Buchanan pal already back to stupid bigot tricks

James Edward's reformation didn't last long. He claimed that his recent bigoted posts were due to job-related stress. He just couldn't handle seeing sexually suggestive commercials. That's what made him rave like a Nazi. (Read here.)

He seems to have returned to normal (for him) rather quickly. He's already written (here) that

"Jonathan Klein, the Jewish president of CNN/US, has responded to the Jewish president of the SPLC’s demand that Lou Dobbs be fired, by not so subtly ordering Dobbs and his staff to quit talking about Obama’s birth certificate, because “the story is dead”."

He's also referred (here) to the SPLC as the "Semitic Poofter Libel Crew".

I wonder if Lou Dobbs, who has been complaining on the air that he is the victim of the "left-wing media", will appreciate the support of the David Duke demographic. I suspect that this will not help his case.

UPDATE (10/2/2009): This post has received more nuisance comments than any I have ever posted. On a daily basis, it gets spammed with obscene comments drawn from Japanese porn websites. (I moderate the comments on this blog, so you never see this stuff.)

I had no idea that a) racists have so much free time on their hands and b) that they like Japanese porn websites. Who knew?

Buchanan's friend the Jew-hater now claims to be a "liberal" hater

Ever wonder what Pat Buchanan's friends say about Jews in private? No need to wonder. Here's what Buchanan friend James Edwards says in public:

"Vile Jew" here.

"Classic piece of Jewish garbage" here.

On Sarah Palin: "great for Jews and Mexican, horrible for white folks" (Read here.)

"Rep. Jane Harman: another Jewish traitor for Israel". (Read here.)

The Holocaust Museum shooting and Dr. Tiller assassination were only covered by the media because "a white man, a right-winger, did it". (Read here.)

"Jews and their lackeys (are) demanding that the Pope do something about a couple priests who’ve committed the blasphemous sin of questioning the MSM (mainstream media) spin on World War 2" (i.e. that the Holocaust occurred). (Read here.)

"Jews and free speech don't mix". (Read here.)

"Jewish homosexual to head Chicago Public Schools". (Read here.)

Jews are responsible for the gay rights movement (which he objects to, of course). (Read here.)

Holocaust denier David Irving is a "survivor of the Jewish holocaust against free speech". (Read here.)

KKK and neo-Nazi leader David Duke is "the most outspoken voice for white Americans, (who was) arrested (in Prague) for saying things Jews don't approve of." (Read here.)

Of course, James Edwards has been writing this way for years, so these comments don't come as a surprise. What comes as a surprise is this, posted on his website yesterday:

"Sometimes when I run across certain stories, and I blog about them, I let my emotions get the best of me, and in my anger I use phrases and words I later regret. That’s happened a lot lately, so I've gone through and edited some recent posts. New readers shouldn't get the wrong idea from a couple of posts out of over a thousand…stick around, check the site out, and give the blog and radio show a chance."

For some reason, Edwards now claims to have seen the light. He's gone back to edit two recent posts to change references to "Jews" to "liberals". That "vile Jew" referred to above became a "liberal". Another post titled Why are Jews despised all over the world? was edited to read Why are liberals despised all over the world? . The lead of the latter article originally read "To Jewish advertising agencies, white women are nothing but whores." Now it reads "To liberal advertising agencies, white women are nothing but whores."


Edwards forgot, however, to change the categories that post is filed under. He still has it filed under the tags "Hatred of White People" and "Jews".

Edward now claims that he wrote those two bigoted posts because he got all worked up over the issue he was writing about and lost his head. Those posts dealt with sexually suggestive advertisements for Burger King and Sprite. I can see how something like suggestive advertising can cause someone to lose their head and suddenly turn into a Nazi.

[UPDATE (7/24/09 8 pm): Edward's reformation didn't last long. Read here.]

Edwards, who hosts a radio program called the Political Cesspool, is associated with the racist organization Council of Conservative Citizens, originally known as the White Citizens' Councils. He has cited neo-Nazi David Duke as his hero and inspiration, and worked with Duke to organize a conference of the racist group EURO in Memphis in November, 2008. (Read here.)

More about Edwards here and here and here. Video here. Read here and here for background on the CCC. Here is the CCC's webpage commemorating Black History Month, which they devote to promoting the idea that Martin Luther King was a communist.

Here is a cesspool webpage honoring the cop who arrested Rosa Parks, neo-Nazi Holocaust denier Mark Weber, and Pat Buchanan. According to that page, Pat Buchanan's website also posted his Political Cesspool interview. Edwards has ungrammatically stated about his radio program that "their confirmation as a powerhouse in the movement was cemented" when Pat Buchanan appeared on the show in 2006. Read here. In 2000, Edwards was a Buchanan delegate at the Reform Party's national convention, and was a national committee member for that party. In 2002, Edwards ran for the Tennessee State Assembly on the ticket of a breakaway faction of the Reform Party associated with Buchanan called the America First Party. (Read here.)

By the way, the Political Cesspool program promotes something called the Luftwaffe Aircrew Re-enactors Association.

My previous posts about Edwards are available here and here and here and here and here. The Southern Policy Law Center has called Edwards "the nexus of hate in America". (Read here.) Read the cesspool's guest list here.

James Edwards is pictured below with Pat Buchanan, a baseball bat (wrong grip for playing baseball -- right grip for threatening a racially-motivated beating), and a Confederate battle flag.

























Here's some more of what Buchanan's friend has been saying about Jews.

Italian Jews Aid Quake Towns That Gave Shelter During World War II

from the AP via Fox News: 

FOSSA, Italy —  More than 65 years after villagers provided shelter toItalian Jews fleeing from the Nazis, a group of those who evaded capture rushed to repay that sacrifice in rural communities hard-hit by an earthquake last week.A delegation of around 20 elderly Jews and their descendants — as well as community leaders — made their way to makeshift camps in the area around the mountain city ofL'Aquila on Monday, peering into tents in a bid to find their saviors.

They offered everything from gym shoes to summer camps for children.

"I wouldn't be here if it weren't for these people," said Alberto Di Consiglio, whose parents were sheltered in the small hamlets of Fossa and Casentino during the war. "We have to help them."

Read the rest...

Illinois shul marks its own bit of civil rights history

from the Chicago Tribune:  Highland Park synagogue marks its own bit of civil rights history (By Robert Channick)

In the summer of 1966, three years after delivering his "I Have A Dream" speech, Rev. Martin Luther King spoke to several hundred congregants in the sanctuary of a Highland Park synagogue. 

