May 5, 2011 Simon Wiesenthal Center Honors Tom Cruise Tonight Luke Ford No sacred cows.

Simon Wiesenthal Center Honors Tom Cruise Tonight

Posted on May 5, 2011 by Luke Ford

Yesterday afternoon, I got a phone call from the news department at a Los Angeles TV station. They were interested in reporting on the Tom Cruise dinner tonight but only if they could get a representative from a major Jewish organization denouncing the dinner.

I said, good luck. You won’t find one. There’s no upside for a Jewish organization to take on the Wiesenthal Center over this and there’s no down side to the Jews on this.

Sure, Scientology has some distasteful views on psychiatry. Scientology blames the Holocaust on psychiatry. That’s weird, but many groups have weird views on the Holocaust, including Orthodox Jewish groups which blame the Holocaust on Reform Judaism and Zionism.

A dinner honoring Tom Cruise will bring in millions of dollars for the Wiesenthal Center and that’s the bottom line. Many individuals have passionately antagonistic views on Scientology and Tom Cruise but they don’t count for much with Jewish organizations because they don’t have money. Those who do have money to donate are not going to base their contributions on a Tom Cruise dinner.

Michael Barger emailed me a couple of weeks ago on this matter:

Noted Holocaust scholar Professor Deborah Lipstadt at Emory University in writing about Tom Cruise has put her finger on the problem when she quotes a major critic of Scientology, Ursula Caberta of the Government of Hamburg’s Scientology Working Group, about Cruise being the celebrity promoter of a totalitarian regime.

Tom Cruise is not just an actor who is a Scientologist. He is an ambassador for Scientology. All totalitarian systems have their celebrities to open doors for them.

Not many familiar about Scientology abuses are likely to be convinced by Rabbi Hier’s contention that it is possible to honor Cruise the humanitarian while not honoring Cruise the Scientology promoter.

Scientology itself will not be in agreement with Rabbi Hier because it will gleefully exploit SWC’s humanitarian award as legitimizing the cult. In its propaganda it trumpets: “Tom Cruise has disseminated LRH technology to 1.1 billion people of earth.” A Church of Scientology video interview “Tom Cruise and Tom Cruise, Scientologist” was leaked to the internet in January 2008. It has been viewed over 6.5 million times.

The Church of Scientology forced YouTube to remove the video and in so doing sparked the largest opposition the cult has seen in its sixty-year history. Outraged at this suppression of free speech on “their internet” thousands of college students around the world formed the Anonymous anti-Scientology movement and have been relentlessly protesting on the streets and the internet for the last three years. Their impact has been enormous in liberating people terrified of speaking out for fear of Scientology’s intelligence agency, the Office of Special Affairs (OSA).

There are other important Jewish dimensions. Foremost is the totalitarian cult’s 15-year-long persecution of Holocaust survivor Paulette Cooper. Shortly after her birth her family was sent to a concentration camp. Her parents were subsequently murdered in Auschwitz. Seventeen of twenty-two of her relatives died in the Holocaust.

Raised in a kosher home after being adopted by US parents, she graduated from Brandeis University. In accord with the best Jewish values of sympathy for the underdog and a passion for justice she wrote one of the first critical books about the cult, The Scandal of Scientology. Scientology conceived Operation Freak Out to silence her. It used covert agents to smear her with accusations of engaging in sexual perversions with her rabbi.

They stole stationery with her fingerprints and wrote bomb threats for which she was indicted and arrested. She faced a nightmare proving her innocence and was sued nineteen times by the cult. When the cult’s intelligence agency was plotting to smear her before she came to testify at hearings in Clearwater, FL, (Scientology’s self-proclaimed Mecca) one official wrote in a telex:

If you want legal docs, from here on we will provide. Then if she still declines to come we slap the writs on her before she reaches CW [Clearwater] as we don’t want to be seen publically [sic] being brutal to such a pathetic victim from a concentration camp.

