adl upset over legislator's memo.

Jewish Group Demands Apology from Georgia Lawmaker
Last Edited: Thursday, 15 Feb 2007, 8:09 PM EST
Created: Thursday, 15 Feb 2007, 8:09 PM EST

ATLANTA (AP) -- A Jewish organization is demanding an apology from a Georgia legislator after a memo using his name claims that evolution was a myth propagated by an ancient Jewish sect.

The Anti-Defamation League sent a letter to state Representative Ben Bridges Thursday chastising him for the memo, which attributes the Big Bang theory to writings in the Kabbalah, a Jewish text.

Bridges -- a Republican from Cleveland in northeast Georgia -- has denied writing the dispatch. But one of his closest political allies, Marshall Hall, said the legislator gave him the approval to draft the memo.

The memo asks readers to challenge the "evolution monopoly in the schools" by logging onto Hall's anti-evolution Web site, http://www.fixedearth.com.

Hall, a 76-year-old former high school teacher whose wife ran Bridges' election campaign, said that neither the site nor the memo is anti-Semitic.

The Jewish group, however, is unconvinced and asked Bridges to immediately apologize. The league's Southeast regional director, Bill Nigut, said the memo "conjures up repugnant images of Judaism used for thousands of years to smear the Jewish people as cult-like and manipulative."

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