N.C. judge sends

Jewish joke e-mail

greensboro, n. c. (ap) | A chief district court judge sent e-mails with jokes about Jews, blacks and Arabs, using the computer in his office to send some of them.

Recipients included a Tennessee assistant attorney general, who said she didn’t recall opening the e-mailed joke.

Guilford County Judge William Daisy said he expected to be asked to step down because of the jokes. He sent at least 36 e-mail messages between May 6 and Sept. 3 that included such jokes, according to information obtained by the News & Record of Greensboro.

Gibson film praised

by Vatican officials

new york (jta) | A Catholic official is praising a controversial film by Mel Gibson on the death of Jesus. “There’s nothing in the film that doesn’t come from the Gospel accounts,” said U.S. Archbishop John Foley, after seeing trailers from “The Passion.” Jewish groups have urged Gibson to make changes in the film, which holds Jews partially responsible for Jesus’ death. Gibson belongs to an offshoot of Roman Catholicism that rejects all modern Catholic teachings, including the papal repudiation of the edict that Jews are historically responsible for killing Jesus.

Groups support

anti-Arab hate bill

new york (jta) | Jewish groups lent their support to a new bill that would allow the family of a victim of an anti-Arab hate crime to remain in the United States.

The bill, introduced Monday by Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.), would give green cards to the wife and four daughters of Waqar Hasan, who was shot at a convenience store four days after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, as an act of retaliation.

A letter from religious and other community leaders to Rep. John Hostettler (R-Ind.), chairman of the Subcommittee on Immigration, called Hasan a victim of the 9/11 attacks. Without the legislation, the family stands to be deported.