Paulette’s reflection on her experience is here. An interview with Jewcy.com is here.

Why is a Jewish human rights organization honoring Cruise when Scientology’s human rights abuses will be hanging over the event?

Profesor Lipstadt has addressed two important issues: the cult’s shameless exploitation of the Holocaust against psychiatry and its campaign against the German government comparing Scientologists to Jews and the German government to Nazis.

She has called Scientology’s blaming psychiatrists for the Holocaust a “soft-core” form of Holocaust denial since it does not place blame where it truly belongs, on the shoulders of the Nazi regime.

Scientology’s campaign against the German government sent Rabbi Ignatz Bubis into a rage and dismayed Abraham Foxman at the Anti-Defmation League. Bubis was chairman (and later president) of the Zentralrat der Juden in Deutschland (Central Council of Jews in Germany)

Scientology is engaged in a War on Psychiatry that aims at nothing less than the destruction of all mental heath professions and institutions, in which Jews have played a pioneering role from Freud through Otto Selz, murdered at Auschwitz, and Viktor Frankel, who survived, and many others.

Scientology may rightfully be considered a hate group and has been so named by American Psychiatric Association President, Dr. Nada Stotland:

There is no other medical specialty I know of that has its own particular, dedicated hate group.

Also relevant is the fact of opposition to Scientology in Israel. Benjamin Beit Hallahmi at Haifa University has written extensively on New Religious Movements and denies Scientology’s status as a religion.

Scientology in Israel is not considered a religion but rather a cult, and there has been an important investigative report from Friday Studio on Israeli TV (Part One; Part Two). There is also an organization called The Israeli Center for Victims of Cults. Their Scientology page is here.

Though Christian leaders have scarcely spoken out any more than Jewish leaders, Roman Catholic Cardinal Ouellet of Quebec has warned Catholics and criticized Scientology at his last two annual press lunches The Catholic Archbishop of St. Lucia has denounced invasion of the island by the Scientology front group, The Way To Happiness International.

Scientology in Itay has threatened to sue a women’s religious order, the Daughters of St. Paul, for publishing books by a former Scientologist who has returned to practice of her Catholic faith. Jesuit sociologist Fr. John Coleman has described Scientology as a “totalitarian cult.” Editor Randy Sly at Catholic Online has written extensively and been lambasted by Scientology spokesman Tommy Davis for promoting “religious hatred and violence.”

The best interpretation one can put on SWC’s decision is that it was made in naive ignorance. There is no indication that SWC has revisited its decision and so the event is most likely to proceed as planned. It will not be the first time that Mammon has triumphed over Moses in Hollywood.

As scandalous as the Wiesenthal-Cruise affair appears to many, one can hope that it will be the occasion for discussion of Scientology particularly within the Jewish community. Totalitarian regimes cannot abide the truth; they start to crumble when people speak out.

Michael Barger emails:

Hi Luke!

I appreciated your piece on the LA news people looking for a critical response from a major Jewish organization. Good luck, guys! lol

I also appreciate that you posted on the cult and Farrakhan. OSAbots must be high fiving right now: they have gotten Farrakhan to make Dianetics required training for NOI Muslims and Rabbi Hier to give Tom Cruise its Humanitarian Seal of Approval.

When the scandal first came to awareness about a month ago someone mentioned the Janice Prager, National Development Director of SWC, was the wife of Dennis Prager.

I googled to see if Dennis had said anything on Scientology, and found that he did. He had a long show with Professor Steve Kent and Heber Jensch, at the time the President of the Church of Scientology International. He was the official head of Scientology, Miscavige being the real power but having the title of Chairman of the Board of the Religious Technology Center. He is known as “COB” and that is the way Cruise refers to him.

