c. 2007 Religion News Service

Study Finds U.S. Jewish Population Higher Than Expected

Editors: In 4th graf, `birthright israel’ is cq

(RNS) The American Jewish population is 20 percent higher than previously reported, according to a new study released by the Brandeis University Steinhardt Social Research Institute.

The institute estimated there are 6 million to 6.4 million Jews living in the United States, along with another million people with Jewish ancestry, by analyzing survey data collected by a range of government, academic and private foundations.

This report disputes the 2000-’01 National Jewish Population Study, which reported only 5.2 million American Jews. The telephone-based survey had underestimated non-Orthodox Jews and those under age 55, the new study concludes.

A larger American Jewish population means that a lower percentage currently attends religious schools or participates in cultural activities like birthright israel, which offers free trips to Israel for Jews ages 18 to 26.

The survey can encourage such programs to reach out to a more diverse population, said Michael Steinhardt, a philanthropist who endowed SSRI and funds other Jewish programs.

“The good news, however, is that we can use this new information to reinvigorate our efforts towards causing a renaissance in Jewish life,” he said. “Speaking for myself, I’ve heard the clarion call, and I’m excited to get to it.”

_ Nicole Neroulias

Final Defendants Sentenced in Baptist Foundation of Arizona Fraud Case

(RNS) The final defendants in the lengthy Baptist Foundation of Arizona fraud case have been sentenced, with some receiving harsher penalties than expected.

On Friday (Feb. 2), Maricopa County Superior Judge Kenneth Fields sentenced five people linked to the foundation, The Arizona Republic reported.

Donald Dale Deardoff, the former foundation treasurer, was sentenced to four years in prison, despite a prosecutor’s recommendation that he be sent to county jail for one year. He was also ordered to pay $159 million in restitution.

The hearing marked the last chapter in fraudulent activities involving investments of mostly elderly people. Investors believed their money would help Baptist causes, including the building of churches. But state investigators determined that foundation executives had created a Ponzi scheme, using new investors’ money to pay off previous investors.

Many investors were able to recover some of their money after authorities took action.

The Republic reported defense attorneys had argued that their clients expected leniency because they cooperated in the conviction of former foundation president William Crotts and former legal counsel Thomas Grabinski. But the judge made a different determination, declaring all their crimes felonies rather than misdemeanors.

“You were in a position of trust,” he told Richard Lee Rolfes, a former secretary and financial consultant for foundation subsidiaries. “I can’t justify a misdemeanor.”

Rolfes and three other defendants were sentenced to three years’ supervised probation and ordered to pay restitution totaling $440,000.

In a Tuesday (Feb. 6) editorial, the Tucson Citizen called the case “a sad story of greed perpetrated in the name of a church.”

_ Adelle M. Banks

French Newspaper on Trial for Muhammad Cartoons

PARIS (RNS) A French newspaper went on trial Wednesday (Feb. 7) in the latest fallout of the controversial Muhammad cartoons that stirred international furor last year.

The case involves the satirical weekly, Charlie Hebdo, which is being sued by two French Islamic organizations for publishing three drawings of the Islamic prophet. Two of the drawings were reprints of those commissioned by the Jyllands-Posten newspaper in Denmark.

The case has stirred widespread debate in France, where it is cast as a battle between defenders of unfettered free speech and those arguing that religious sensitivities should be taken into account.

“Criticizing religion is necessary for democracy, for things to advance,” Charlie Hebdo’s publication director Philippe Val told Radio France in a recent interview. “Some fundamentalist Muslims want to take the place of lawmakers and produce laws that restrict free expression. That’s not their place.”

But the three drawings _ including one of Muhammad sporting a bomb in his turban _ crossed the boundaries of free expression, the Muslim groups said.

“These are three drawings that go beyond caricature and amount to injury for Muslims,” said Francis Szpiner, lawyer for the Paris Mosque and the conservative Union of French Islamic Organizations.

The cartoons, printed across Europe, sparked anger on the part of many Muslims and a smattering of court cases. Most of the newspapers and journalists involved were eventually acquitted, including Jyllands-Posten.

In France, a group of intellectuals _ including some Muslims _ issued an open letter in support for Charlie Hebdo. The leftist Liberation newspaper reprinted some of the images Wednesday, in another gesture of solidarity.

“In a secular state, no religion _ like no ideology _ is above the laws,” wrote another French newspaper, Le Monde, in its Wednesday editorial.

The trial is expected to end Thursday, with a verdict delivered at a later date.

_ Elizabeth Bryant

Muslims Angry After German Official Says Muslim Converts Are Dangerous

BERLIN (RNS) Islamic groups are crying foul after Germany’s minister in charge of domestic security suggested the rising number of Germans converting to Islam makes Germany less safe.

Islamic groups have branded the statements, made Sunday (Feb. 4) in the newspaper “Die Welt,” as “not particularly helpful.” They have accused Interior Minister Wolfgang Schauble of creating problems out of nothing. Schauble’s role is roughly similar to that of the U.S. secretary of Homeland Security, overseeing federal police and other investigative agencies.

In the interview, Schauble said he thought Germany had avoided major terrorist attacks because its Muslim population is made up of Turkish immigrants who are largely secular. But he said he sees that changing because the growing number of German converts to Islam are fostering a more radical Islamic culture in Germany.

“The growing number of people here _ or in Belgium or other European countries _ who have converted to Islam has taken on some threatening features,” he said. “Of course, I’m not saying that every convert is a potential terrorist. But one has to see that the phenomenon of home-grown terrorism is growing here.”

Kenan Kolat, head of the Turkish Community in Germany, said in the Berliner Zeitung newspaper that he plans to make Schauble’s statements an issue during upcoming German-Islamic conferences. Others argued that Schauble should focus instead on creating better immigration and integration policies.

The growing number of Islamic converts has been a controversial topic in Germany in recent weeks after Spiegel, a major newsweekly, published a study showing that 4,000 Germans had converted to Islam between the summers of 2004 and 2005, three times as many as during the same period a year before.

_ Niels Sorrells

Quote of the Day: Former evangelical leader Ted Haggard

(RNS) “Jesus is starting to put me back together.”

_ Ted Haggard, the former president of the National Association of Evangelicals and a megachurch pastor in Colorado Springs, in an e-mail to members of his former church after ending three weeks of intensive therapy. His e-mail was reprinted by The Gazette in Colorado Springs.

KRE/LF END RNS