Salute to Hitler gets wrestler canned

new york (jta) | A U.S. cable news network fired a wrestler/financial analyst for making a Nazi salute during a wrestling match.

CNBC fired John “Bradshaw” Layfield after he made the salute and goose-stepped around the ring during a match last weekend in Munich. The wrestling federation also reprimanded him for his actions. Layfield, author of “Have More Money Now,” recently took on the wrestling persona of an anti-immigration zealot.

Jewish congressmen criticize Hollings

washington (jta) | Three Jewish Democratic congressmen criticized a Democratic colleague in the Senate who cast the Iraq war as a ploy to help Israel.

A letter from Reps. Barney Frank (Mass.), Tom Lantos (San Mateo) and Henry Waxman (L.A.) to Sen. Ernest Hollings (S.C.) rejects the analysis that the senator offered in a column last month. “We believe this is bad analysis, bad history and an extremely inappropriate singling out of one element in a very complex mix for responsibility,” they wrote.

Hollings’ column said the goal of the war was “to secure Israel” and focused on the role of two Jewish administration officials and a Jewish columnist in its planning.

Crown Heights stabber freed

new york (jta) | The man convicted of stabbing a Chassidic Jew during the Crown Heights riots was freed from jail last week.

Last year, a court found Lemrick Nelson guilty of violating Yankel Rosenbaum’s civil rights in the Brooklyn slaying, but ultimately not responsible for stabbing him to death on Aug. 19, 1991.

Nelson fatally stabbed Rosenbaum, 27, after a car in a motorcade ferrying the Lubavitch rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, accidentally struck and killed Gavin Cato, a 7-year-old black child.

Nelson was sentenced to 10 years in jail but received credit for time already served. He must now spend nine months in a halfway house as part of his three-year probation.