Barely a footnote in the civil rights movement, King's visit continues to resonate at Congregation Solel, which for the first time will commemorate the unlikely event with a special service Friday, three days before Martin Luther King Day. 

"I believe that the presence of Dr. King in our sanctuary 42 years ago was a significant benchmark in our history as a congregation," said Michael H. Ebner, 66, a longtime congregant and retired Lake Forest College history professor who organized the commemoration. "That event ... should not be forgotten." 

Formed in 1957 as an offshoot of the venerable KAM Isaiah Israel Congregation in Hyde Park, Solel inherited a tradition of social justice, a mission that its founding rabbi, the late Arnold Jacob Wolf, would take to new heights during the turbulent '60s. From marching with King in Selma, Ala., in 1965 to protesting the Vietnam War in Washington, Wolf led congregants to the front lines of the civil rights movement.

When King came to Illinois in 1966 to organize the Chicago Freedom Movement—a campaign for fair housing in the inner city—he found a receptive audience for his message at Solel, a congregation of about 400 families which started its own initiative to foster diversity in the suburbs. 

Sponsored by the North Shore Fellowship of Rabbis, King was invited to speak on June 30. 

Beyond omnipresent concerns over King's safety, the event was not without its controversy, according to Ebner. 

The John Birch Society, a traditionally conservative political organization that opposed parts of the civil rights movement, was irate over King's visit to Highland Park, Ebner said.

Congregants, on the other hand, were enthused, according to Gail Goldstein, a longtime Highland Park resident who was one of about 600 people that packed the sanctuary on a Thursday night to hear King's speech. 

"If there were people that weren't happy about it, they didn't make their voices heard," said Goldstein, 71. 

"Certainly he got a rousing response from the audience that was there."

(Hat tip: History News Network)

Rest in peace Rabbi Arnold Jacob Wolf.  

from the New York Times:

Rabbi Arnold Jacob Wolf, a nationally prominent Reform rabbi known for his progressive, sometimes provocative public stances, including opposition to the Vietnam War, a speech at Yale accusing the university of a history of anti-Semitism and early political support for his neighbor Barack Obama, died last Tuesday in Chicago. He was 84.

Enlarge This Image

Arnold Jacob Wolf in 1994.

The apparent cause was a heart attack, his son Jonathan said.

At his death, Rabbi Wolf was rabbi emeritus of KAM Isaiah Israel Congregation in Chicago, where he had served as rabbi from 1980 until his retirement in 2000. The synagogue, the oldest in Illinois, is in the Hyde Park neighborhood, directly across the street from the Obamas’ home.

Throughout the 2008 presidential campaign, Rabbi Wolf was a highly visible advocate for Mr. Obama to Jews nationwide. In a letter Mr. Obama wrote to Rabbi Wolf’s family on Friday, which the family made available to a reporter, the president-elect said:

“My conversations with him were always lively. You knew that if he disagreed with you, he would let you know in no uncertain terms — especially if he thought you were overlooking the moral dimensions of an issue, or rationalizing your own failure to live up to the highest moral principles. But he did it with kindness, and often with a smile or a laugh to let you know that even though you were just plain wrong, and had no idea what you were talking about, he still loved you.”

Rabbi Wolf was a founding editor of Sh’ma, a magazine of Jewish social thought published 10 times a year. He wrote several books, most recently “Unfinished Rabbi: Selected Writings of Arnold Jacob Wolf,” published in 1998 by Ivan R. Dee.

Reviewing “Unfinished Rabbi,” Publishers Weekly said, “The volume presents a fascinating chronicle through writing of one of the great Jewish voices of the 20th century.”

Arnold Jacob Wolf was born in Chicago on March 19, 1924. His mother was a social worker; his father, a tailor, died when Arnold was 7. For several years, starting when he was about 10, Arnold acted in national radio dramas broadcast from Chicago on the Mutual Broadcasting System.

After receiving an associate’s degree from the University of Chicago, Arnold Wolf earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from the University of Cincinnati in 1945. He received his ordination from Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati in 1948 and later served as a Navy chaplain with United States occupation forces in Japan.

In choosing his vocation, Rabbi Wolf had been greatly influenced by an uncle and a great-uncle, both Reform rabbis. (The great-uncle was the leader of the KAM congregation, a precursor of KAM Isaiah Israel. Founded in 1847, KAM took its name — an acronym for the Hebrew phrase “Kehilath Anshe Ma’arav,” “Congregation of the People of the West” — in tribute to its frontier origins.)

“I became more traditional theologically than my family and more radical politically,” Rabbi Wolf told The Chicago Tribune last year. “I like that combination.”

In 1957, Rabbi Wolf became the first full-time rabbi of Congregation Solel, a Reform synagogue near Chicago. Guest speakers there over the years included the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Chicago Seven, the seven defendants charged with inciting to riot and other offenses stemming from protests at the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

In 1965, the rabbi marched in Alabama with the civil rights leader John Lewis. Two years later, he led a group of congregants to Washington to lobby against the Vietnam War.

Starting in the early 1960s, Congregation Solel conducted an annual weekend of Holocaust remembrance, among the first synagogues in the country to do so.

In 1973, Rabbi Wolf helped found Breira, an organization of progressive American Jews that advocated a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The organization, whose name means “alternative” in Hebrew, was a target of frequent, bitter public attacks by American Zionists. It disbanded in 1977.

Beginning in 1972, Rabbi Wolf spent eight years at Yale as a chaplain and the director of the university’s chapter of the Hillel Foundation, the Jewish student organization. In 1980, when he was preparing to leave Yale and return to Chicago, he delivered a blistering Yom Kippur sermon in which he charged the university with a “long and dishonorable history of anti-Semitism” and accused its administration of “callousness” toward the needs of Jewish students and faculty members. The sermon, and the university’s subsequent denial of Rabbi Wolf’s accusations, attracted wide public attention.

Rabbi Wolf’s first marriage, to Margery Steiner, ended in divorce, as did his second, to Lois Blumberg. He is survived by his third wife, the former Grace Weiner; two sons from his first marriage, Jonathan and Benjamin; four stepdaughters, Sara Berger, Justine Henning, Sarah-Anne Schumann and Dara Henning; and 10 grandchildren.