Steve Kent is one of the few sociology of religion scholars of New Religious Movements who is critical of the cult. He has been harrassed by agents from the Office of Special Affairs (OSA). He has great articles on the cult’s RPF Gulags and cult celebrities as deployable agents. He will be on a panel on Scientology at the May annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association in Honolulu. First time ever the APA has had a public panel though they have held at least one if not more discussions behind closed doors where they heard from ex-Scientologists.

Dennis’ show is about the death of Lisa McPherson, who had just died of shocking cult medical and psychiatric neglect. She has become a symbol for all Scientology-caused deaths. It was on her birthday on February 10, 2008, that Anonymous held the first of their global protests that have continued for three years.

What is interesting to note is that Steve Kent is still teaching, writing, and speaking. Heber Jensch has been disappeared by David Miscavige. When last seen he was condemned to “The Hole” – a Gulag for people Miscavige really, really hates and who are too indoctrinated, scared, or old to leave.

Posted in Scientology, Simon Wiesenthal | Tagged jewish groups, jewish organization, jewish organizations, michael barger, professor deborah lipstadt, Reform Judaism, scientology and tom cruise, simon wiesenthal center, ursula caberta | Comments Off

What Did We Do To Provoke 9/11?

Posted on May 5, 2011 by Luke Ford

On his radio show today, Dennis Prager responded: “What did the 75 million Chinese slaughtered by Mao’s communist party do to provoke it? What did the Jews do to provoke the Nazis? What did blacks do to provoke slavery? What did Ukrainian peasants do to provoke Stalin? It’s a left-wing question. What did we do to have innocent people incinerated? What could we have done?

“There are troops on Saudi soil? There are troops on German soil and Korean soil.”

“The bad hate the decent. That’s the record of humanity since Cain hated Abel’s sacrifice.”

“There is something perverse about your sense of justice to not celebrate the death of a monster. There’s something missing in you. You have extirpated from your soul the most natural inclination towards the greatest evildoers.”

“I love High Noon and The Magnificent Seven. I love movies of moral clarity and I love that the bad guys are shot.”

Posted in Dennis Prager | Tagged communist party, Dennis Prager, evildoers, german soil, natural inclination, peasants, radio show | Comments Off

I Don’t Have A Problem With Slumlords

Posted on May 4, 2011 by Luke Ford

So long as they aren’t hurting third parties, I see no reason why they can’t operate as they wish within the law. Slumlords have no power to force people to live in their broken down properties. Poor people don’t have much money so they have to make choices.

If slumlords weren’t slumlords, poor people would have fewer inexpensive places to say.

Anyway, a Jew and a big supporter of Torah has just been named LA’s biggest slumlord – Sam Menlo.

As I wrote in 2006: “Valley Torah High School is significantly financed by slumlord Sam Menlo who was a major figure in creating the school. The Valley Torah building is dedicated to the Menlo family. There’s a big placard.”

I see no contradiction between being a slumlord and being an Orthodox Jew. The Torah does not mandate living conditions.

Anyway, the LA Weekly says: “As if two decades of letting his many properties rot (while dodging charges across multiple SoCal counties) wasn’t enough, Sam Menlo’s victims included the helpless elderly residents of a freaking nursing home. Thankfully, like Dr. Avol, Menlo was sentenced to live in one of his own disgusting buildings in Anaheim, where renters had previously held a strike to protest cockroaches, dirty pools and shit plumbing (pun intended). Once again, justice served — and it reportedly whipped Menlo into shape.”

I feel the same way about nursing home operators. So long as they operate within the law and nobody is forced to live there, then they should do as they please and cut costs to the bone.

I like human freedom. I don’t like government mandating living conditions. Let poor people choose how they spend their money.

Posted in Orthodoxy, Real Estate | Tagged avol, elderly residents, human freedom, la weekly, orthodox jew, slumlord | Comments Off

Is Israel Embracing The Enemy’s Narrative?

