c. 2006 Religion News Service

Israel’s Chief Rabbinate Urges Jews Not to Hitchhike

JERUSALEM (RNS) Israel’s Chief Rabbinate issued a ruling Thursday (June 29) forbidding Israeli Jews from hitchhiking after Palestinian militants murdered a young Israeli hitchhiker from the West Bank.

Israeli Chief Sephardic Rabbi Shlomo Amar said that hitchhiking constitutes a potential danger to human life and is therefore prohibited by Jewish law.

His ruling was announced just hours after the burned body of Eliyahu Asheri, an 18-year-old student, was discovered in the Palestinian city of Ramallah in the West Bank.

Asheri had reportedly been on his way to school in the West Bank when he was kidnapped on Sunday (June 25).

Earlier in the week Amar had asked Jews around the world to recite psalms on behalf of Cpl. Gilad Shalit, the 19-year-old Israeli soldier who was abducted by Palestinian militants the same day.

Even before Amar’s appeal, many synagogues and religious organizations initiated prayers for Shalit, who was captured on the Israeli side of the Israel-Gaza border by Palestinian militants who entered Israel through an underground tunnel. Two Israeli soldiers were killed during the ambush, as were Palestinian militants.

Following Shalit’s kidnapping, Israeli troops re-entered the Gaza Strip for the first time since the country pulled its settlers and soldiers from the territory in August 2005.

Rabbi Robert Shur, program coordinator in the Department of Synagogue Services at the Orthodox Union, said in a statement that the recitation should include Psalms 121 and 130, which are traditionally said in times of distress.

Psalm 121 reads in part: “I will lift up my eyes unto the mountains; from where shall my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made the heavens and the earth. … The Lord shall guard your going out and your coming in, from this time forth and forever.”

_ Michele Chabin

Billy Graham Plans on Sermon at Upcoming Baltimore Festival

(RNS) A little more than a year after his last crusade, evangelist Billy Graham plans to deliver the ending sermon at a festival led by his son Franklin in Baltimore in early July.

The Metro Maryland Festival will be held July 7-9 at Oriole Park at Camden Yards.

“As he did in New Orleans earlier this year, evangelist Billy Graham is planning to go to Baltimore next month in support of his son Franklin’s three-day festival,” said A. Larry Ross, Graham’s spokesman. “Health permitting, he is hoping to bring the closing sermon on Sunday.”

Graham, 87, preached twice in New Orleans in March and is willing to continuing speaking as long as he is able, Ross said.

“While his Greater New York Crusade at Flushing Meadows, Queens, last summer was his last city-wide evangelistic campaign at the invitation of local churches, it was not Mr. Graham’s last opportunity to preach, which he has continually said he plans to do as long as the Lord gives him strength or until God retires him,” Ross added.

The festival is being organized by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and planned by more than 640 churches representing 45 denominations in the Baltimore area.

_ Adelle M. Bank

Black Clergy Hold Own Hearings on Response to Katrina

WASHINGTON _ Upset that the federal government has not established a commission to investigate the response to Hurricane Katrina, black church leaders from all over the nation have convened one of their own.

Leaders of the Katrina National Justice Commission say the congressional committee hearings held earlier this year were not enough, and recently held their first hearing at a church on Capitol Hill.

Additional hearings are being held this week (June 29-30) in New Orleans and July 27 in Houston.

“The (Gulf) community’s voice has been silenced,” said Portia Wills Lee, a trustee of the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference, which organized the hearings. “We are trying to be a voice for the voiceless.”

The commission gives black church affiliates, evacuees, charitable organizations and government officials a channel to share response stories from areas that are still recovering from last year’s deadly storm.

The commission plans to compile testimonies and send its report to Congress, churches and organizations as well as make it available to the public.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., told the panel she pushed for a bipartisan congressional commission to examine the government’s response. Clinton said her bill was blocked by Congress’ Republican majority.

The Rev. David Goatley, executive director of Lott Carey International, an African-American Baptist mission organization, said his missions group coordinated a network of displaced pastors from the Gulf Coast willing to minister to fellow storm victims.

Goatley said the clergy helped people process questions of faith amid disaster by reminding them that “God is with us in the days of joy, and God is even with us in the days of distress.”

Goatley’s organization also developed six “Resurrection Centers” that provide social services, mental health support, child development programs and legal aid for victims of the storm.

_ J. Edward Mendez

Gore’s Documentary Wins Spiritual-Film Award

LOS ANGELES (RNS) Former Vice President Al Gore’s environmental documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth,” was honored Wednesday (June 28) with a special Humanitas prize, giving a political tinge to a Hollywood award for spiritually driven screenplays.

Gore did not personally pick up the honor at the awards luncheon at the Universal Hilton Hotel, but the film’s director, Davis Guggenheim, repeatedly described Gore as passionate about the movie. “We don’t have a writer on this movie, but Al Gore deserves this award,” he said. “The feeling (in creating the film) was a sense of shared moral purpose.”

The 32-year-old Humanitas prizes were created by the Rev. Ellwood “Bud” Kieser, the late Catholic priest and television producer. The prizes award $115,000 annually to film and TV scripts that contain thoughtful stories and spiritually uplifting characters. Past winners include the drama “Hotel Rwanda” and the television hit “MASH.”

Honoring Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” marked the first time the prizes singled out a politician’s film. The Rev. Frank Desiderio, president of the Humanitas Prize organization, said Gore’s documentary, not Gore, was honored with the award.

“We were rewarding the movie,” Desiderio said. “The movie raises important social issues.”

Other honors were bestowed on filmmaker Paul Haggis for the screenplay of his drama “Crash,” which this year won the Academy Award for best picture, and the film “Quinceanera,” about the Catholic celebration for Hispanic girls on their 15th birthday.

The medical drama “House” and the karma-driven hit comedy series “My Name Is Earl” won awards for television programs.

“I’ve heard of people using (`My Name Is Earl’) in sermons, which is pretty cool,” said Greg Garcia, a creator and writer for the program.

Desiderio said the awards committee liked the writing on “Earl” because “the fundamental premise of the show is moral conversion. You go from a ne’er-do-well to a do-gooder.”

_ David Finnigan

Quote of the Day: Malqorzata Perkowska of Topsfield, Mass.

(RNS) “Now in Poland, they’re building churches, they’re growing. We come here, and they’re closing.”

_ Malqorzata Perkowska, a resident of Topsfield, Mass., who immigrated from Poland 12 years ago, discussing the closure of St. Michael the Archangel Parish in Lynn, Mass. Perkowska was quoted in The Boston Globe about the 100-year-old church that had become a second home to many Polish-Americans and held its last service on Sunday (June 25).

KRE/PH END RNS