The newly elected president of Argentina’s biggest Jewish community center sparked a firestorm when he was quoted in the press as saying he wanted the group to represent “genuine Jews” who live strictly by the Torah.

Guillermo Borger is the first Orthodox Jew elected to head the AMIA (Argentine Israeli Mutual Association) center in Buenos Aires, which was founded 114 years ago. Argentina’s Jewish community is the largest in Latin America with nearly 200,000 members.

Borger was quoted last weekend by Argentina’s biggest daily newspaper Clarin as saying he planned to “reinforce AMIA’s role in representing genuine Jews.” When asked what made a Jew genuine, he said: “It’s having a life based on all the Torah’s teachings.”

Conservative and secular Jews pounced on the statement, slamming Borger’s comments as narrow and discriminatory. The outgoing president of AMIA, Luis Grynwald, said he included himself among the Jews “who are not ‘genuine,’ and don’t have a life based on what the Torah dictates,” according to the Argentina-based Agencia Judía de Noticias (Jewish News Agency).

“Being Jewish is teaching my children and grandchildren the importance of inclusion, belonging, respect and honesty … each person expresses Judaism in his own way, I do so with pride and great honor,” Grynwald said.

Argentine writer Marcos Aguinis called Borger’s remarks “a medieval step backward,” warning that AMIA could lose members if the group’s pluralistic tradition were scrapped.

Borger came out later in the week, saying he had never said anything to distinguish between genuine and “non-genuine” Jews and adding that he aimed to reinforce AMIA’s role as “the representative of all Jews, without any exclusions.”

“We want an AMIA for everyone that is open and pro-dialogue,” he said in a statement.

Not everyone was put at ease, however, and some AMIA members led a protest against Borger’s comments on Thursday. “Now they say you’re not a Jew unless you’re Orthodox, fundamentalist and religious … that excludes 98.5 percent of the Jewish community,” a middle-aged man told local television.

The AMIA center became international news in 1994, when a bombing there killed 85 people.

Think the uproar over John Hagee’s comments about Hitler, the Holocaust, the Bible and John McCain’s rejection of his endorsement is over? Hardly.

U.S. news networks have been abuzz with the latest twist to the saga — a Hagee endorsement (of sorts) from renegade Democrat-turned-independent Senator Joe Lieberman.

Lieberman, who is Jewish, said in a statement posted on his website on Wednesday that “I believe that Pastor Hagee has made comments that are deeply unacceptable and hurtful. I also believe that a person should be judged on the entire span of his or her life’s works.”

The maverick Connecticut senator went on to note Hagee’s work with “Christians United for Israel.”

“Pastor Hagee has devoted much of his life to fighting anti-Semitism and building bridges between Christians and Jews. The organization that he has helped build, Christians United for Israel, is a vital force in supporting the war against terrorism and defending our ally, Israel. I will go to the CUFI Summit in July and speak,” he said.

Presumptive Republican nominee McCain dumped Hagee like a burning ember last week after it emerged that the Texas pastor had given a sermon in the 1990s in which he quoted from the Bible to make the argument that Hitler was doing God’s work by helping to drive the Jews back to Israel.

In apocalyptic Christian circles in the United States, the creation of the state of Israel in the aftermath of the Second World War is widely taken as a key sign that the End Times are drawing near.

Millions of evangelical Americans to varying degrees subscribe to such views.

Observers of this scene say Hagee’s views are hardly news.

“He’s been saying this kind of thing for decades … he’s a providentialist — he believes that everything that happens on earth is part of God’s plan for the redemption of the world,” said historian Nicholas Guyatt, who has written extensively on apocalyptic Christian culture.

Watch this space: Hagee will remain in the news for some time to come.

Remember that unexpected comment that Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah made in March that he wanted to hold an inter-faith dialogue with Christians and Jews? The Vatican welcomed it and the Tel Aviv newspaper Yedioth Ahronot reported that Saudi muftis were sending out feelers to Israeli rabbis about attending such talks, a report which was swiftly denied in Riyadh.