Posted on May 4, 2011 by Luke Ford

Rabbi Steven Pruzansky writes:

In the face of relentless intransigence from an enemy who refuses to negotiate, much less to concede anything, Israel’s prime ministers (since the Oslo process began) have felt a compelling need to bypass negotiations and gradually yield to their adversaries everything they seek. It was an error that led to thousands of deaths and injuries through terror and caused the downfall of the first Netanyahu government, and it is as bizarre as it sounds.

Certainly with the Arab world in turmoil, Israel should be focused on preparing to engage a new and changed neighborhood. While Westerners hope, perhaps naively, for the emergence of democratizing forces in the Arab world, it is as likely – if not more likely – that radical Islamic forces will seize control in several countries, including Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Yemen, and perhaps even Syria.

And with Lebanon already in the throes of its own radical Muslims, Gaza tyrannized by a Hamas that is eager to expand its influence into Israel’s heartland, Europe finally responding to the Islamic onslaught that is overwhelming its culture and undermining its stability, and the United States reeling under economic woes that will dominate the coming presidential election campaign, the further weakening of Israel’s strategic posture serves no rational purpose.

Posted in Israel | Tagged economic woes, intransigence, islamic forces, netanyahu government, presidential election campaign, radical muslims | Comments Off

The New York Times And The Goldstone Report

Posted on May 4, 2011 by Luke Ford

CAMERA SAYS:

Of the many stories the Times ran on Judge Goldstone and his report, two merited front page placement: an initial article, titled “U.N. Inquiry Sees Gaza War Crimes; Israel Chastised,” that focused primarily on the report’s condemnation of Israel, and “A Gaza War Study, an Outcry, A Bar Mitzvah’s Missing Guest,” which sarcastically criticized the South African Jewish community for branding Goldstone a traitor and trying to prevent him from attending his grandson’s bar mitzvah.

Both represent recurring themes in the New York Times’ coverage of the Goldstone Report – presenting the mission as a credible and respectable investigation that found Israel guilty of war crimes, and casting its denunciation as pro-Israel advocacy that demonizes anyone who criticizes Israel.

But the recanting of what essentially amounted to a blood libel, a landmark development on a major story, is apparently not quite as compelling to Times editors. An article covering Goldstone’s repudiation of the report’s central finding, “Head of U.N. Panel Regrets Saying Israel Intentionally Killed Gazans” was relegated to page 10 of the newspaper.

Even in this buried article, the newspaper seemed reluctant to abandon Goldstone’s original condemnation of Israel Although the report has been revealed as a sham, the paper clung to the desription of Goldstone as “an esteemed South African jurist” who “documented numerous examples of mistreatement of Palestinian civilians by Israeli soldiers,” and emphasized that “he did not back away from those findings in his article.” The authors repeated Goldstone’s blame of Israel for refusing “to cooperate” with him and thus “severely hamper[ing] his report. “By ending with an account of Goldstone’s “ostracization” by his South African Jewish community, the article seemed to imply that in retracting his original condemnation of Israel, Goldstone was caving into social pressure.

Posted in Israel, Journalism | Tagged blood libel, initial article, landmark development, ostracization, palestinian civilians, war crimes | Comments Off

A Passion For The Patriots And For Israel

Posted on May 4, 2011 by Luke Ford

The Jewish Press reports:

Among the legion of Jewish businessmen who own professional sports franchises across North America, New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft stands out for his love of Israel, his devotion to the promotion of American football here, and his numerous entrepreneurial and philanthropic endeavors that have benefited the country.

His wife, Myra, is also a dedicated Jewish activist, deeply involved with metro Boston’s dynamic Combined Jewish Philanthropies. The Krafts honeymooned in Jerusalem 47 years ago and the couple have been frequent visitors to Israel through the decades.

On a trip to Israel last month, Kraft introduced Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick to the Israeli business community and took him to Kraft Family Stadium in Jerusalem where Patrick tossed a football with the young American expatriates who play in the fledgling Israel Football League (IFL).

