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Now that we’re passed the Golden Globes, it’s Oscar time and many Christians around America are hoping - and praying - that Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ will win the Academy Award for Best Picture. The possibility, a major long shot, no longer seems that outrageous now that the film has already won the People's Choice award for Best drama. Over the past year, I have been a vociferous critic of The Passion. Many of my Christian brothers and sisters have been extremely puzzled that, given my staunch admiration for the morality of the Christian faith in general,...

President George W. Bush's victory last November was a triumph for Jewish conservatives who have long argued for a close alliance with evangelical Christians in promoting the Judeo-Christian values upon which America is founded. Such a tiny and vulnerable nation needs friends and I, for one, reveled in Jews having found allies who revere the Bible and prophets, are staunch supporters of Israel, and oppose the crassness of the popular culture. It has been only four months since the election, but already we have discovered fissures in this special relationship. As Christmas approached, many right-wing Christians blamed atheist Jews for...

Editor's note: This commentary is in response to a commentary WorldNetDaily ran last week by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach. As we noted in his commentary, historians are split on whether Pope Pius XII's subdued response to Hitler and behind-the-scenes efforts helped save many Jews during the Nazi Holocaust, or whether his "neutrality" amounted to moral cowardice, costing many Jewish lives.A rebuttal to the hyper hysterics of Rabbi Boteach's article, "Pius XII: Collaborator and kidnapper" is simple: No good deed goes unpunished. And, apparently, a heroic deed will be punished with a vengeance. The document Rabbi Shmuley waved under the nose of...

Use people power against genocide By SHMULEY BOTEACH Two things were on my mind as I watched Hotel Rwanda, the stunning depiction of the 1994 Rwandan Tutsi extermination that was the fastest genocide in the history of the world. The first was Hollywood, and how I owed it an apology for the many times I have railed against its degeneracy. A film this powerful shames the world out of its indifference to the slaughter of helpless humans and demonstrates the potential of movies to reach the places photos and words cannot. The second was Bill Clinton, the great 60's liberal...

With the Democratic Party scrambling to discover how to reconnect with mainstream America, members of the Jewish community better ask themselves the same question. The foremost issue animating voters in the 2004 election was moral values, and 80 percent of the moral values voters went for George Bush. This contrasts with 75 percent of Jewish voters who went for John Kerry, which suggests that the Jewish community’s basic morality is out of touch with the majority of Americans. A giant gulf, in particular, has opened between the Jewish community and America’s 70 million born-again Christians for whom religion is primarily...

Moral People Must Learn How To Hate "For everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven… a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace." – Ecclesiastes 3 How many times have we heard that the problem with the world today is that there isn't enough love, when precisely the opposite is true? Evil currently stalks the earth because there isn't enough hate. Moral people, afraid of being poisoned by hate, are becoming indifferent to evil. The history of the modern world is a history of...

America is bitterly divided between left and right with each side showing blatant distrust of the other. Liberals are concerned that Republicans are going to create a Khomeini-style theocracy, robbing women of their right to choose an abortion and shoving God down people's throats. Conservatives are equally frightened that liberals want to make America into a heathen and sinful Bohemian cesspool. About the only thing the two sides agree on is the preservation of the Union. No one is advocating that America split into red and blue states. Even if we do not come together, we dare not tear the...

Conventional wisdom has it that the "morality voters" who rose to such prominence in this election voted for President Bush because of their opposition to gay marriage. But that is a complete misreading of why the morality voters dumped John Kerry. In reality, the No. 1 moral issue for most Americans is not gay marriage, but the foul and sleazy culture which is destroying their children's innocence. And it was John Kerry's alignment with Hollywood and its celebrities – who came out in full force for his elevation – that ultimately did him in. Pity the poor people of Hollywood....

Any observer of last week's American elections would have to conclude that it is the United States that has now taken upon itself the role of being God's chosen people. Although they have become the most hated nation on earth for doing so, Americans chose another four years of a faith-based presidency, dedicated to exporting freedom and democracy – by military force if necessary – and were happy to continue with their pariah president, even if that meant being rejected by the international community for their commitment to a moral foreign policy. If only Israel would follow their close ally's...

Tuesday, November 2, 2004 My love affair with evangelical Christians Posted: November 2, 20041:00 a.m. Eastern By Rabbi Shmuley Boteach © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com Nearly the whole world is arrayed against President George W. Bush. The long list includes Europe, the United Nations, the Arab countries, the world's media, Hollywood, the universities, and half the United States. The question becomes: How can this man possibly survive as president? The answer to this question lies in the biggest American development since women's suffrage, namely, the rise of the Christian right. The United States has 70 million born-again Christians, comprising the single largest voting block...