FaithWorld’s take on it at the time was sceptical. As Andrew Hammond in Riyadh wrote: “The king is seen in Saudi Arabia as a reformer but one who has been outmaneuvered by the powerful religious establishment and their allies in the royal family. The interfaith conference call may be a kind of trial balloon launched to see what kind of reaction it gets in a country where liberals and religious conservatives are engaged in an ideological struggle for the future of Saudi Arabia.”

The World Jewish Congress issued a statement on Monday welcoming the king’s proposal. It quoted WJC President Ronald Lauder as saying many obstacles still stood in the way but “King Abdullah’s initiative is a laudable step forward. We hope that other religious and political leaders throughout the world will be encouraged to join.” WJC Governing Board Chairman Matthew Bronfman added: “The World Jewish Congress is ready to participate in any serious inter-faith talks that are based on mutual respect.”

Another Tel Aviv newspaper, Haaretz, took this a step further today with a story saying: “Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah has sent an invitation to the World Jewish Congress for an interfaith dialogue with Muslim and Christian leaders, Haaretz has learned.” Now that would be news … if it were confirmed. But the WJC promptly denied the report, saying it had not received anything. The positive statement was issued now because the WJC steering committee just held its first meeting since Abdullah’s proposal and discussed it there.

The idea that Saudi Arabia would invite Christians and Jews to Islam’s heartland for “conferences between the religions to protect humanity from folly,” as Abdullah put it, is clearly too tempting for the Tel Aviv newspapers to ignore. But is it realistic to expect the Saudis to host such talks? Let us know what you think.

Jews are returning to Russia. For as long as anyone alive can remember, the flow was mostly in the other direction. But Amie Ferris-Rotman and Conor Sweeney in our Moscow bureau have found a return wave, despite a persistent anti-Semitism there:

Around one million Jews fled during the Soviet era and the post-communist chaos. Those returning now from Israel, the United States and Europe hope to use their new skills and old knowledge to do business.

“Now there are services here, like in New York and Paris, but the lifestyle is more interesting than in either of them — it’s easy to understand why thousands are coming back,” said Yevgeny Satanovsky, president of the Russian Jewish Congress.

Hard statistics on Jews returning to Russia do not exist, said Satanovsky, but anecdotal evidence is there. He estimates 80,000-120,000 Russian Jews have returned, plus many more who originated in other Soviet republics.

Read the whole feature here.

A 17-year-old Israeli girl is a leading contender to win the country’s annual youth Bible quiz, but there’s a controversial twist: She believes in Jesus.

Tipped off about Bat El Levy’s beliefs, an anti-missionary group has called on religious Jews to boycott the May 8 contest, at which she will compete against 15 other teenagers from Israel and abroad for a prize awarded by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

The group, Yad L’Ahim, has invoked Israeli law forbidding Christians from proselytizing in the Jewish state. But there is more at stake in the quiz, which is held on Israel’s 60th
Independence Day — the question of who has a better command of holy writ.

In a protest letter quoted by Israel’s Maariv newspaper, Yad L’Ahim chairman Rabbi Shlomo Dov Lipschitz said Levy “has a chance of becoming the world Bible champion” and that this could “greatly encourage” the spread of Christianity among Jews. He further argued that Levy should be disqualified from the quiz because she is, in his view, non-Jewish.

This was rejected by Israel’s Education Ministry, which runs the Bible quiz. “The girl is designated as Jewish, and her personal beliefs are not a matter of concern to us,” a ministry spokeswoman said.

Levy could not be reached for comment. A relative of the girl, who has already proved her scriptural mettle in regional Israeli contests, said she was busy studying for the quiz.

The relative, who declined to be named, confirmed that Levy and her family “believe in Yeshua Ben-David, the saviour from Nazareth” — Jesus’s Hebrew name. But Yad L’Ahim was wrong in branding Levy a missionary, the family member said.

“The family keeps its faith to itself. To these people, anyone who disagrees with their version of Jewish belief is the enemy. I hope God pays them back in kind,” the relative said.

Representatives of Israeli Jews who believe in Jesus say the community numbers between 8,000 and 10,000, out of a total population of more than 7 million. These so-called Jewish Christians keep a low profile to avoid causing offence in a state where many blame centuries of anti-Semitic persecution in Europe on Christian dogma.