Also accompanying Kraft on his most recent visit was his close friend Al Michaels, the legendary (Jewish) NFL broadcaster. On previous visits Kraft has brought along several Patriots players including star quarterback Tom Brady.

Posted in Football, Israel | Tagged combined jewish philanthropies, deval patrick, governor deval patrick, massachusetts governor deval patrick, new england patriots, professional sports franchises | Comments Off

Anorexia And The Dating Culture

Posted on May 4, 2011 by Luke Ford

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach writes:

Being overweight is not healthy. But women who focus only on their bodies to the exclusion of their souls are equally unhealthy. And men who have practiced Judaism their entire lives but are blind to a woman’s righteousness and virtue, focusing exclusively on her form to the exclusion of her substance, are even more unhealthy.

The crisis in Orthodoxy today is the practice of Jewish ritual to the exclusion of Jewish values. And in no area is this more evident than in the increasingly shallow dating preferences that are coming to define our community. King Solomon’s ode to the eishes chayil – the wife of excellence – we chant every Friday night risks becoming an empty refrain, with men paying lip service to its central proclamation that “physical beauty is misleading, but a woman who fears God is truly to be praised.”

I never would have thought Orthodox Jews would arrive at a stage where our young men of marriageable have become so one-dimensional that their superficiality would begin to literally kill our young women. That their mothers – women themselves – are colluding in this corruption by calling the shadchan to ask a girl’s dress size in the same breath as asking about her level of Torah observance is doubly tragic.

The Times article also cited the immense pressure Orthodox women feel to marry at a very young age and how they feel themselves to be failures if they are in their mid-twenties and not yet married with a few children.

I have long advocated marrying young – for Orthodox and secular alike – because it allows a couple to grow up together and solidify their union with life’s formative experiences. But this has to be balanced against the benefits of young women being educated and using their minds, not just their wombs. It’s a beautiful thing to see Orthodox seminaries for women bursting at the seams. Jewish women today are being exposed to the great texts of Judaism, from Talmud and Midrash to halacha and chassidus. Stern and Touro are graduating Orthodox girls with degrees in international relations and public relations, girls proficient in the sciences and mathematics.

Secular Jews have long dismissed the Orthodox attitude toward women as demeaning and misogynistic. They argue that we treat our girls as baby-making machines who belong in the kitchen. But the highly educated Orthodox Jewish woman gives the lie to these malicious accusations. Should we be so stupid as to prove our critics right by making women feel so much pressure to be married by the age of twenty? Is it not our responsibility to demonstrate that a woman can maximize her fullest intellectual potential alongside having a family and that she need not choose between them?

I am, thank God, the proud father of nine children. I want my daughters to marry young and to marry virtuous men. I shudder at the idea that after my wife and I raised them to embody the virtue of the Jewish matriarchs, my daughters will meet Orthodox suitors obsessed with their external beauty to the exclusion of their inner spiritual commitment.

I have spent my life critiquing the secular culture’s attitudes toward the feminine, especially in my book Hating Women, where I decry the reduction of women to a libidinous man’s plaything. But we in the Orthodox community dare not make our own mistake in reducing our women to pretty baby-making mannequins.

Yes, family is the most important thing in Jewish life. And dating recreationally for ten years – as is common in secular society – is scant preparation for the lifelong commitment of marriage. I am a counselor to secular singles who suffer the effects of the recreational dating culture. They often experience the pain and heartache of endlessly going in and out of relationships.

Posted in Dating, Marriage, Orthodoxy, Shmuley Boteach | Tagged eishes chayil, formative experiences, orthodox jews, orthodox seminaries, rabbi shmuley boteach, torah observance | Comments Off

No Photos Of Bin Laden?

Posted on May 4, 2011 by Luke Ford

On his radio show today, Dennis Prager said: “What’s the cost/benefit? What would be gained by releasing the photos? There is no world of doubt about whether he was killed.”