The final weeks of the presidential race have brought an outbreak of fear. Both President George W. Bush and Senator John Kerry are airing television ads, the gist of which is that if you vote for the other guy you're going to go broke and everyone's going to die. Kerry's turn to fear is understandable. His campaign has little else to offer other than to play on America's lingering fear of Iraq turning into a quagmire like Vietnam. But the fact that Bush has turned to fear is disappointing. After September 11, 2001, Bush captured the hearts of the American...

In a culture that sexualizes women constantly, the line between water-cooler chat and harassment is increasingly thin. Bill O'Reilly, the conservative talk-show host whose "The O'Reilly Factor" is the highest-rated cable news show, has been sued for sexual harassment by his former producer Andrea Mackris. Mackris alleges that on many occasions, both in person and over the phone, O'Reilly engaged in lewd and lascivious conversation against her will. She goes so far as to state that O'Reilly unlawfully engaged in, and gratified himself with, phone sex, with Mackris on the other end of the line. To be sure, O'Reilly enjoys...

2 nations alone: Notes on America and the Jews being the most hated people on Earth Posted: September 16, 20041:00 a.m. Eastern By Rabbi Shmuley Boteach © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com American have become the new Jews of the world. They are not liked much. The United States is experiencing what the Jews have experienced throughout their history: an irrational hatred, unwarranted animosity. The pundits will tell you that this is all due to America-envy. We're the biggest, strongest kid on the block. So everyone hates us. To be sure, we ought never underestimate the role that simple jealousy and envy plays in fuelling...

Friday, September 10, 2004 American Mossad: AIPAC and the World Jewish Conspiracy Posted: September 10, 20041:00 a.m. Eastern By Rabbi Shmuley Boteach © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com Jew-haters of the world, rejoice! It turns out – after repeated denials by the world Jewish community for generations – that you were right all along. There really is a conspiracy on the part of the Jews to take over the world. And all the guys who said America went to war in Iraq due to Jewish pressure – august personalities such as Sen. Fritz Hollings, Gen. Anthony Zinni, Congressman Jim Moran and Pat Buchanan – have...

Friday, September 3, 2004 John Kerry's blood libel Posted: September 3, 20041:00 a.m. Eastern By Rabbi Shmuley Boteach © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com John Kerry will lose this presidential election -- guaranteed -- and it will happen because he violated one of the most important religious laws, inculcated within nearly every Jewish child from the youngest age: God commands us not to slander and not to engage in malicious gossip. Even during the Republican convention, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth continued to pummel and hammer John Kerry with negative TV ads about his wartime record in Vietnam, his indictment of the troops as...

Who says that God doesn't have a sense of humor? My regular readers will remember that at the Democratic National Convention, I found myself sitting a few feet from filmmaker Michael Moore. I had been eager to talk with Moore about his positions on Israel, since I had read several negative comments attributed to him. I tried to speak with him, but he turned me away. But last night at the Republican National Convention, I was working on my laptop from one of the press desks when a Secret Service agent suddenly walked in and told me that the empty...

A few months ago I wrote a column criticizing Gov. James McGreevey for silence in the face of outrageous anti-Semitic outbreaks in New Jersey. McGreevey surprised me by calling personally to plead guilty to some of the points I made. After having spoken with him for over an hour, I was impressed by his humility and willingness to acknowledge error. He later invited me to a party he hosted at the Democratic National Convention. There I said to his wife, who was holding his hand, that I had always been impressed with the quiet dignity she brought to the role...

John F. Kerry enjoys being compared with his hero, John F. Kennedy. But for all the superficial comparisons, ideologically they are worlds apart. In Kennedy's 1961 inaugural speech, he uttered the famous words "Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty." With these eloquent words, Kennedy committed himself to stopping militarily the spread of communist tyranny. He made this point directly to Nikita Khrushchev during their Vienna summit in June...

On the first night of the Democratic National Convention in Boston, from where I was broadcasting my radio show, I found myself sitting 10 feet from Michael Moore. He was chatting with journalists, so I decided to ask if he would agree to be a guest on my radio show. I wanted to debate him about his Bush-hating Fahrenheit 9/11. But when he saw me approaching, he dismissed me with a single, condescending flick of his finger as if I were a bug crawling up his arm. I was initially offended by his arrogant gesture. And knowing of his hatred...

On the first night of the Democratic National Convention in Boston, from where I was broadcasting my radio show, I found myself sitting 10 feet from Michael Moore. He was chatting with journalists, so I decided to ask if he would agree to be a guest on my radio show. I wanted to debate him about his Bush-hating "Fahrenheit 9-11." But when he saw me approaching, he dismissed me with a single, condescending flick of his finger as if I were a bug crawling up his arm. I was initially offended by his arrogant gesture. And knowing of his hatred...