There is also an issue of personal safety. Jewish Christians have on occasion been targeted for attack. In March, a homemade bomb was left in a building in the Jewish
settlement of Ariel, in the occupied West Bank, where members of the community resides. A boy was maimed. Last October, a Jerusalem church that holds services in Hebrew was damaged in a firebomb attack.

Should Levy’s beliefs disqualify her from this contest? Would it be offensive to Israel or to Jews if she won the Bible quiz?

Loving thy neighbour is not always easy, especially, it seems, when it comes to the traditional site of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus.

Christian factions have squabbled for years over who controls which parts of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem’s divided Old City.

Sometimes they even come to blows.

Priests and worshippers at an Orthodox Palm Sunday celebration on April 20 ended up brawling after Armenian clerics apparently kicked a Greek Orthodox priest out of a shrine at the church — one of Christianity’s holiest.

Police weren’t sure what sparked the fist-fight, but friction between the sects has been simmering for centuries. A Muslim keeps the key, and about 150 years ago, theTurks elaborately carved up territory in the church between the feuding Christian factions.

Police are braced for another punch-up when the eastern churches celebrate Easter on April 27 with the centuries-old “Miracle of the Holy Fire” ceremony.

Orthodox Christians believe the Holy Spirit miraculously lights candles when the Greek patriarch enters the shrine meant to mark Jesus’s tomb alone. The Armenians think their leader should be allowed in too.

I recently interviewed the director of a new Israeli documentary film called “Holy Fire”, which explores the religious fervour that grips Jerusalem’s Old City, revered by Christians, Muslims and Jews.

Yoram Sabo, a secular Jew, said he was initially befuddled by the priestly quarelling at the Holy Sepulchre. But after three years of following the story’s twists and turns he came to understand that conflict was almost inevitable in a place endowed with such meaning for so many.

“It may seem trivial,” he said. “But you have to look at it through religious glasses — people fight for what they think is important.”

Earlier this month an Israeli court decided that stores and restaurants can sell food banned by Jewish ritual law during this week’s Passover holiday. Israeli courts are often arbiters in quarrels between Israel’s influential Orthodox community and its secular majority. This time the ruling has angered the Orthodox.

Ritual Jewish law forbids consuming leavened products known as hametz– from bread to beer– during the week of Passover. The tradition commemorates the biblical Israelites who did not have time to let their bread rise before the hasty exodus from slavery in Egypt.

My article on the Passover debate discusses the details and consequences of the April 3 court decision that overturned the convictions of two restaurant owners, a grocer and the owner of a pizza parlor who sold hametz last year. The court ruled that restaurants and stores can serve hametz because they are not “public areas.”

The decision has been heavily protested, including by a 27-year-old Orthodox man who was arrested by police after he stripped off his clothes in a non-kosher supermarket near Tel Aviv to challenge the definition of “public areas.”

But this is just the latest episode highlighting the rift between Orthodox and secular Jews in Israel.

The courts and attorney general have already intervened several times this past year when Orthodox and secular interests collided, including in debates on religious-public bus lines and same-sex adoption.

Israel will celebrate its 60th anniversary next month but is still trying to define its identity as a Jewish state.

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, a secular Jew, said she did not agree with the court’s decision.

“Most of us don’t follow all the commandments and I disagree with the (ultra-Orthodox) parties on many things, but we have an interest in protecting the values and symbols of a Jewish state,” she told her centrist Kadima faction. “Everyone’s talking about the 60th anniversary celebrations. Every child knows what democracy is, but when they are asked what is a Jewish state, people stand with their mouth agape.”

Beloved by Jews and Christians as a biblical hero, King David is famous for slaying Goliath with a single slingshot. Despite some serious moral slip-ups — he seduced the beautiful Bathsheba then sent her husband off to war to die — David is traditionally championed as the fearless leader who vanquishes the Philistines in the name of God.

But in a new biblical novel by Israeli author Yochi Brandes, “Kings III”, David is portrayed as a blood-thirsty warrior and womaniser who mercilessly slaughters his enemies.

“It’s provocative, and it plays with people’s expectations,” Brandes told Reuters in an interview this week. “The reader gets angry at this dictatorial ruler, then discovers at the end it is actually a character they have been taught to love.”

