Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, begins
As the sun sets, it’s important to note that the Jewish faith community is observing Yom Kippur.
Most Jews consider Yom Kippur the holiest day in the Jewish calendar. 
Yom Kippur begins at sundown today and ends at sundown Saturday.
The day is called the “Day of Atonement” and generally concludes the High Holy Days, the 10-day time period that begins with Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year.
The Jewish faith community still have many other holidays that will be observed soon, such as Sukkot, which begins at sundown on Wednesday. Known as the festival of tabernacles, it is a seven-day holiday that is biblically based. The holiday is a time to give thanks for God’s care of the Jews during 40 years in the desert after they departed Israel and for the fruits of the harvest.
Look for my column in Saturday’s Life section about how the Oklahoma City Jewish faith community find meaning in giving back for the High Holy Days.
Look for more information on Sukkot in next week’s Oklahoman.
Carla Hinton
Religion Editor
Rockin’ Rosh Hashana and a Tweet New Year
Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year begins at sundown today.
I love music and I stumbled upon a holiday-themed music video that has gone viral. This “Rosh Hashana Rock Anthem” is cute and engaging so have a look.
Also, here is an interesting tidbit about Rosh Hashana for the social media fans out there. The Jewish New Year kicks off a season called the High Holy Days. This is the 10 days between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.
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A Tweet New Year
The first contemporary online synagogue, OurJewishCommunity.org, is tweeting the High Holiday services — Roshanah Sept. 28029 and Yom Kippur Oct. 7-8.
Hundreds of tweets will be sent out from the Twitter accounts of the online congregregation (@JewsOnline) and one of its rabbis, Laura Baum (@rabbi) during the evening and morning services. The tweets are to come from the liturgy that is used during the services, which also may be downloaded as a PDF.
“We’re rabbis who actually encourage people to talk during our sermons,” Baum said in a news release. “We want those attending our services online to chat with each other using social media. It’s great to see people engaging in conversation with each other.”
For more information, visit www.OurJewishCommunity.org.
Blueberry blintzes, oh my
As I predicted yesterday, I was surrounded by blueberry blintzes (pictured) today.
I visited Camp Chaverim, the summer day camp operated at Temple B’nai Israel and coordinated by the Jewish Federation of Greater Oklahoma City. 
I got there just in time for lunch and the youths were being treated to the blintzes with today’s meal.
It’s all because of Shavuot, the Jewish holiday commemorating the giving of the Ten Commandments to Moses and the Israelities.
By tradition, many Jewish families eat dairy products and foods made with dairy products during this time. This custom is related to the verse in the Torah that says the Lord gave them the land of milk and honey. Besides blintzes, cheesecake and ice cream are favorite treats during Shavuot.
Marcy Price, programs director for the Jewish Federation, coordinates Camp Chaverim each summer. She said the campers will have ice cream sundaes tomorrow in conjunction with Shavuot.
Look for more information on Camp Chaverim in a future edition of The Oklahoman.
Carla Hinton
Religion Editor
Cheesecake, anyone? It’s Shavuot
The Jewish holiday of Shavuot begins at sundown tonight. 
It is the holiday commemorating the anniversary of the giving of the Ten Commandments to Moses and the Israelites at Mount Sinai. The holiday ends at sundown June 9.
Shavuot is also known as the Festival of Weeks, celebrating the harvest season in Israel.
Holidays on the Net says shavuot means “weeks,” refering to the timing of the festival which is seven weeks after the holiday of Passover.
OK, where does the cheesecake come in?
Well, Jewish faith community members traditionally eat dairy-filled items like ice cream, cheesecake and blintzes during Shavuot for a variety of reasons. The most notable is because of the phrase in the Torah that says the Lord gave the Israelites the land flowing with milk and honey.
So many Jewish families will likely feast on cheesecake, my favorite dessert by the way, tonight or at some point during the next couple of days as they celebrate Shavuot.
For more information, about Shavuot, visit Holidays on the Net.
I’ve also included some links to interesting commentary on the holiday:
HuffPost Religion: “Finding the Divine in Community on Shavuot”
HuffPost Religion: “Shavuot: Love Letters From a Cosmic Marriage.”
Tackling Torah blog: “Shavuot: Torah and Technology”
And finally, I thought this one was really interesting from Busted Halo: “Pentecost, Shavuot and the Overlap of the Christian and Jewish Traditions”
Last but not least,
Part of being religion editor means I attend many functions in which food is served.
Poor me. Tomorrow, I’m attending a Shavuot event in which they will have blueberry blintzes.
Can’t wait.
Carla Hinton
Religion Editor
Prayer ritual causes alarm
I heard something on the radio the other day that caught my attention but a recent Associated Press brief put it all into perspective.
I had heard that some sort of prayer ritual caused a lot of concern on an airplance the other day, so much so that a security alert was issued. 