Even in retirement, Rabbi Wolf was a familiar presence in the news. Last year, for instance, he was the subject of newspaper articles in Chicago and around the nation, though for a far less controversial reason than usual. At 83, Rabbi Wolf was having his bar mitzvah, 70 years behind schedule. (“In those days, Reform Jews didn’t do it,” he told The Chicago Sun-Times.) He was a little nervous, he confessed, about having to chant Torah in public.

This year, Rabbi Wolf was in the news again, for having looked all but clairvoyant in 1996, when he backed a young Chicagoan running for the Illinois Senate.

“I said to him, ‘Mr. Obama, someday you will be vice president of the United States,’ ” Rabbi Wolf told The Jerusalem Post in October. “And he said, ‘Why vice president?’ and laughed.”

from the Jews for Obama blog: "My neighbor Barack" by Arnold Jacob Wolf:

Not everyone can claim to be the neighbor of a Presidential candidate – I can, though, because I am.

Barack Obama’s Chicago home is across the street from KAM Isaiah Israel, the Hyde Park synagogue at which I’ve served for 27 years. He spoke to our congregation as an Illinois state senator; more recently, his Secret Service agents have made use of our, shall we say, facilities.

But it’s not neighborly instinct that’s led me to support the Obama candidacy: I support Barack Obama because he stands for what I believe, what our tradition demands.

We sometimes forget, but an integral part of that tradition is dialogue and a willingness to disagree. Certainly many who call me their rabbi have taken political positions far from mine – just as Barack Obama’s opinions have differed from those of his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

The candidate recently gave a speech which made abundantly clear that he and Wright often disagree. Obama condemned Wright’s “incendiary language,” and “views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but… that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation.”

Of course, race is only one issue on which Wright has stepped beyond the bounds of civil discourse. He’s frequently made statements regarding Israel and the Jewish community that I find troubling. But to limit our understanding of Obama to the ill-conceived comments of the man who once led his church is dishonest and self-defeating.

Obama’s strong positions on poverty and the climate, his early and consistent opposition to the Iraq War, his commitment to ending the Darfur genocide – all these speak directly to Jewish concerns. If we’re sidetracked by Wright’s words, we’ll be working against these interests. After all, a preacher speaks to a congregation, not for the congregation.

And still many remain concerned that Obama isn’t committed to Israel. Some want him to fall in line behind the intransigent, conservative thinking that has silenced Jewish debate on Israeli policy, and enabled the Bush Administration’s criminal neglect of the diplomatic process.

Clearly, though, anyone who thinks Obama waffles on Israel hasn’t been paying attention. In 2007, he spoke to AIPAC about “a clear and strong commitment to the security of Israel”; today, his website states clearly that America’s “first and incontrovertible commitment in the Middle East must be to the security of Israel.”

For my part, I’ve sometimes found Obama too cautious on Israel. He, like all our politicians, knows he mustn’t stray too far from the conventional line, and that can be disappointing. But unlike anyone else on the stump, Obama has also made it clear that he’ll broaden the dialogue. He knows what peace entails.

Speaking recently before a Jewish audience in Cleveland, Obama did the unthinkable – he challenged the room. He talked about the need to ask “difficult questions” on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: “I sat down with the head of Israeli security forces,” he said “and his view of the Palestinians was incredibly nuanced…. There’s good and there’s bad, and he was willing to say sometimes we make mistakes… and if we’re just pressing down on these folks constantly, without giving them some prospects for hope, that’s not good for our security.”

Yet, in spite of all of Obama’s strengths, there’s another truth we’ve been loathe to admit: Among some American Jews,  race plays a key role in the hesitation to support the Obama candidacy. We’ve forgotten that Black and Jewish America once shared a common vision; in the civil rights era, I and many in our community stood shoulder to shoulder with the giants of our generation, demanding freedom for all Americans.

Obama himself doesn’t share our amnesia, however. “I would not be sitting here,” he said in Cleveland, “if it were not for a whole host of Jewish Americans.”  That was literal truth, but not everyone remembers it.

I’ve worked with Obama for more than a decade, as has my son, a lawyer who represents children and people with disabilities. He has admired Obama’s dedication and skill as he worked on issues affecting our most vulnerable citizens.

Obama is no anti-Semite. He is not anti-Israel. He is one of our own, the one figure on the political scene who remembers our past, and has a real vision for repairing our present.

Barack Obama is brilliant and open-hearted; he is wiser and more thoughtful than his former minister. He offers what America, Israel, and the Jewish community need: a US President willing to ask hard questions, and grapple with difficult answers.

I am very proud to be his neighbor. I hope someday to visit him in the White House.

Aryeh Leib Teitelbaum, killed by Jihadis in Mumbai for being a Jew, was anti-Zionist

(Hat tip: ENGAGE)

from Z-Word: Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism in Mumbai

We hear a lot these days, from assorted boycotters and human rights campaigners, that there is no connection between anti-Zionism and antisemitism, that the two positions have as little to do with each other as supporting Manchester United has with a passion for philately.

It’s a pity the news didn’t reach the Mumbai terrorists before they murdered Aryeh Leib Teitelbaum. Had they known that he was neither a Zionist nor an Israeli, they would surely have asked him to step to one side as they conducted their slaughter. Or perhaps they did know, but Teitelbaum failed to clarify his political views fast enough to save his life. I mean, what’s an honest jihadi to do? In the heat of the moment mistakes get made.

Maybe the anti-Zionist human rights campaigners could get together to draw up a quick reference card for jihadis - to be carried with them when they set out on an operation - that would help them to rapidly distinguish those Jews who deserve to live from those who don’t.

from Ynet: Satmar family: No State involvement in son's funeral:

Hasid killed in Mumbai attacks recognized as terror victim by Israel, but his family begs government not to send representatives to funeral, cover his coffin with national flag, saying he belonged to anti-Zionist haredi stream.

The State has decided to recognize the Israelis murdered in the Mumbai terror attacks as victims of terrorism and pay for their funerals, but not all are happy with this decision. The family of slain Hasid Aryeh Leib Teitelbaum has informed the government that it would like the State not to intervene with his funeral.

According to a family member, "Holding a Zionist funeral for Teitelbaum, who was a Satmar Hasid, would desecrate the dead man's honor." The family demanded not to have a government representative at the funeral and that the casket, which will be flown into Israel today, would not be covered with the Israeli flag.

They also asked that Teitelbaum's body would be released immediately upon the plane's arrival, so that they would be able to hold an intimate funeral for him as soon as possible.

