Is Jared Lee Loughner Jewish?

The Jewish Telegraph Agency picked up the Fox memo and ran with it, emphasizing the idea that Loughner targeted Giffords because she was Jewish: “Memo Notes Giffords’ Judaism in Motives of Alleged Attacker.” American Renaissance is (absurdly) described as “anti-ZOG (Zionist Occupational Government) [and] anti-Semitic.”

However, Mother Jones reports that Jared Lee Loughner’s best friend claims that Loughner’s mother is Jewish. This would seem to be a problem for the anti-Semitism motive.  According to the friend, Loughner disliked Giffords because she didn’t properly answer his question at a public meeting. The question: “‘What is government if words have no meaning?”

In other words, he is a nut case who has trouble with distinguishing real from unreal. From the description provided by the friend, it looks to me like some kind of schizophrenia–for example, believing in an alternate reality where he could fly and where he could dream anything he wanted and make it seem real.

In fact one of his YouTube videos combines the nutcase theme with the Jewish theme. In “My Final Thoughts: Jared Lee Loughner!” he says,  “If B.C.E. years are unable to start then A.D.E years are unable to begin. B.C.E. years are unable to start. Thus, A.D.E years are unable to begin.” (See here.) Besides the weirdness of the syllogism, B.C.E. stands for Before Common Era, a way that Jewish scholars commonly refer to the period before Christ was born without referring to anything Christian. Non-Jews don’t use it unless they are trying to impress Jews with their respect for Jewish hostility toward Christianity.

But the A.D.E. is not standard usage for anyone. Jewish scholars just write C.E.–Common Era and the rest of us use A.D. So maybe it’s just another aspect of his craziness.