Saudi Arabian King Abdullah just threw an interfaith party and was kind enough to invite a few Jews, including representatives from the World Jewish Congress, the Latin American Jewish Congress, the Jewish-started Foundation for Ethnic Understanding and a handful of others.

The bash was the Madrid-hosted July 16-18 Inter-Faith Conference, which was hosted by the Muslim World League.

According to the invitation letter sent by Saudi Arabia’s Ambassador to the United States, Adel bin Ahmed Al-Jubeir, the objective was “to bring together representatives from the three monotheistic faiths, as well as other major religions, such as Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism, and to focus on the universal values handed down to mankind by our Creator, that all faiths share.”

It’s both fascinating and sad to me that Spain hosted this event. The Iberian Peninsula is the site of both tragedy and triumph for interfaith relations, and Jews in particular. Some 10 centuries ago, great Jewish philosophers such as Maimonides and Yehuda HaLevi were shaped by Spain’s truly multi-cultural society. Meanwhile, great Kaballists (Jewish mystics) made a name for themselves in Gerona in the 13th century.

Yet, a little earlier the Almohades, fanatic Muslims, drove out Jews and Christians from much of Spain in the mid-12th century. Then, of course, the Catholic-led Spanish Inquisition led to the great expulsion from Spain in 1492, creating great upheaval throughout Europe. Thus, there are many positive and negative episodes to reflect upon in the land of this gathering.

However, if King Abdullah really wanted to make a statement of interfaith understanding, he would have held the meeting in Saudi Arabia itself. After all, that country still officially discriminates against non-Muslims and is the scene of some vicious anti-Semitic writings in newspapers and broadcasts.

Still, it’s a start and while we should keep perspective, we should welcome it.

There might be another first coming in a 2008 presidential campaign that has already given us the first presumptive African-American nominee, nearly brought a female one, briefly put a Mormon in the frontrunner’s spot and has a long-term Vietnam War prisoner going for the big spot. This time Jews – an integral base to the Democratic Party’s coalition since the FDR campaigns of the 1930s – are reconsidering.

In fact, a new poll out says that Jewish support for Democratic presumptive nominee Sen. Barack Obama is the lowest for any of the party’s recent picks. That’s despite an overwhelmingly negative view of the George Bush-led GOP. The survey, according to the JTA Wire Service and commissioned by the Washington-based advocacy Jewish group J Street, found that only 58 percent of American Jews said they would definitely vote for Obama. Another 4 percent said they were leaning toward him.

Now that still sounds like a lot, but consider that Al Gore and Bill Clinton both drew around 80 percent of the Jewish vote in their presidential bids. In 2004 candidate Sen. John Kerry picked up 76 percent.

Most interesting is that unlike in other years when Jewish numbers for Democrats dropped, there’s no strong independent siphoning off some of them– a John Anderson or a Ross Perot.

That doesn’t mean that Jews are rushing to be elephants. Only 29 percent said they would vote for Republican Sen. John McCain – only five percent more than Bush’s 2004 mark. (Another three percent are leaning toward McCain.)

What this really means is that some Jews simply are not enthusiastic about Obama, which could hurt his fundraising among them (which, truth be told, is doing fine any way). That means that if Obama wins, the Jewish community will not play such a large role as in past years, which could have long-term implications. However, I think that if the number of Jewish support can get above 65 percent – and I see that as likely – Obama will continue to see American Jewry as an important to his coalition.

The reason for this skittishness, of course, is the last sting of distrust that Obama engendered by not immediately rejecting the racist and anti-American comments of his former spiritual leader, the flamboyant Rev. Jeremiah Wright. I personally think Jews – at least ones with active brains – laugh at reports that Obama is a secret Muslim who will poison our kids with jihad juice.

Obama might be a lot of things, but he is no terrorist. He is, however, a politician and as the Rev. Jesse Jackson just learned, for better or worse he will act like one first, second and third.