I heard the words “prayer” and “ritual” and I didn’t know what to think.
I never imagined that it was a Jewish prayer tradition that was at the source of the heightened alarm.
Due to my job and a story I did several years ago, this particular prayer ritual would not have caused me anyconcern. But of course not everyone covers religion nor are they all privy to Jewish traditions and beliefs.
The thing is the tefillin prayer ritual is not generally known outside the Jewish faith community.
The AP brief on the recent incident is below. I’ve included some pictures that were taken by an Oklahoman photographer back in 2008 when I did a story on Tefillin. I have included them, along with excerpts from my 2008 story, so readers can get a general sense of what parts of the ritual look like and what it all means. Just a general FYI.
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LOS ANGELES (AP) — Pilots on an Alaska Airlines flight from Mexico City to Los Angeles locked down the cockpit and alerted authorities when a flight crew grew alarmed at the behavior of three men who turned out to be conducting an elaborate orthodox Jewish prayer ritual.
The three Mexican men began the ritual that involves tying leather straps and small wooden boxes to the body, and the crew of Sunday’s Flight 241 alerted the cockpit, airline spokeswoman Bobbie Egan said.
The cockpit was placed on a security lockdown for the rest of the flight — meaning the door couldn’t be opened even for pilots to leave briefly. Normal protocol calls for the cockpit to be locked, but on longer flights the pilots will leave and return from the flight deck.
FBI and customs agents along with police and a full assignment of fire trucks met the plane at the gate at Los Angeles International Airport, and the men were escorted off.
After questioning from the FBI, the men were released without being arrested. Airline officials later learned from law enforcement the men were performing the ritual known as laying the tefillin.
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OK, here’s an excerpt from my story about an Emanuel Synagogue’s tefillin event which ran in 2008 in The Oklahoman:
The synagogue participated in an international program called World Wide Wrap Day to educate the congregation about the custom of tefillin. Rabbi Russell Fox (pictured above) said he hoped participation in the global initiative might encourage some congregation members to recommit to the practice.
According to Jewishvirtuallibrary.org, tefillin are two small black boxes with black straps attached to them. Fox said the boxes contain tiny parchment scrolls with Scriptures from Exodus and Deuteronomy written on them, including the verse on which the custom is based.
Fox said tefillin is based on God’s commandment in Deuteronomy 6:5-8:
“And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.
“And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart:
“And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when though sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.
“And though shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thy eyes.”
He said for generations, Jewish men have been required to place one box on their head and tie the other one on their arm by, wrapping them on with slender straps each weekday morning as they say their morning prayers. Fox said in recent years, some Jewish congregations such as Emanuel have allowed women to practice tefillin as well.
“The power of a ritual like this is it is something that connects you not only to all the Jews all around the world, but all the Jews that precede us. It connects across time and space,” said Fox.
The significance of tefillin, however, is that it serves as a physical reminder of a person’s loving relationship with God, Fox said.
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I hope that The Oklahoman has helped educate readers on some of the more obscure or lesser-known traditions in the different faith communities. I know that I have certainly learned a lot about other faith traditions, besides my own Christian faith, plus I’ve discovered much about my own faith community as well.
Carla Hinton
Religion Editor
The Chelsea Clinton wedding: The religion factor
News of Chelsea Clinton’s upcoming nuptials in upstate New York is everywhere.
Here’s something to think about: Clinton, daughter of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and former President Bill Clinton, is a Christian, while her fiance Marc Mezvinsky is Jewish.
The Washington Post’s religion blog On Faith recently included postings on the issue of interfaith marriage. The blog’s diverse group of panelists answered the question “Should religions intermarry?”
Read their comments here: “Should religions intermarry?”
(AP Photo: Chelsea Clinton talks with University of Oklahoma students after a speech given
by her father, former President Bill Clinton, in 2008 on OU’s Norman campus.)
Carla Hinton
Religion Editor
OETA airing programs fitting for Yom HaShoah
Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, commemorates the anniversary of the Allied liberation of the Nazi concentration camp Buchenwald. The commemoration honors the memory of the 6 million Jews who died in the Holocaust.
One of my main sources of information about happenings in the Oklahoma City Jewish community, Deborah Wolraich, sent me an e-mail about several TV programs that will be aired this week on OETA Channel 13. 
I thought I would share the names of the TV programs and the dates they are scheduled to air in case readers are interested. If you can’t be home to watch it, you can always set your DVR to catch it on tape.:
“Among the Righteous” is a documentary about research by historian Robert Satloff to track down and verify any instances in which Arabs aided their Jewish neighbors while Hitler’s Afrika Corps swept across North Africa. Satloff’s research turned up evidence of 100 forced labor and concentration camps in Tunisia and Morocco.