“There seems to be no doubt about his death among Bin Laden’s followers. Isn’t that who matters?”

“We have troubled relations with [much of the Islamic world], why provoke them?”

“Always put the show on the other foot. If they did it to one of ours, we’d be outraged.”

“Nobody in that world is doubting he’s dead. I don’t want to start a precedent. If you don’t believe the U.S. government, have a nice day. I’d like pictures of the Syrians murdering their own people.”

From DennisPrager.com and Pragertopia.com:

Prager H1: A psychiatrist whose sister died on 9/11 uses her death in a NYT opinion piece to blame the US. It wasn’t the terrorists who were responsible for her death, it was American imperialism. Dennis is outraged. Dennis talks to Michael Ledeen, senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies about how much advance knowledge the Pakistanis had about the Bin Laden mission.

Prager H3: The President has announced he won’t release Bin Laden’s death photos. Dennis supports the decision. Dennis also supports the decision to kill the terrorist rather than take him prisoner. Four looters were arrested in Alabama. These are the lowest of the low.

Posted in Dennis Prager | Tagged advance knowledge, american imperialism, death photos, foundation for the defense of democracies, michael ledeen | Comments Off

Leaving Scientology

Posted on May 4, 2011 by Luke Ford

Lawrence Wright writes:

On 19 August 2009, Tommy Davis, the chief spokesperson for the Church of Scientology International, received a letter from the film director and screenwriter Paul Haggis. “For 10 months now I have been writing to ask you to make a public statement denouncing the actions of the Church of Scientology of San Diego,” Haggis wrote. Before the 2008 elections, a staff member at Scientology’s San Diego church had signed its name to an online petition supporting Proposition 8, which asserted that the state of California should sanction marriage only “between a man and a woman”. The proposition passed. As Haggis saw it, the San Diego church’s “public sponsorship of Proposition 8, which succeeded in taking away the civil rights of gay and lesbian citizens of California – rights that were granted them by the Supreme Court of our state – is a stain on the integrity of our organisation and a stain on us personally. Our public association with that hate-filled legislation shames us.” Haggis wrote, “Silence is consent, Tommy. I refuse to consent.” He concluded, “I hereby resign my membership in the Church of Scientology.”

Haggis was prominent in both Scientology and Hollywood, two communities that often converge. Although he is less famous than certain other Scientologists, such as Tom Cruise and John Travolta, he had been in the organisation for nearly 35 years. Haggis wrote the screenplay for Million Dollar Baby, which won the Oscar for Best Picture in 2004, and he wrote and directed Crash, which won Best Picture the next year. Davis, too, is part of Hollywood society: his mother is Anne Archer, who starred in Fatal Attraction and Patriot Games.

In previous correspondence with Davis, Haggis had demanded that the church publicly renounce Proposition 8. “I feel strongly about this for a number of reasons,” he wrote. “You and I both know there has been a hidden anti-gay sentiment in the church for a long time. I have been shocked on too many occasions to hear Scientologists make derogatory remarks about gay people, and then quote LRH in their defence.” The initials stand for L Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, whose extensive writings and lectures form the church’s scripture. Haggis related a story about Katy, the youngest of three daughters from his first marriage, who lost the friendship of a fellow Scientologist after revealing that she was gay. The friend began warning others, “Katy is ‘1.1’.” The number refers to a sliding Tone Scale of emotional states that Hubbard published in a 1951 book, The Science Of Survival. A person classified “1.1” was, Hubbard said, “Covertly Hostile” – “the most dangerous and wicked level” – and he noted that people in this state engaged in such things as casual sex, sadism and homosexual activity. Hubbard’s Tone Scale, Haggis wrote, equated “homosexuality with being a pervert”. (Such remarks don’t appear in recent editions of the book.)

Posted in Scientology | Tagged chief spokesperson, church of scientology, church of scientology international, paul haggis, public sponsorship, silence is consent | Comments Off