ATLANTA
(JTA) — A Georgia Jew is suing his school district for challenging the theory of evolution.
Jeffrey Selman filed the lawsuit against Atlanta’s suburban Cobb County School District, following the school board’s decision in August to place stickers in science textbooks calling evolution a scientific theory, not a fact. Then, the seven-member boarded unanimously voted in September to allow educators to teach both creationism and evolution.
Hawaii candidate gets anti-Semitic mail
HONOLULU (JTA) — A Jewish candidate for governor in Hawaii received anti-Semitic mail.
Linda Lingle, the Republican candidate, has received death threats and some postcards with swastikas, including a postcard that said: “Go Back Home! Haole (foreigner) Jew! Your [sic] Evil!” with a drawing of a swastika and the letters “SS.”
Lingle also received anti-Semitic calls and notes during her 1998 campaign but on a smaller scale, a campaign spokesman said.
Christian group OKs conversion of Jews
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The World Evangelical Alliance reissued a declaration defending the conversion of Jews.
In response to an August report from U.S. Roman Catholic bishops that opposes efforts to target Jews for conversion, the evangelical organization issued a statement saying it has a right to share Christianity with Jews.
The statement also decries anti-Semitism and says that Christian churches have “been much to blame for tolerating and encouraging it.”
Terror suspect pursued Jews, says prosecutor
PORTLAND, Ore. (JTA) — A suspected terrorist in the United States said he wanted to shoot Jews, a prosecutor alleged.
Jeffrey Leon Battle, his wife, October Lewis, and four other people were indicted in Portland last week on charges of conspiring to wage war against the United States.
Battle’s alleged statement came up at a detention hearing last Friday. During a conversation in his home in May, Battle allegedly told an FBI informant that he wanted to take two Kalashnikov assault rifles and “go for the synagogues.”
He hoped to get away but would be willing to die or get caught “if we could do at least 100 or 1,000, big numbers,” prosecutors said.