BREAKING NEWS

by Sharon Udasin And Stewart Ain
Staff Writers

POSTED WEDNESDAY, NOV. 4,  6:00 p.m.

An Evangelical leader who believes Jews can accept Jesus without giving up their Jewish identity will be the keynote speaker in two weeks at an event for Birthright Israel alumni, sponsored by Birthright NEXT and the Jewish Enrichment Center.

“You can still be Jewish and believe in Jesus as the messiah,” the invited speaker, Gordon Robertson, said on a July 2008 program of the Christian Broadcasting Network, of which he is the CEO.

The network was founded by his father, the Rev. Pat Robertson, a former presidential candidate, who once blamed Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s severe stroke on his willingness to “divide the land” of Israel.

A Birthright NEXT official said the group is aware of Gordon Robertson’s beliefs that a Jew can believe in Jesus, but maintains that his theological views have no impact on his suitability has a speaker.

“We’re not asking him to come and talk about Christianity or Jews trying to get Jews to believe in Christianity. It’s not the topic,” said Rebecca Sugar, the New York director of Birthright Israel NEXT NY alumni programming.  Continue reading…

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Update on 11/12/09: Also appears in this week’s paper, here.

Stream Of Criticism For Jewish Comic Larry David

David in mid-stream during last week’s episode of “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”

by Sharon Udasin
Staff Writer

Lenny Bruce cursed a blue streak. Don Rickles insulted anyone within hearing distance. Sacha Baron Cohen has raised embarrassment of the unsuspected — Jews and non-Jews alike — into an art form. And for Sarah Silverman, not even the memory of the Holocaust is sacred.

But urinating on a portrait of Jesus?

Larry David last week may have gone farther than any Jewish comic in pushing the comedic envelope — and perhaps flushing it down the toilet.

In an episode of the popular HBO series “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” which caricatures David’s true-life social faux-pas and uncouth mannerisms, the wise guy accidentally splashes the framed picture hanging in his devout secretary’s bathroom, just next to her toilet. Because of a medical condition, he is taking a drug that makes him urinate like a racehorse (his sidekick Jerry Seinfeld, who appears in the episode, compares his stream to that of the great Seabiscuit).

When a drop splashes right under Jesus’ eye, David tries but fails to clean up the spray, which has now taken the shape of a tear crawling down Jesus’ cheek. Hours later, David’s secretary Maureen springs into his office in excitement, announcing that she and her mother had witnessed a miracle in their bathroom and would be touring the country in an RV with the crying portrait. (The allusion, presumably, is to believers who claim to see depictions of Jesus or the Virgin Mary in such unlikely places as grilled cheese sandwiches.)

Catholics — and even some Jewish comics and organizations — are crying foul.

“I think it’s important that people understand that Catholics have had it,” Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, told The Jewish Week. “Larry David wouldn’t piss on the face of Barack Obama and then tell blacks who are upset to get over it. They just simply wouldn’t do it.”  Continue reading…