The show airs at 9 p.m. tonight, 3 a.m. Tuesday and 4 a.m. Thursday.
“Diary of Anne Frank” airs at 2 a.m. Tuesday. The film first aired on Sunday.
“Blessed is the Match,” is a film that recounts the bravery of Hannah Senesh, a young poet. Senesh joined an elite group of Palestine’s Jews to parachute behind Nazi lines and rescue Jews in her native Hungary.
The show airs at 10 p.m. Tuesday and 2 a.m. Wednesday.
“Worse Than War” looks at genocides in Turkey, Ukraine, Nazi-occupied Europe, China, Cambodia, Guatemala, Bosnia, Rwanda and Darfur.
The show airs at 9 p.m. and midnight Wednesday.
Check out OETA’s programming for this week for yourself by visiting OETA schedule.
Passover begins tonight
“Living our story that is told for all peoples, whose shining conclusion is yet to unfold, we gather to observe the Passover, as it is written — “You shall keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for on this very day I brought your hosts out of Egypt. You shall observe this day throughout the generations as a practice for all times (Exodus 12:17).” – “A Passover Haggadah,” Central Conference of American Rabbis
Passover, the Jewish holiday commemorating the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt, begins at sundown tonight.
In honor of the holiday, I’d like to offer some Passover related or Judaism news tidbits and commentary:
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Passover foods hold meaning
My first seder several years ago was a memorable one. I’ll never forget the moving experience as the meal helped tell the story of the Israelites’ freedom from Egyptian bondage. For non-Jews, here’s a sampling of some of the seder foods and the meaning attached to them, taken from “A Passover Haggadah.”
The seder place typically consists of a roasted shankbone, which represents the ancient Passover sacrifice.
Parsley or any green herbs signifies the growth of springtime, the green of hope and renewal.
The top part of the horseradish root is symbolic of the bitterness that the Israelites experienced in Egypt, and in a modern sense, the lot of all who are enslaved.
Haroset is a sweet combination (and my favorite edible part of the seder) of apples with chopped walnuts or pecans. Sometimes mashed raisins, dates, prunes or apricots are added, along with cinnamon and wine. Haroset represents the mortar which the Israelites used in doing Pharoah’s labor.
A roasted egg represents a festival offering and is a symbol of life itself.
Three separate pieces of matzah are typically placed in either a special cloth matzah cover with three sections or in a napkin folded over twice. these three pieces of matzah represent the two traditional loaves set out in the ancient Temple during the festival day and the extra matzah symbolic of Passover.
(Photo by
Carla H.
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Newsweek releases list of 50 most influential Jewish clergy
Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism in edWashington and a member of President Obama’s Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, tops Newsweek’s list of the 50 most influential Jewish clergy in the country, Religion News Service reports.
The RNS reported that Saperstein took the top spot from Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder and dean of the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center. Hier had topped both previous annual lists, but came in second this year.
The ranking system, compiled for the third year by Sony Pictures CEO Michael Lynton, News Corp’s Gary Ginsberg and Jay Sanderson of JTN Productions, rewards rabbis with international reputations and political influence.
In response to criticism about overlooking local community leaders, the three judges also compiled a list of 25 Most Vibrant Congregations this year, ranging from the Orthodox B’nai Jeshrun in Manhattan to the nondenominational Congregation Emanu-El in San Francisco.
Read Newsweek’s list here: “50 Influential Rabbis.”
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Group says economic troubles fueling Canadian anti-Semitism
TORONTO– Jewish groups here are linking the downturn in the economy to a rise in reported incidents of anti-Semitism.
The Religion News Service reported that in its annual audit of anti-Semitic incidents, the League for Human Rights of B’nai Brith Canada recorded 1,135 anti-Semitic incidents in 2008 — an increase of 8.9 percent compared with 2007.
The report, released March 31, added that since more than half of the incidents occurred in the last four months of 2008, the rise could be attributed to “fallout” from the economic recession and sensational cases like disgraced financier Bernard Madoff and the collapse of the Lehman Brothers investment bank.
Anita Bromberg, director of legal affairs for B’nai Brith Canada, said her organization has been collecting and analyzing data about anti-Semitism for 27 years. She has heard many conspiracy theories about Jews and their control of the world’s money. One recent theory, said Bromberg, suggests that Jews transferred $400 billion to Israel just prior to the collapse of Lehman Brothers and other major investment banks in the U.S.
“The conspiracy theories didn’t surprise us,” said Bromberg.
B’nai Brith compared reported incidents in Canada with Australia, which recorded a 2-percent increase, and the United Kingdom, which had 4 percent fewer incidents in 2008 than 2007.
Bromberg told the RNS that her organization is often asked if it is simply the reporting of incidents of anti-Semitism — and not the incidents themselves — that is rising. On the contrary, she said, B’nai Brith believes there’s a problem of underreporting.