Shmuel Pfenheim of the Haredi Community anti-Zionist stream told Ynet: "I'm sending a message from the family. We don't want the State to meddle in our grief. Suddenly Israel has an interest to show the world that it is also a victim of global jihad, so it decides to throw a big ceremony with a coffin wrapped in a flag. We object to this. It pains us and offends our values."


'Not an envoy of the State'

Pfenheim, who attended the same yeshiva as Teitelbaum, added: "He wasn't killed as an envoy of the State or as a Zionist person. He simply went there as a kashrut supervisor on behalf of an American kashrut system. He himself was an American citizen, and although he was a resident in Israel he wasn't an Israeli national.

"The mere fact that he was living here, in a closed congregation, doesn't give the country permission to exploit his death.

Despite their protest, sources in the Haredi Community stressed that they did not plan to create havoc over the matter. "We are not like Neturei Karta. We conduct our struggles peacefully, and are simply begging the minister in charge and the police – the man has suffered enough. He's been there for almost a week. Let us bury him according to the family's will."

Aryeh Leib Teitelbaum was a member of the family of the Satmar rebbe (read here).

UPDATE: Teitelbaum had deep roots within Satmar chassidus as a patrilineal descendant of an earlier Satmar Rebbe and the son-in-law of the Rebbe of Toldos Avrohom Yitzchok, a branch of Satmar. Teitelbaum was the son of the Volover Rov of Boro Park, Rabbi Nachum Ephraim Teitelbaum, who is Av Beis Din (chief judge of a religious court), and who heads a U.S. kashrus organization.. (Read more here and here and here and here.)


If any readers know more about the Teitelbaum family, let me know and I'll post it. By the way, to my knowledge, Teitelbaum is the second scion of a chassidic dynasty to die at the hand of Islamist terrorists. The first was Ari Halberstam, whose family leads the Bobover chassids (read here). Ari was shot to death by an Islamist terrorist at the age of 16 (read here). He was killed on the Brooklyn Bridge while travelling home from a speech by the Lubavitcher Rebbe in lower Manhattan. There has been speculation that the terrorist (whose name is Rashid Baz) had intended to assassinate the Rebbe, but, failing to get an opportunity to do so, chose a target of opportunity while driving home to Brooklyn: a van filled with yeshiva bochers.










Ari Halberstam

Jews in annual pilgrimage to Africa's oldest synagogue

from AFP via Yahoo News:

Jews from around the world arrived on the Tunisian island of Djerba on Wednesday for an annual pilgrimage to Africa's oldest synagogue, with organisers expecting a significant jump in participants.

"Visitors have been arriving by the hundreds since Sunday to take advantage of a longer stay on the island, and there will be about 6,000 for the big day," organiser Perez Trabelsi said of Thursday's events at the Ghriba shrine.

They arrived amid heavy security, however, with authorities seeking to prevent an attack similar to the one carried out by a suicide bomber at the site in 2002 that killed 21 people.

Police set up barricades, while an electronic gate filtered visitors entering the area around the sacred site, believed to be 2,500 years old.

The total number of pilgrims in Djerba, which is popular with tourists, is expected to be 40 percent higher than last year, including a record 1,500 from Israel, said Trabelsi. The number of visitors dropped sharply after the 2002 attack.

Most, or some 4,000, will come from France, while others are due from Italy, Britain, Germany and Canada.

Tourism minister Khalil Laajimi was expected in Djerba to welcome the pilgrims and pay homage to Tunisia's Jewish community.

The Jewish community in Tunisia is still one of the largest in the Arab world but its numbers have dropped from 100,000 on independence from France in 1956 to round 1,500 today. Most emigrated to France or Israel.

Nearly half of those who remain live in Djerba.

The April 2002 attack just before the pilgrimage saw a suicide bomber ram the wall of the synagogue with a lorry laden with natural gas, which blew up killing 14 German tourists, five Tunisians and two French visitors.

The Al-Qaeda network claimed responsibility for the attack, which brought the flow of foreign pilgrims down from around 1,500 in 2001 to about 200 in 2002.

(Read more here and here and here.)

History as analogy: a slippery slope

from the Huffington Post: Sarah Posner: Hagee's Lesson Plan for Bush's Appeasement Speech

For the past two years, John Hagee, the televangelist and head of Christians United for Israel (CUFI), has been laying out the lesson plan for Bush's speech in the Knesset this week, in which he accused Barack Obama of appeasing terrorists like Neville Chamberlain appeased the Nazis. Since Hagee founded CUFI in early 2006, he has been beating the drums for war with Iran, and rejecting diplomacy as Chamberlain-esque appeasement.

Hagee, who endorsed Bush in 2000 with a book, God's Candidate for America, said in 2003 said that "God raised up George Bush for this time in history to crush Saddam Hussein." After he met with McCain in early 2007, Hagee declared McCain's views on Israel "on target." In other words, McCain's no weak-kneed appeaser of terrorists. If God raised up Bush, and, as Hagee has maintained, the threat from Iraq was nothing compared to the threat from Iran, then his endorsement of McCain suggests that he views the Republican nominee, once again, as God's puppet for his deranged obsession with a bloody, war-ending war.

Since the 2006 publication of his incendiary, conspiracy and fear-mongering book, Jerusalem Countdown, Hagee has been comparing Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad to Hitler and accusing those favoring diplomacy of appeasing him. Ahmadinejad is not just like Hitler, though, he's like Haman, and he's like Pharaoh, too, and all those biblical stories prove, in Hagee's mind, that confronting him is essential for the survival of the Jews -- nothing short of a military strike will do. His reference to "God raising up" Bush for "this time in history" is a direct reference to Queen Esther's confrontation of Haman. And when Joe Lieberman compared Hagee to Moses last year, he no doubt was validating the Pharaoh comparison. But was he imagining Hagee leading the Jews to the promised land of a boiling lake of brimstone?

Hagee claims in Jerusalem Countdown that an Israeli government insider came to him in April 2005 with "warning to the world" that the President of Iran "will prove to be the new Hitler of the Middle East." This information compelled him, he says, to write the book and launch CUFI. His standard talking point since CUFI's launch has been "It's 1938, and Iran is Germany, and Ahmadinejad is the new Hitler of the Middle East."

In the summer of 2006, when war raged between Israel and Hezbollah, and McCain took to the airwaves to suggest we had entered into World War III, one of Hagee's friends in the Knesset, Benny Elon, said McCain got that idea straight from Hagee.

