Toyota just announced its plug-in hybrid is ready for road testing.

This potential product could be a huge step forward for America and one giant leap backwards for American auto manufacturers. Sure, Ford and GM are promising to have the same product available by 2010, but if you believe that I have stocks in The Big Three I’d like to sell you. We’ve heard it before and they aren’t able to deliver. Meanwhile, Toyota and Honda are gaining market share faster then a Corvette can accelerate on 795 at 2 a.m.

At the same time Rep John Dingell. (D-Mich), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, is fighting his party’s effort to increase auto mileage standards.

I can appreciate his effort to fight regulation. Yet it’s laughable how the Japanese are eating the Big Three’s lunch by creating more fuel efficient cars, which the Big Three and its political protectors are fighting. GM and Ford will continue to ride their gas guzzling SUV’s off the cliff.

So, what’s Jewish about this?

The plug-in hybrids will get much better gas mileage then the regular version, and therefore will lessen our need for foreign oil. Not too far off will be a plug-in that runs on ethanol. Japanese companies will come up with this before American ones.

Meanwhile, in case you missed it this week:

Hezbollah announced it has fully rearmed after last summer’s war against Israel, thanks to Iran. And Iran is building underground tunnels, allegedly to prevent the U.S. and/or Israel attack planes from bombing its large, underground nuclear arms preparing infrastructure.

Now it seems that buying American will be anti-Israel and anti-American. That’s because the oil money we spend is being used to fund killing our soldiers in Iraq and readying terrorists to kill more Israelis.

Folks, we don’t have 10 years to reduce our oil consumption. Let Dingell protect our auto industry all the way to bankruptcy; I’ll continue to buy pro-American/Israeli security Toyotas.

This week’s stunning announcement of the Archdiocese of California’s $660 million settlement with 508 sexual abuse victims may or may not catch the attention of Baltimore rabbinic leaders. It sure should.

At least in California, no longer will the victims or the courts sit idle as religious leaders shuffle sexual predators around to new jobs to cover for crimes, hoping that such disaster doesn’t strike again.

Locally, at the Baltimore Jewish Times we have uncovered at least two rabbis who have allegedly abused dozens of young boys and girls in hundreds of cases.

In the coming months, there will be even more news forthcoming. When these mounting facts come to light, a scary trail of covering up these crimes will be exposed. Some Baltimore rabbinic leaders knew about the scores of victims left behind as these perpetrators had access to innocent children. In some instances the only action they took was to remove the offenders from classrooms. In other cases, nothing was done. Why isn’t anyone safeguarding our children to ensure that certain rabbis and educators are not still molesting?

Unlike the Catholic Church, there is no central address for rabbis – Orthodox or otherwise. So, there is no one group to be held responsible for a multi-million class action suit. But individuals are not immune.

After our first series of articles, several local Jewish leaders spoke out publicly about the need for change. Many rabbis signed documents and gave sermons. School administrators began meeting on this most serious of topics. I hope it goes much farther than that. That’s because, still, the molesters are out there; our rabbinic leaders are well aware of the alleged abuse. In fact, they have been so for years.

I hope and pray that we don’t need a multi-million dollar lawsuit to stop this racket. More importantly, I hope our leaders come to their senses quickly to ensure the safety of our children.

In case you missed today’s New York Times there was a horrifying article about an Iranian man stoned to death for committing adultery. The Iranian news agency confirmed it and said that 20 others would be executed for various other morality crimes such as rape, insulting religious sanctities and laws, and homosexuality.”

How barbaric that this extremist religious government would impose a death sentence for these acts!

Oh, and in case the front page story in the same New York Times, Former Surgeon General Richard H. Carmona testified before a Congressional panel that top Bush administration officials compromised important public health reports because of political considerations. Those topics included stem cell research, sex education, second hand smoke and global health initiatives.

So, the leading voice for public health in this country and perhaps the world was forced to suppress valid science (like how condoms prevent disease) because of political (read religious) pressure?

While it’s a slight stretch to compare the U.S. with Iran in so many ways, it’s not far off to say that – just like in Iran—people are dying here because our president’s religious beliefs prevent Americans from getting the best health information and preventive care possible.

Don’t take my word for it. Look at the statistics. We’ve fallen to number 37 in the world in terms of mortality rates. Meanwhile, our president and his fans are too worried about appeasing the hardcore of the religious right to do something about it.

People are dying in this country and around the world because of this administration’s lust to push its religious beliefs on others. Let’s be scared for the situation in Iran, and at the same time be weary of what a theocracy can mean for America.

I took my first trip to Israel in December of 1986 when I was 21 years old. What surprised me the most (besides how different it looked from the Jewish section of Baltimore) were the taxis. Almost all of them were Mercedes. I couldn’t figure out why all the Jewish people were being transported in German cars when it was taboo to support anything German only 40 years after the Holocaust.

I later learned that the taxis were donated by the German government as war reparations because it had no cash to give the Jewish state.

I took my last trip to Israel 20 years later, in July of 2006. I again was surprised by the cars. Not a hybrid to be found. I see more hybrids in my neighborhood in Baltimore City than I saw my whole week in Israel. This was shocking, given that Israel was at war with Hezbollah at that time. Hezbollah is financed through Iranian oil sales.

With the Islamic jihad against Israel financed by terrorist oil dollars, why isn’t the Israeli government doing something to reduce its country’s gasoline expenditures? With a nation that has more NASDAQ listing than any foreign country, why can’t they produce a plug-in hybrid that works on ethanol?

Military spending is the tiny state’s largest portion of GNP. Israel should be spending a portion of that on its moon-shot – developing a car that would stop funneling money to terrorists.

My husband & I have eaten at the Sunday brunch a few times with my husband’s large family. We were treated well, the food was good & plentyful. We are very satisfied with this restaurant.