Brandes, who teaches biblical studies in several Israeli colleges, says she is simply teasing out parts of the Bible and Jewish teachings which have been hidden or ignored for centuries, and giving them a controversial new twist.

But she acknowledges the book, which has been published in Hebrew and is slated to be translated into English, is likely to ruffle some feathers among both religious Jews and Christians.

My interview with Brandes this week explores some of the book’s ideas in more detail, and a lengthier story in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz delves deeper into the theological implications for a Bible-educated Jewish audience.

What do you think? Should biblical characters be deconstructed in this way to sell novels? Is this an insult to a central character in Jewish and Christian scripture?

The call last week by Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah for an interfaith dialogue has provoked outraged reactions from Saudi Islamists and praise from Saudi liberals. Saudis of all persuasions were taken by surprise when Abdullah made his announcement, which met with a quick and positive response from religious leaders abroad. The Vatican was said to be especially interested in this idea because Abdullah made a groundbreaking visit to Rome and met Pope Benedict last November.

But one report in the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronot went to the nub of the matter — will Jewish rabbis be able to visit the bastion of Sunni Islam and home to Islam’s two holiest sites? That would be big news. As the Israeli daily reported it, the Saudi grand mufti, the official government spokesperson on religious affairs, had begun sending out feelers to Israeli rabbis to attend some meeting in Riyadh at an unspecified date.

Well, the report made it into English and led to the mufti, Sheikh Abdel-Aziz Al al-Sheikh, issuing a carefully-worded denial. “The mufti clarified that what was published in some newspapers and news agencies saying that he had called on a group of Israeli religious scholars to take part in a religious reconciliation conference in Riyadh is devoid of any truth and has no basis,” the Saudi royal-owned paper Asharq al-Awsat reported on its front page on Wednesday. “He said: ‘I hope everyone will check facts before reporting things’.”

The report did not reject the idea of such a dialogue, which the mufti would hardly oppose since he is a representative of a government that now officially wants to hold an interfaith conference. All he did was say that, up to this point, he had not asked any Israelis to come to anything. So he might in the future, but we’ll have to wait and see on that.

In an indication of the diametrically opposed constituences the mufti must consider, Islamists commenting on web sites were exultant that he had refuted the reports. “We all know that the Jews are people of lies and slander. So it’s no surprise they would claim the mufti did such a thing. Therefore, we have to be careful about what the newspapers and agencies are saying,” one user on Saha.net wrote. “It is well-known that the mufti rejects dialogues of religion since he has said before in sermons that they are empty and amount to concessions,” another said.

Meanwhile, Saudi dailies with liberal leanings are trumpeting the positive attention the king has won for Saudi Arabia abroad. “CNN describes the king as a history-maker,” al-Watan said on Wednesday in a front-page headline, adding: “Global support for the king’s initiative for a dialogue of religions.”

The king is seen in Saudi Arabia as a reformer but one who has been outmaneuvered by the powerful religious establishment and their allies in the royal family. The interfaith conference call may be a kind of trial balloon launched to see what kind of reaction it gets in a country where liberals and religious conservatives are engaged in an ideological struggle for the future of Saudi Arabia.

There is no end to modern speculation trying to explain how some ancient event in the Bible may have happened. Here’s the latest, picked up by Jeffrey Heller, editor-in-charge in our Jerusalem bureau:

The biblical Israelites may have been high on a hallucinogenic plant when Moses brought the Ten Commandments down from Mount Sinai, according to a new study by an Israeli psychology professor.

Writing in the British journal Time and Mind, Benny Shanon of Jerusalem’s Hebrew University said two plants in the Sinai desert contain the same psychoactive molecules as those found in plants from which the powerful Amazonian hallucinogenic brew ayahuasca is prepared.

The thunder, lightning and blaring of a trumpet which the Book of Exodus says emanated from Mount Sinai could just have been the imaginings of a people in an “altered state of awareness”, Shanon hypothesised…

Read the whole story here. For Shanon’s article “Biblical Entheogens: a Speculative
Hypothesis,” click here.

What do you think of this kind of speculation? Does it make a serious contribution to understanding faith? Or make the speculators seem like they’re straining science to explain — or explain away — miracles?