Britannia Radio

Nancy Brinkner feels the heat

The fury came quickly after news broke this week that the breast cancer organization Susan G. Komen For the Cure was ending its annual grant to Planned Parenthood to fund breast exams for low-income women. Nancy Brinkner, Komen's Jewish founder and chief executive, defended the move as the result of more stringent standards for grantees. But to many in the Jewish world and outside it, the decision reeked of politics. Even children's book author Judy Blume weighed in, accusing Komen of caving in to bullies.

Leonard Cohen's tunes

Leonard Cohen's "Old Ideas" are gaining new traction. The album released this week, his first since 2004, is already topping the Canadian charts, and reviewers are saying it's his best effort in more than two decades. Cohen, 77, told Rolling Stone the title refers to the "old -- you might even say unresolved -- ideas that are wracking around in my brain, and the brain of the culture." TheWrap.com detects a Jewish meaning in the title: "He's talking 'old' as in Old Testament-type concerns," says the reviewer. Maybe to you, bub. For Jews like Cohen, what we call the Torah is always ready to be freshly mined.

Ra’anan Alexandrowicz wins at Sundance

Ra’anan Alexandrowicz’s film, “The Law in These Parts,” wasn’t the only Israeli entry to win a prize at this year’s Sundance Film Festival (so did “5 Broken Cameras”). But the film’s portrayal of Israel's legal system in the West Bank represented a rare evenhanded look at the Israeli occupation, showing how it has been enshrined and sustained through military law. Alexandrowicz’s win of Sundance’s World Cinema Jury Prize for best documentary is the second documentary prize for the film, which also took top honors at the Jerusalem Film Festival last July.

Orit Zuaretz fights sex trade

With more than 15,000 sex workers in Israel, Kadima Party member Orit Zuaretz decided something needed to be done. Her legislation, being voted on next week, would make it illegal to pay for the services of a prostitute. In support of the bill, protesters are expected to gather this weekend at the Knesset in Jerusalem as well as Israeli diplomatic missions in Washington, New York and London.

Naomi Klass Mauer stands firm

In the latest installment of the gay Orthodox controversy, Naomi Klass Mauer, the associate publisher of the Jewish Press, ran a column last week by a gay Orthodox man who described the bullying and suicidal thoughts experienced by many gays in the Orthodox community. Several advertisers subsequently contacted the paper, which serves an Orthodox readership, saying they were urged to pull their spots. But the paper stood firm, running an editorial this week saying it wouldn't give in to the threats. Pretending there are no gay Orthodox Jews, the editorial said, won't make them disappear.

JTA readers may not be familiar with Atlanta Bishop Eddie Long (or, then again, maybe they are). Either way, the man's notoriety is about to get a boost.At a recent church service, Ralph Messer, a self-described rabbi and messianic Jew, wrapped the bishop in a Torah -- he says it was recovered from Auschwitz -- lifted him on a chair bar-mitzvah style, and seemed to anoint him king. A statement to an Atlanta newspaper said the significance was misunderstood. Regardless, the reaction of a local rabbi might qualify as the understatement of the year: "As a Jew," he said," I find that use of symbols very off-putting."