In his speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in March 2007, and again to CUFI in July that year, Hagee said:

As you know, Iran poses a threat to the State of Israel that promises nothing less than a nuclear holocaust. I have been saying on national television, in churches and auditoriums across America it is 1938; Iran is Germany and Ahmadinejad is the new Hitler... In the Bible when Pharaoh threatened the Jewish people of Egypt he became fish food in the Red Sea. When Haman threatened the Jews in Persia in modern-day Iran he and his sons hung from the gallows that he built for the Jews.

But the appeasers, Hagee goes on, don't just want to appease Iran:

Beyond that threat from Iran there's another more subtle threat that concerns me. I am concerned that in the coming months yet another attempt will be made to parcel out parts of Israel in a futile effort to appease Israel's enemies in the Middle East. I believe that misguided souls in Europe, I believe that the misguided souls in the political brothel that is now the United Nations and sadly -- and sadly even our own State Department will try once again to turn Israel into crocodile food. Winston Churchill said and I quote an appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile in the futile hope that it will eat him last -- end of quote. In 1938 Czechoslovakia -- Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland land was turned into crocodile food for Nazi Germany. The Nazi beast smelled the weakness in the appeasers, ate the food and marched and devoured most of Europe and systematically slaughtered 6,000,000 Jewish people. We are again hearing calls to appease the enemies of Israel.

McCain compared himself to Churchill -- although without, as Bush did, explicitly comparing his opponents to Chamberlain -- in a creepy March 2008 ad. For Hagee, he's right on target, and there's no secret about who's in his crosshairs.

Marcy Winograd: Hates Israel, "Loves to Hava Nagilah"

Charter school teacher and long-time political activist Marcy Winograd is the founder of L.A. Jews for Peace. Winograd is an executive board member of the California Democratic Party and president of Progressive Democrats of Los Angeles. She is also on the list of potential Obama delegates to the Democratic convention, after having been removed from the list, complaining about it in her blog on the Huffington Post (read here and here), and subsequently being returned by the Obama campaign to their list of delegates (read here).

Winograd ran against Rep. Jane Harmon for the Democratic nomination in California's 36th District in 2006, as an opponent of the Patriot Act, Iraq War enabling acts, bankruptcy bill and other Bush initiatives which Harmon supported. She got endorsements from Tom Hayden, Gore Vidal, Ed Asner, Ed Begley Jr. and Daniel Ellsberg. Although she had campaigned on behalf of Senator Barbara Boxer and Congressman Henry Waxman, both endorsed Harmon over Winograd, who ended up losing the primary with about 1/3 of the vote.

Winograd is also an ardent opponent of Israel and a member of Friends of Sabeel. Sabeel is the Liberation Theology-based organization largely responsible for promoting anti-Israel divestment and spreading bigoted anti-Israel propaganda within the mainline Protestant churches. Their view of Jews and Judaism is sometimes called Replacement Theology, sometimes supercessionism. This theology maintains that Judaism is obsolete -- an oppressive regime against which Christianity rebelled as a liberation movement. (Read here and here and here and here and here. Christians for Fair Witness analyzes Sabeel’s opposition to the existence of Israel here. Sabeel uses the deicide trope as a spur for the second intifada here. For more on Liberation Theology's use of Jews as symbolic of oppressors see Amy-Jill Levine's The Misunderstood Jew.)

Winograd participated in Febraury's Sabeel conference at All Saint's Episcopal Church in Pasadena. (Read about that conference here.) According to the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles (read here), on February 16, Winograd promoted the following views to the Friends of Sabeel:

She explained her advocacy for a single Arab-Jewish state by saying, "We are not talking about 'destroying' Israel, but about a transformation to a one-state solution."

Among Winograd's targets is the Simon Wiesenthal Center's Museum of Tolerance, and she urged pressure on school boards to stop transporting students there on educational trips.

She claimed that the museum's Holocaust exhibits are used for pro-Israel lobbying and demanded exhibit space for the Palestinian nakba.

Winograd posts her text version of her speech in Pasadena on her organization's website, (read here) including the following:

LA Jews for Peace was born in the midst of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon two summers ago, almost immediately following my congressional challenge to Jane Harman in the 36^th District. During my campaign, I prayed no one would ask me to clarify my position on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. On my candidate web site, I said I supported the Geneva Accord, a two-state solution....

Personally, I think it is too late for a two-state solution...

Not only do I think a two-state solution is unrealistic, but also fundamentally wrong because it only reinforces heightened nationalism.

In her speech, Winograd also pointedly recounts her refusal to answer a CNN interviewer who had the temerity to ask her whether she believes that Israel has a right to exist. She stonewalled that question. Clearly, she's a candidate who feels she has something to hide from the general public, even as she touts it to her anti-Israel allies.

The hypocrisy of sometimes claiming not to oppose the existence of Israel and sometimes actively opposing its existence and advocating a "single-state solution" is so obvious that it should require no elucidation. This hypocrisy is entirely consistent with that of Sabeel which has both advocated land-for-peace and opposed it, and supported the second intifada as it opposed violence.

Concluding her speech, Winograd claimed (in poetry no less) to oppose all nationalism. It appears that she would like to put this opposition into action only against the existence of Israel.

To compound the hypocrisy of her purported "peace" proposal, Winograd opposes Holocaust education because it denies equal time for dissemination of pro-Palestinian propaganda. Moreover, she is organizing those who oppose Holocaust education to pressure local school boards to cease support for public school students visiting L.A.'s Simon Wiesenthal Center Museum of Tolerance. (Click here for the museum's website.) Below (from the LA Jews for peace website) is a photo of their demonstration outside the museum on October 19. Six protesters and one pedestrian. That may be Winograd on the left in shades holding an illegible sign.

Blogger Ami Isseroff was emailed the following:

Marcy Winograd is the co-founder of the LA Jews for Peace collective and a long-time anti-war activist in Los Angeles. Inspired by author Joel Kovel's book Overcoming Zionism, she is interested in assembling and publishing an anthology entitled: From Zionism to Humanism: Personal Stories of Jews Who Dare to Speak Out...If you know of Jews who might be interested in contributing to her anthology, please encourage them to submit their story to Marcy at Winogradcoach@aol.com.

---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----

Though I identify with persecuted Jews, I grow up longing to be part of the dominant culture. I hang little red and green lights on plastic Christmas trees and rarely visit temple except to hava nagila at the boys' bar mitzvahs or to pray on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, when we never atone for the sin of theft, slaughter, or occupation.