This comes from the “now I’ve seen it all” file. The JTA Wire Service just ran a brief entitled “Kabbalah seen as cause for A-Rod split.” Thus, Kaballah – the historically and currently maligned study of Jewish mysticism – is now at the root of America’s latest mega-celebrity divorce. What’s next: Gefilte fish causing the obesity of all Appalachin Americans? Matzah ball soup increasing high blood pressure on Native American reservations? Is this all the new way of saying, “The Jews did it?”

Jokes aside, for those not in the know, A-Rod is New York Yankee Alex Rodriguez, perhaps the greatest baseball player of modern times. The superstar is reportedly divorcing wife Cynthia because he is allegedly having an affair with popstar Madonna, whose marriage to film director Guy Ritchie is on the rocks. The reason: Madonna, according to trainer Dodd Romero on ABC’s “Good Morning America” has “brainwashed” Rodriguez by interesting him in Kaballah. To make it even crazier, Cynthia’s attorney, Raoul Felder, reportedly will challenge her husband’s credibility by bringing up his interest in Kaballah and claiming it is a cult.

(Didn’t the Colts leave Baltimore years ago?)

Oy. Now this all says a lot both about the place of Jews and Judaism in America, as well as the inability of Jews and others to understand that serious study of kaballah is both time-honored and vastly deeper than the surface brush strokes of those driven by the headline loving L.A.-based Kaballah Center, the venue where Madonna and a host of others enjoy their fad of the day.

In short, America – outside of Israel—simply put is the safest place in history for the Jewish people. Study of Kaballah, which still isn’t accepted by many mainstream rabbis, is embraced by some of the nation’s leading celebrities. Meanwhile, Jon Stewart on “The Tonight Show” is busy making jokes about hamentaschen. He wouldn’t do it if his audience wouldn’t get it. And most Americans no longer even know that words such as “chutzpah” and “glitch” are Yiddish.

Jews have it made in America. The only problem now is getting more of them to seriously engage Jewish living instead of the kitsch that goes over so well in our media-driven, celebrity-obsessed culture.

Agriprocessors, the embattled kosher food giant, is in part fighting allegations of employing illegal immigrants in poor conditions and cruelty to animals by hiring the public relations firm 5WPR, a growing power house in the field, according to the JTA Wire Service. This is done in the face of calls by some modern Orthodox groups, Jewish vegetarians, Conservative Judaism’s rabbinical arm and others to either boycott or carefully consider purchasing foods by Agriprocessors – which represents 60 percent of the kosher beef and 40 percent of the kosher chicken sold in the country. Their products are sold under major labels such as Rabushkin’s and Aaron’s Best.

If Agriprocessors does some good community work and is a great place to be employed, then I say more power to publicizing all of that. But they have some serious questions to answer before getting to the usual corporate bragging.

Not only that, but one poor argument in defense of Agriprocessors is that critics should back off because pursuing the allegations against it could create a spike in kosher meat prices. As one who only buys and eats kosher meat, I say Jewish morality should not have a price. If people cannot eat meat or must eat less of it for a short period, so be it. If there is a market for such products, there is no doubt that other companies would step up their production to fill the void.

Reasons for keeping kosher are both varied and complicated. For certain people it is done out of a sense of obligation for following halachah. Equally important, many believe that kosher food is prepared humanely and, due to kashrut regulations, is generally healthier than many other products. The Agriprocessors scandal undermines that second belief and could damage the ability to persuade more people to consider keeping kosher. This also points to an inability of many organizations to explain to Jews why keeping kosher is important in the first place. None of these elements can be ignored as this story moves forward.

This is the best Italian food in town. We have tried many others and nothing can top Fazzini’s. Everything is fresh, homemade and delicious.

The pizza here was undercooked and really doughy.
entrees on other tables looked good though.

we like fazzini italian kitchen because of good wait staff and consistently good italian food. everything there is homemade; pasta, sauce,bread,pizza dough,etc.  large portions and reasonable prices and no ambiance!