“Since the release of the report, 11 more incidents have been phoned in to us,” she said, adding that many individuals are too scared or ashamed to complain.
In the U.S., the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) tracks incidents of anti-Semitism, but the release of statistics is delayed this year, said Todd Gutnick, an ADL spokesman. The ADL however, is carefully monitoring the trend of how the economic turmoil has led to the spread of conspiracy theories and stereotypes about Jews and money, he said.
In an April 1 report on its Web site, the ADL noted that around the time of Madoff’s guilty plea in a $65-million Ponzi scheme, articles on popular mainstream Web sites (including The New York Times, Newsweek and The Washington Post) elicited scores of anti-Semitic comments. Many of the offensive remarks, the ADL said, blamed Madoff’s actions “not on his criminal behavior but on the fact that he is Jewish.”
The Canadian report noted that most of the incidents of anti-Semitism last year took the form of harassment — 70.7 percent, or 803 incidents. They included a government worker in Toronto who was called “Christ Killer” by her boss and a taxpayer who was told by a Revenue Canada employee not to worry, the agency was “not Jewing” him.
Vandalism accounted for 28 percent (313 cases) of the reported incidents and 1.2 percent (14 cases) involved violence.
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On DVD: “Kosher Not Kosher” ($19.98).
Comedian Robert Cait offers a two-performance DVD designed to make people laugh whether they are Jewish or not.
The “Kosher” side offers a stand-up set featuring lots of Jewish humor that was shot live at a Chabad center in Los Angeles. The “Not Kosher” side is a secular and uproarious show from the world famous Laugh Factory in Hollywood. At the Chabad, Cait faces his struggle with 
Judaism. At the Laugh Factory, he struggles with his marriage and life with three kids.
There are Hebrew and Yiddish translations on the “Kosher” side. A father of three, Cait’s comedy offers jokes that can be safely enjoyed and repeated at any barbeque or bar mitzvah.
The DVD is available at retail outlets nationwide and on Amazon.com.
Check Cait out on YouTube: Robert Cait
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Compiled by Carla Hinton
Religion Editor
Call for fasting causes Passover concern
An Army chaplain is being criticized for calling a day of prayer and fasting today, the first day of Passover.
The Religion News Service reports that Maj. Gen. Douglas Carver, a Southern Baptist and Army Chief of Chaplains, issued his call for prayer and fasting in response to the rising suicide rates among soldiers.
Last year, the RNS reported, the Army reported the highest suicide rate since record-keeping began in 1980.
“I therefore call the Chaplaincy to a Day of Prayer and Fasting, in keeping with your religious traditions, to be observed on 8 April 2009 that the united cry of our Corps will be heard and answered regarding the protection, preservation, and peace for our Soldiers and Families,” Carver said in his proclamation, which was issued March 2.
The RNS reported that Carver told Baptist Press, the Southern Baptist Convention’s official news agency, that “April 8 is a Wednesday and prayer meeting night for Southern Baptists, so we really encourage not only Baptists but all local churches to pray for the military.”
The Religion News Service pointed out that Carver, as chief of chaplains, has oversight of Army chaplains of all faiths, including Jewish rabbis.
The news service said dozens of Jewish soldiers and chaplains have filed complaints with the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, a watchdog group that advocates religious neutrality in the military. Mikey Weinstein, president of the group, told the RNS that there has been a “tsunami” of complaints against the Day of Prayer, and believes the conflict with Passover is inexcusable.
“The fact that this would fall on this same day is not just wrong or bad, but unforgivable, and Carver should be severely disciplined,” Weinstein said.
Weinstein’s group is currently suing the Department of Defense for a “pernicious and pervasive pattern and practice of unconstitutional rape of the precious religious freedoms” of those in the military, and the group believes the Day of Prayer is just the latest example, the RNS reported.
The Jewish holiday of Passover begins at sundown. It commemorates the Israelites exodus from Egypt. A seder, a ceremonial meal traditionally held during Passover, is typically held on the first and second nights of the holiday.
(PHOTO above taken by Jaconna Aguirre, The Oklahoman)
Carla Hinton
Religion Editor
Make Holocaust denial illegal? Scholar says no.
Noted Holocaust scholar Deborah Lipstadt said she has heard that some people think Holocaust denial —denying the Holocaust ever happened — should be against the law, like child pornography or hate crimes.
At Sunday’s Yom HaShoah Holocaust Commemoration, Lipstadt said she is against such a measure.
She said making Holocaust denial illegal would be turning the deniers into martyrs.
She also said it would suggest that “we don’t have the evidence (that the Holocaust happened), which we do.”
Lipstadt was a powerful speaker. You could tell that she had connected with the audience because thee was complete silence. I took my 15-year-old son with me to hear her speak and he was just as enthralled by what she had to say as others in the audience.
