EDITORIAL
Jail House. Blues
The American public has great expectations from its prison
systems. They must be secure, keeping convicted persons safely away
from society, and they must be rehabilitative, returning model
citizens to the general population.
This sounds good in theory, but falls far short in reality, especially
in the area of rehabilitation.
Our Close-Up story this week on Page 24 gives a brief glimpse
of life behind bars for some of the estimated 100 Jewish prisoners
in Michigan correctional facilities. Activists are pushing a 1986
lawsuit through the U.S. Court of Appeals in an effort to guarantee
religious rights for Michigan prisoners. The state has argued, suc-
cessfully so far, that security concerns prevent the mixing of Jewish
prisoners from Jackson's various complexes to form a minyan.
We are not in a position to decide for the courts who is right.
We agree with prison officials that security concerns must be para-
mount, but we know there are gray areas between the rules and the
reality in our prison facilities.
We also agree with prisoner rights activists that religious ser-
vices can be an important rehabilitation measure for those who even-
tually will be released into the general society and for those who
will spend the remainder of their days behind bars.
The courts and the prisons must find a way to ac Complish
-
both
goals.
inger's 1975 pledge to Israel not to negotiate with the PLO until
it recognized Israel's right to exist. There was no breach of this pledge
because there were no political discussions. The content of the
meetings was reportedly devoted to the security of the American em-
bassy in Beirut and to the release of the U.S. hostages in Iran.
Perhaps, but it is apparent that the United States used a loophole
in the Kissinger pledge to its full advantage. It would seem that the
Carter and Reagan administrations were not enthusiastic about the
Kissinger pledge. They thought it restricted their room to maneuver
in the Middle East. So they conducted hushed backstairs talks with
the PLO. There may have been no negotiations per se, but the talks,
especially since they were approved by the highest level of the State
Department, did confer a certain legitimacy on the PLO.
What is most disturbing about the 1978-81 PLO/U.S. talks is that
they now undermine Israeli confidence in Washington. At a moment
when Israel should know it can fully rely on the word of its strongest
ally comes revelations that American officials broke the spirit, if
not the actual letter, of an American pledge. As one Israeli official
said, "The value of American commitments is rather low." Unfor-
tunately, that is a train of thought that has followed American
foreign policy since the Vietnam debacle. It is high time that the
conduct of American foreign policy began to match the high-sounding
principles upon which it is ostensibly based.
Foggy Hypocrisy
Things are not always what they seem to be, especially in the
shadowy world of diplomacy and intrigue. A remarkable report in
the Washington Post illuminates not only that these corners of human
conduct are inherently suspect, but also one of the reasons why Israel
does not fully trust the United States regarding the Palestine Libera-
tion Organization.
According to the Post, the American ambassador to Lebanon met
with senior officials of the PLO 35 times between October 1978 and
June 1981. These meetings were officially sanctioned by then-
Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, who confirmed them to the Post. They
occurred at a time when the United States maintained an official
policy of refusing to recognize or cooperate with the guerrilla
organization.
Vance has argued that the meetings did not violate Henry Kiss-
LETTERS
'Protestant' Meeting
Was Jews For Jesus
The recent conference of
evangelical Christians in Ber-
muda received considerable
notice in the secular and
Jewish press and rather im-
passioned responses from
Jewish leaders. It was
represented as a gathering of
Protestant theologians con-
cerned with the growing
trend in mainstream
denominations to abandon ef-
forts to convert Jews to
Christianity.
In fact, however, the
Willowbank Consultation on
the Gospel and the Jewish
People was instigated by the
Jews For Jesus missionary
group and related organiza-
tions for the purpose of pro-
moting their missionary
6
FRIDAY, JUNE 23, 1989
agenda. At least three of the
16 'theologians' who signed
the "Willowbank Declara-
tion" are either on the board
of directors or council of Jews
For Jesus: Dr. Vernon
Grounds, Rev. Murdo
MacLeod and Tuvya
Zaretsky.
When contacted at the
Denver Seminary, Dr.
Grounds, the conference
chairman, stated that Jews
For Jesus "together with
other such organizations has
been under pressure [because
of] a movement within Protes-
tant denominations to deny
the necessity and legitimacy
of any kind of evangelization
of Jews."
Dr. Grounds said that Jews
For Jesus was one of a
"number of organizations
that decided it would be good
to call this kind of conference"
to respond to this movement.
In contacts with the media
Dr. Grounds never revealed
the fact that he was a direc-
tor of Jews For Jesus.
Harry Genet, speaking for
the World Evangelical
Fellowship, the formal spon-
sors of the conference,
acknowledged that it was
Jews For Jesus and Christian
Witness to Israel (a British af-
filiate of Jews For Jesus) who
"encouraged" the W.E.F. to
sponsor the conference.
It doesn't surprise me that
Jews for Jesus was behind the
staging of this conference.
Many Christian leaders have
condemned their deceptive
activities and, as Dr. Grounds
said, they are feeling the
pressure. I am also not sur-
prised that what was, in fact,
a conference of missionaries
and their supporters who pro-
selytize Jews would be pass-
ed off as a meeting of Protes-
tant theologians. Jews For
Jesus and similar groups
routinely engage in
misrepresentation. For exam-
ple, Tuvya Zaretsky changed
his given name, Lloyd Carson,
to his current one in order to
sound more authentically
Jewish.
As for the conference
declaration, I am disturbed by
its approval of so-called
"Hebrew-Christians" using
Jewish religious rituals and
giving these rituals Christo-
logical symbolism. This is not
just offensive to Jews, for the
use of non-Christian religious
worship practices is also con-
sidered heresy by many
believing Christians.
I doubt that evangelicals
would encourage "Moselm-
Christians" or "Hindu-
Christians" to incorporate
the religious practices of
Islam or Hinduism into their
form of Christianity.
Also, though the statement
distances itself from
historical Christian anti-
Semitism, it nonetheless
Continued on Page 10
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