Above: Mystery rabbi Mordechai Waldmann blows shofar at 2004 Senate coronation for Moon

Light posting lately –

The Reverend Moon’s VP for Education, Phillip Schanker, challenged me, in an long e-mail, to chat with Moon’s leaders so that we can “take the measure of each other. But it seems you don’t have it in you.”

Asks Schanker: “But why won’t you sit down with us? Are you afraid?”

I replied in a friendly note that I would, and this was more than 30 days ago. I also corrected a number of mistaken assertions the Rev. Schanker made about my reporting, and accepted his offer to meet with Moon’s top clerics at a time of mutual convenience.

As of tonight, there has been no reponse.

Schanker expressed particular concern for my reprinting of Moon’s proclamations about Judiasm: that todays’ Jews “have to repent” for the death of Jesus. The notion is one repudiated by mainstream churches in the last 50 years as poisonous, not healing.

I sympathize with Rev. Schanker’s public relations problem. He and other Moon leaders have been searching for a new image as healers of strife between religion. But they’ve struggled to find the winning sales pitch that will persuade more than a few impassioned rabbis to blow a shofar to Moon.

And the honey of the clerics’ message can be complicated by the occasional outburst of vinegar from Moon himself, unreported in the Beltway media but distributed, unfiltered, on this Web site.

The latest example to be unearthed: speaking in 2002, the Washington Times owner declared:

Father [Moon himself] is Savior, Messiah, Second Coming and True Parents. By 2004 in April. Father would be here 34 years. By then Father will save this country. If it doesn’t respond Father will work with Russia and China. However, America is prepared.

Father gives you this hardship. This is indemnity. Father met up with President Bush and gave a hard time. Father gave [the] Korean president [a] hard time. I told them to receive the education of the Principle. If they reject we will see what happens to them.

[...]To Dr. Wilson. Are you Jewish? Don’t be proud. They rejected Jesus and failed their responsibility. Father said take down the cross at the Washington Times banquet. Then Jewish people should attend Jesus. Then they can restore.