Sign up for Weekday J and get the latest on what's happening in the Jewish Bay Area.

WASHINGTON– The Capitol was abuzz this week for all of five minutes amid a rumor that a prominent Jewish organizational official was visiting Iraq.

It turns out Rabbi David Saperstein, the director of the Religious Action Center for Reform Judaism, was in I-RAC, the Israel Religious Action Center, which is located in Jerusalem. A confused receptionist had wrongly tipped off a journalist who had called seeking an interview with Saperstein.

"We're going to have to petition Saddam Hussein to change the name of his country," joked Leonard Fein, director of the Reform movement's commission on social action, when alerted to the report by a reporter.

When reached on Capitol Hill, an astonished and almost speechless Mark Pelavin, assistant director of the Washington-based RAC, said, "David is not, was not and will not be in Iraq."