In response, Isseroff wrote, in part (from Zionism-Israel Web Log: "A Jew who dares to speak out about Zionism")

It is no secret that I am what is usually called a "leftist." I cofounded a dialogue group of Jews and Arabs and I am director of an NGO that promotes peace education and dialogue. I am committed to rights for the Arabs of Palestine, as I am committed to rights for the Jews of Israel and the Arabs of Israel.

I am a leftist from a family of leftists. My great uncle Noteh (Nathan) was a Bolshevik. He fled Russia in 1905 for the safety of Poland. I am told that he was known as "The angel of the Warsaw Ghetto." Being a citizen of the world, he was killed along with all the other Jewish citizens of the world, who happened to be in the way of the Nazis, and discovered that "the world" would not grant passports to anybody. Had he stayed in Russia and survived, there is no doubt that along with many other "citizens of the world" of the Yevsektsia, the Jewish Communists, he would have found himself in Lyubjanka prison or Siberia. That's what the progressive forces did to Jews who were not afraid to speak out. My great uncle was not afraid to speak out, you see.

I noticed that there were several segments of public opinion that were actively working against peace and dialogue, and in favor of genocide and denial of the right of self determination to one side or another in the conflict. There are the extremists of the Kahana Hai movement, who call themselves Zionists, and there are also extremists on the other side. There are those who blacken and distort Islam and Arabs, and there are those who blacken and distort Judaism and Zionism.

Understandably, there are groups like Stormfront who have no use for "Zionists" because they are Nazis. We all know what Nazis are, don't we? We all know that not long ago, American fascist white supremacist racists coined the acronym ZOG - Zionist Occupied government for example. The typical fascist argument features the Jew as a sly, greedy and evil creature out to control the world through the International Jewish Conspiracy. Until recently, this was the property of a tiny, benighted, reactionary minority, spurned by all decent folks.

But about three or four years ago, I became painfully aware of a new phenomenon. The racist arguments of the fascists against Jews were now being used against "Zionists" and the "Israel Lobby" and were indistinguishable from the old fascist claims. Searching the Web, I found hundreds of sites telling the world about Zionist plots, all about Zionism and its pernicious influence, explaining that the Zionists started World War II, the Zionists started World War I, and even that the "Zionists" were responsible for the French revolution. The Zionists are also responsible, according to them, for the Holocaust Myth, created for the financial and political benefit of Israel. And on Yom Kippur, the "Zionists" do not ask forgiveness for the French Revolution. Indeed, as Ziopedia notes, the "Zionists" say the Kol Nidre prayer on Yom Kippur. According to the progressive and peace-loving citizens of the world edit Ziopedia, Kol Nidre is the sneaky "Zionist" way of getting out of their obligations to non-Jews.

More bizarrely, it seems that a great number of Jews have joined in this campaign. Many of them call themselves "Jews for Peace" and similar names. They do not realize apparently, that when people say that "the Jews" are responsible for the war in Iraq, the accusers mean them,

I don't know if Marcy Winograd has read Ami Isseroffs' reply to her request for the testimony of Jews who promote human rights. I'm pretty sure that she won't publish it.

If you happen to see her demonstrating against Holocaust education outside the Wiesnthal Center's Museum of Tolerance, maybe you can read it to her.

A couple of notes on Winograd's organizations views of Israel

• Winograd's Progressive Democrats of L.A. website accuses AIPAC of interfering with a resolution against the Iraq War which was under consideration by the California Democratic Party (read here under the headline "Anti-War Resolution Passes California Democratic Party Convention"), alleging "severe pressures to water down or derail the resolution by more hawkish Democrats, including delegates associated with the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)." They offer no evidence of this purported AIPAC intrusion into the agenda of the state Democratic party, and no basis for the purported connection to Israel at all. Did someone say "conspiracy theory"?

• Winograd's L.A. Jews for Peace website includes their endorsement of a fire-breathing anti-Israel screed by Scott Ritter reposted from the paleoconservative isolationist website Antiwar.com. (The Jews for Peace website links to a politically neutral website to avoid the taint of association with the paleo-conservatives, read here.) Here's a taste of Ritter's writing:

Israel's current policies, rooted in ethnic and religious hatred, are the antithesis of tolerance. Israel at present can have no friends, because Israel does not know how to be a friend. Driven by xenophobic paranoia and historical grievances, Israel is embarked on a path that can only lead to death and destruction...Israel has been drunk on arrogance and power.

More to follow on this...

Coulter: Jews Should Convert

I apologize for giving attention to someone whose entire career is centered around provoking controversy. Coulter is so predictable that her bad taste has now become cliche. They say that some commentators generate more heat than light, in her case the heat is entirely artificial.

For anyone who supports Coulter, try this on for size:

from Editor and Publisher: Ann Coulter: Jews Need 'Perfecting

Appearing on Donny Deutsch's CNBC show, "The Big Idea," on Monday night, columnist/author Ann Coulter suggested that the U.S. would be a better place if there weren't any Jewish people and that they had "perfected" themselves into -- Christians.

It led Deutsch to suggest that surely he [sic] couldn't mean that, and when she insisted she did, he said this was "anti-Semitic."

Asked by Deutsch regarding whether she wanted to be like "the head of Iran" and "wipe Israel off the Earth," Coulter stated: "No, we just want Jews to be perfected, as they say. ..."

9/11 "Truth" Movement: Lawsuits Settle Because Judge Part of Jewish Cover-up Conspiracy

According to "9/11 truth" advocate Christopher Bollyn, none of the lawsuits filed by survivors of 9/11 victims have gone to trial. His explanation? It's because the lawyers and judges involved are "Zionist Jews", and therefor are part of the conspiracy to suppress the truth.

Of course, Bollyn ignores the fact that the vast majority of lawsuits do not go to trial. All judges, regardless of their religion, encourage litigants to settle cases, not in order to suppress disclosure of facts, but to keep their dockets from getting clogged. Litigants routinely wait to just before the trial to settle their case, not because of the unnamed nefarious reason Bollyn infers, but because, at that point, the attorneys know their jury, know what has come out of the discovery process, and can clearly assess their chances of success. In effect, they know the value of their case and have a basis to arrive at a settlement. They are also motivated to settle at that point both to avoid risk and avoid expense.

But, in the mind of a "9/11 truth" activist, there must be some other, darker, reason for settling these cases. It' s because the judge is Jewish. Bollyn calls it "THE FINAL PHASE OF THE 9-11 COVER-UP", although, considering that he is in the 9/11 cover-up exposing business, I suspect that he will find further phases of the cover-up in the future. His career depends upon it.

