumenthal emphasizes the influence of the theocratic Christian Reconstructionist movement on the Christian right and
tells how the late Rev. Jerry Falwell and his contemporaries appropriated the abortion issue from Reconstructionist founder Francis
Schaeffer. Click here.
An Enduring Passion: Sharon Raphael and Mina Meyer, a JewsOnFirst.org video. On their 37th anniversary,
Mina Meyer and Sharon Raphael married in California. The political activism that has been a constant of their life together dates back to the
founding of the gay liberation movement. Most recently, they tell Rabbi Haim Dov Beliak of JewsOnFirst, they have been protesting
last year's passage of Proposition 8 -- and have been gratified to discover themselves protesting alongside a new
generation of LGBT activists. Click here.
Interview about Proposition 8 with Community Leader Michael Weinstein. After we spoke with three rabbis (see below)
about the damage wreaked by Prop. 8, which overturned the right of same-sex couples to marry in California,
we recorded a conversation with Michael Weinstein, founding director of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation.
Said Weinstein: "It doesn't matter if you like gay and lesbian couples or approve of them.
The majority in a democracy doesn't get to deprive the minority of rights." Click
here.
Conversation about Prop. 8 with Rabbi Denise Eger. Rabbi Denise L. Eger of Congregation Kol-Ami in Los Angeles, who is
prominent in the Reform Movement and the effort for marriage equality, told JewsOnFirst:
"The passage of this very draconian measure took away the civil rights from Californians citizens....
There is so much hurt in the lives of the couples that have been married."
Click here.
Conversation about Prop. 8 with Rabbi Lisa Edwards. Edwards, rabbi of America's first gay synagogue, Beth Chaim Chadashim in Los Angeles,
told JewsOnFirst: "I officiated at 43 weddings. It feels quite personal to have lost this civil right by a vote of the people."
Click here.
Conversation about Prop. 8 with Dr. Elliot Dorff. Dorff, a Conservative rabbi and Rector and Sol and Anne Dorff Distinguished Service Professor in Philosophy
at the American Jewish University, said the "state should get out of the marriage business" and expressed concern about the impact of
Prop. 8 on gay and lesbian teens. Click here.
There are more items on marriage in California and Proposition 8 in State Laws on
Marriage Equality.
Our Most Important Reports and Conversations
Rebutting Obsession. This special section of JewsOnFirst centers on our major critical analysis of the controversial video
Obsession, which was delivered to millions of homes in support of the 2008 Republican presidential campaign. Obsession was widely criticized for
inflaming anti-Muslim sentiment. Our analysis
demonstrates the falsity of the video's claim of a direct connection between Hitler's Nazis and what it calls "Radical Islam."
The special section also includes profiles, sidebars and a summary presentation. Please click here.
Jewish Families announcement settlement in case against Delaware school district that sponsored religion. Following the February 2008
announcement that two Jewish families had settled part of their lawsuit against the Indian River School District, we continued our
news-breaking coverage of this story with an exclusive interview with plaintiff "Jane Doe." She told of her family's experiences struggling to make
the school district comply with the Constitution and of her leading role in formulating new policies that the settlement requires the district, which
spreads over much of southeast Delaware, to implement. The settment also provides compensation to the two families, whose children suffered religious discrimination.
Click here.
Ed Asner Tours with Play about Scopes Monkey Trial.
We talked with Ed Asner in 2007, while he was touring with The Great Tennessee Monkey Trial, a play based on transcripts of the
1925 Scopes Monkey trial. Asner, who played William Jennings Bryan in the play about the famous trial over teaching evolution,
spoke of the play's relevance for our time, when the teaching of creationism is making a comeback. He also recounts the situation
that created the Scopes trial and its aftermath, with laws throughout the Bible belt mandating the teaching of creationism.
Click here.
Southern Baptists rely on deception in effort to convert Jews.
Six million Jews and only 15 Southern Baptist Messianic Churches!
That juxtaposition by a Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) official involved in the denomination's aggressive
evangelizing of Jews prompted JewsOnFirst to ask the SBC: is its objective to empty Judaism of American Jews and make
them all Messianic Southern Baptists? We also talk with rabbis and Christian clergy about the
Southern Baptists' use of "Jewish-style" Christianity and Christian Zionism in their efforts to convert Jews.
Click here.
Christian Zionists lobby for U.S. attack on Iran.
Christian Zionists -- Christian evangelicals who avow support of Israel based on a belief in Biblical end-times scenarios --
are whipping their followers into a fervor in favor of an attack on Iran, we reported in July 2006. Religious right groups typically support aggressive
foreign policies because of their identification with the Republican Party and their interest in missionizing where the US intervenes.
But Christians United For Israel, a Christian Zionist group led by Rev. John Hagee (left), recently brought 3,500 citizen-lobbyists to Washington to advocate confrontation
with Iran based on "cherry-picked" Biblical interpretations. This report includes a sidebar,
What is Christian Zionism? by Rabbi Haim Dov Beliak. Click here.