This is from his website:

Closing the Book on the 9-11 Cover-Up

THE FINAL PHASE OF THE 9-11 COVER-UP

By Christopher Bollyn
27 September 2007

Six years after the worst terrorist atrocity in U.S. history, not a single lawsuit filed by the relatives of the 9-11 victims has gone to trial. With only 21 cases remaining, it appears increasingly likely that the book may be closed on the 9-11 litigation without a single case ever being heard in court.

The 9-11 litigation process is approaching the final phase of the Zionist-run cover-up of what really happened on September 11, 2001.

There are two recent news items, which have not been widely reported, that indicate that the walling up of the truth is nearly complete. There are just a few remaining bricks left to be put into place - about 21 to be precise - and the wall hiding the truth will be finished.

21 CASES REMAIN

The first news item, from September 18, is that 14 of the 35 remaining suits filed by relatives of 9-11 victims, seeking compensation from the airlines and the foreign-owned airport security contractors, were settled out-of-court one week before the first case was to go to trial.

The first trial was to start on Monday, September 24 but that case was among those settled. The next trial is scheduled to begin on November 5.

It should be noted that this will not be a 9-11 trial in which any liability or accountability will be determined. In a most unusual reversal of legal procedure, U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein has ordered that six trials for damages take place before any trial for liability.

Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein,
an Orthodox Jew and devotee of the State of Israel,
oversees all 9-11 litigation.



Judge Hellerstein, who oversees all 9-11 litigation, has done this, he says, in the hope that both sides may use the damage figures as a road map toward settlement.

Only 21 cases remain of the original 95 cases filed in federal court. The rest have all been settled or dismissed.

"The rush of settlements leaves open the question of whether any trials will take place," the New York Times reported on September 19, 2007.

In a criminal cover-up, like that at work with 9-11, there are three main processes that need to be controlled:

1. the investigation - primarily the collection and confiscation of evidence;

2. the interpretation of the event by mass media and appointed official commissions;

3. the prosecution and litigation of lawsuits pertaining to the crime.

It can be assumed that the people involved in the 9-11 cover-up are connected to the perpetrators of the crime.

In the case of 9-11, the people who controlled each and every one of these three key processes: investigation, interpretation, and prosecution, are Zionist Jews who share a dedication and loyalty to the State of Israel.

The fact that Zionists have played key roles in the covering-up of the truth of 9-11 suggests that the Israeli role in the crimes of 9-11 was much greater than most people realize. That is to say that the Israeli agents monitoring the Arab suspects were actually part of an operation that the Mossad was controlling.

So there you have the truth about one advocate of "9/11 truth". He sees Jews behind the attacks, and behind a massive cover-up.

An important story that you probably haven't heard

from JewishJournal.com: Iranian American Jews by Karmel Melamed

Iranian American Jews still haunted by anti-Semitism from Iran

Often times I am approached by total strangers in the Iranian Jewish community here in Los Angeles who feel the urge to share their personal family's stories of tragic anti-Semitism dating back to the earlier part of the 20th century. These stories are both heart wrenching and historical but not really newsworthy enough for me write an article about. Nevertheless, I'd like to share one special story I was recently told with the names of the parties changed because the person who told the story to me requested anonymity for his family.

Hamid P. a Los Angeles area Iranian Jewish businessman approached me at a local Jewish fundraiser and was telling me the story of his great grandmother Sara. "She lived in the Jewish ghetto in Tehran nearly 100 years ago with my great grandfather Asher and I was told by my grandfather that his mother was absolutely gorgeous," said Hamid. The couple had only one son age 9 and made a meager living but were happy with little they had. One day, Sara ventured out of her home to purchase goods and was covered in traditional chador or an open cloak worn by Iranian women. After hours had passed since Sara had left, her husband Asher grew worried and nervous. Sara was not the type of woman to go out for long periods of time and everyone including the other Jews in the community grew frightened by the news of her disappearance. Finally after many days of no news, Asher was finally informed by members of the Jewish community that his wife had been kidnapped by local Muslim men under the direction of their wealthy Muslim boss who had been admiring Sara for a while. "This Muslim man had fallen in love with Sara and decided to just take her against her will and there was nothing anyone could do to save her," said Hamid. "She was prisoner in this strange man's house and was sexually and physically abused during that time". The Jews living in Iran at that time could not seek justice nor help from the authorities who were a part of the country's Muslim majority because the Jews had no rights and were considered inferior to Muslims. So Asher had no way to save his wife, said Hamid.

Just as Hamid was about to continue the story of his great grandmother, his cousin who was an older woman in her 70's suddenly stepped into our private conversation and snapped at Hamid. "What the hell are you doing tell him our family's private story?!" she said. "That story you're telling him is hush hush and a source of shame for us!". Hamid's great grandmother's story had been kept a secret and was not spoken about even after a century because it was not only a source of pain for the family but also a source of shame since Sara was taken away from her family. Hamid's family members years ago were also likely worried that negative gossip may brew in the Jewish community in Iran about Sara that may have hurt her family's reputation.

I smiled at the older woman who had chastised Hamid and told her that she did not have to worry about her family's reputation because Sara, her child and the others involved in the incident had long passed away in Iran. She looked at me in shock and was unable to respond. It was so taboo to openly discuss the story for years and years that this older woman had naturally brought up her defense mechanisms to keep the story under wraps.

Getting back to the story...Sara was abused and finally fell ill while being held captive in the Muslim man's home. Her brother was informed of her whereabouts many months later when she was very ill. He was permitted by Sara's captor to visit her. With great difficulty, Sara's brother convinced the Muslim man that hold his sister was unjust and to release her because she had little time to live. Finally Sara was taken home and reunited with her husband and young son. "A few weeks later Sara died after she got her final request to see her son before dying," said Hamid.

I share this very sad personal story with the readers of this blog to offer a better understanding of some of the deep scares Iranian Jews still carry after centuries of living under difficult conditions in Iran. Even after generations have passed on, Hamid's story is relevant today as Jews still live in Iran and face similar danger to their lives from the Iran's radical Islamic government.

Cardinal promotes anti-Semitic myth

The cardinal who will soon take over the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has promoted a virulent anti-Semitic myth in an interview with the National Catholic Reporter. Cardinal Francis George has charged that the Talmud refers to Jesus as a "bastard" and, equating this with overtly anti-Jewish Catholic texts such as the Good Friday prayer for conversion of the "perfidious Jews", said that, if the Catholic texts are to be changed, the Talmud should be as well.

Sadly, the cardinal is promoting an anti-Semitic myth -- one that is easily debunked. According to Rabbi Gil Student (read here), the text cited in reference to this insult in fact has nothing to do with Jesus:

The Text
Mishnah Yevamot 4:18

R. Shimon ben Azzai said: I found a book of geneologies in Jerusalem and in it is written "The man Plony is a bastard."

This is claimed to be a reference to Jesus. However, this claim is patently ridiculous. The Mishnah was most likely referring to a famous person and, due to the lack of any practical ramifications, his name was left out by the compilers of the Mishnah. Plony is a biblical term used similar to John Doe today (cf. Ruth 4:1). The keeping of geneological records was very common in talmudic times so that regular Jews did not marry bastards and violate the biblical prohibition (Deuteronomy 23:3). Investigations into lineage and proclamations of bastardy were not uncommon (cf. Nehemiah 7:5; Talmud Kiddushin 70b-71a). There is no reason to assume that this refers to Jesus.

Gustaf Dalman rejects the assertion that this Mishnah refers to Jesus [Dalman, Die Worte Jesus (Liepzig: Hinrichs, 1898), p. 4 n. 2]. Similarly, RT Herford calls this suggestion "doubtful and probably unfounded" [Herford, "Jesus in Rabbinical Literature", The Universal Jewish Encyclopedia, vol. 6 pp. 87-88]. Johann Maier calls it "odd speculation" [Maier, Jesus von Nazareth in der talmudischen Uberlieferung, p. 50]. All of this is cited approvingly by John P. Meier in his highly acclaimed A Marginal Jew, vol. I p. 108 n. 53. See also Avraham Korman's discussion in Zeramim Vekitot Beyahadut, pp. 348-349.

There are a myriad of such false quotes and deliberate distortions of talmudic texts floating around in print and on the internet, but rarely do they get the imprimatur of a senior cleric of a major religion. Before he takes his new post, the cardinal owes Jews an explanation and apology for perpetuating such a libel. He should be in the business of promoting harmony between Jews and Catholics, not sowing discord with anti-Semitic lies.

from The God Blog: Cardinal: Jews should change Talmud:

Cardinal Francis George, who will soon take over as head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, recently sat down for a candid interview with John L. Allen Jr of the National Catholic Reporter. It's a wide-ranging Q&A, but I found what George had to say about Judaism and the Latin Mass to be the most interesting:

A related issue with the old Missal is the Good Friday liturgy, and specifically the prayer for the conversion of the Jews. Where do you think we are with that?

First of all, we have to clarify something, because there are two opinions and we've asked the Holy See to clear this up. During the Triduum [the end of Holy Week] you may not have a private Mass. So the first reaction is, well, that means you can't use the old Missal for the Triduum, so that's the end of that. Others come back and say no, that if you have a parish that is only Tridentine, then they would also have the Holy Week ceremonies from that Missal. I'm not sure that's permitted, and that's what we're asking.

If it is, would your preference be to use the language of new Missal for this prayer on Good Friday, even when people are celebrating the Tridentine rite?

If you're celebrating the 1962 Missal, that would involve changing the text of the prayer.

That can be done, yes?

Of course it can be done, and I suspect it probably will be, because the intention is to be sure that our prayers are not offensive to the Jewish people who are our ancestors in the faith. We can't possibly insult them in our liturgy … Not that any group has a veto on anybody's prayers, because you can go through Jewish texts and find material that is offensive to us. But if we're interested in keeping the dialogue strong, and we have to be, we should be very cautious about any prayer that they find insulting. 'They,' however, is a big tent. What my Jewish rabbi friend down the block finds insulting is different from what Abraham Foxman [national director of the Anti-Defamation League] finds insulting. Also, it does work both ways. Maybe this is an opening to say, 'Would you care to look at some of the Talmudic literature's description of Jesus as a bastard, and so on, and maybe make a few changes in some of that?'

Assyrian cuneiform tablet confirms Torah story

from the Telegraph (U.K.):

The sound of unbridled joy seldom breaks the quiet of the British Museum's great Arched Room, which holds its collection of 130,000 Assyrian cuneiform tablets, dating back 5,000 years. But Michael Jursa, a visiting professor from Vienna, let out such a cry last Thursday. He had made what has been called the most important find in Biblical archaeology for 100 years, a discovery that supports the view that the historical books of the Old Testament are based on fact.

Searching for Babylonian financial accounts among the tablets, Prof Jursa suddenly came across a name he half remembered - Nabu-sharrussu-ukin, described there in a hand 2,500 years old, as "the chief eunuch" of Nebuchadnezzar II, king of Babylon. Prof Jursa, an Assyriologist, checked the Old Testament and there in chapter 39 of the Book of Jeremiah, he found, spelled differently, the same name - Nebo-Sarsekim. Nebo-Sarsekim, according to Jeremiah, was Nebuchadnezzar II's "chief officer" and was with him at the siege of Jerusalem in 587 BC, when the Babylonians overran the city.

The small tablet, the size of "a packet of 10 cigarettes" according to Irving Finkel, a British Museum expert, is a bill of receipt acknowledging Nabu-sharrussu-ukin's payment of 0.75 kg of gold to a temple in Babylon. The tablet is dated to the 10th year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II, 595BC, 12 years before the siege of Jerusalem.

Evidence from non-Biblical sources of people named in the Bible is not unknown, but Nabu-sharrussu-ukin would have been a relatively insignificant figure.

"This is a fantastic discovery, a world-class find," Dr Finkel said yesterday. "If Nebo-Sarsekim existed, which other lesser figures in the Old Testament existed? A throwaway detail in the Old Testament turns out to be accurate and true. I think that it means that the whole of the narrative [of Jeremiah] takes on a new kind of power."

Cuneiform is the oldest known form of writing and was commonly used in the Middle East between 3,200 BC and the second century AD. It was created by pressing a wedge-shaped instrument, usually a cut reed, into moist clay.

The full translation of the tablet reads: (Regarding) 1.5 minas (0.75 kg) of gold, the property of Nabu-sharrussu-ukin, the chief eunuch, which he sent via Arad-Banitu the eunuch to [the temple] Esangila: Arad-Banitu has delivered [it] to Esangila. In the presence of Bel-usat, son of Alpaya, the royal bodyguard, [and of] Nadin, son of Marduk-zer-ibni. Month XI, day 18, year 10 [of] Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon.