NEWS
GOING OUT OF BUSINESS
Rabbis Debate Value
Of Dialogue
EVERYTHING MUST GO! ALL SALES FINAL!
TOBY AXELROD
FARMINGTON HILLS STORE ONLY
100% COTTON
FLANNEL
SHEET SETS
$15.90
WATER PROOF
100% COTTON
COMPLETE
DISH
COMFORTER
DISH
TOWELS
SETS
Special to The Jewish News
S
PERCALE
PILLOW
CASES
$49.90 3 for $2.40 $3.20p,
POLY FILLED
MATTRESS
PADS
DELUXE
BED PILLOWS
$10.90
$3.90
ALL NATURAL
WOOL & CarroN
BED PADS
From 5
24.90
BED SHEET
STRAPS
$4.90
100% COTTON
CANNON
ASSORTED
REVERSIBLE COMFORTERS
ASSORTED
RUGS
BATH TOWELS BEDSPREADS
$2.60
$19.90
SATIN STRIPE
95/5
$5.90
TABLE
CLOTHS
FEATHER/DOWN
PILLOWS
$9.90
$10.90
/3 EXTRA FILL
5 16.90
GREAT SAVINGS
ON DETROIT'S
LARGEST
TOWELS
SELECTION
$C OA
OF WINDOW
Wash $1.90
ath ‘P7w
Hand $3 B .90
TREATMENTS
FIELDCREST
"NEW SPIRIT"
1
COMFORTERS
$19.90
SHEET
SETS
$10.90
"LUSTRE TOWELS'
Bath $5.90
Hand $3.90 Wash $1.90
FARMINGTON HILLS STORE ONLY
Orchard Place
30875 Orchard Lake Road
14 Mile and Orchard Lake Road
855-0122
Friday and Saturday 10-9
Sunday 12-5
RELIABLE AND EXPERIENCED SINCE 1930
insurance estimates accepted
expert color match, foreign & American
TOWING & RENTAL CARS AVAILABLE
La Salle Body Shop Inc.
28829 Orchard Lake Road, Farmington Hills, MI 48018
MAX FLEISCHER
BETWEEN 12 & 13 Mile Rd.
22
FRIDAY. MARCH 23, 1990
553 7111
-
hould Orthodox
leaders engage in dia-
logue with non-Jewish
clergy? With non-Orthodox
rabbis? If so, what topics
may be debated, and in what
context?
Rabbis of centrist or
modern Orthodoxy, caught
between an increasingly
assertive right wing and
ever-widening divergences
with liberal Judaism on the
left, met here last week to
discuss the value of continu-
ing dialogue with other
movements of Judaism and
with non-Jewish clergy.
The setting was the mid-
winter conference of the
Rabbinical Council of
America, the nation's
largest body of Orthodox
rabbis. The council meets
twice a year, once for busi-
ness and once for its mid-
winter study and reflection
session.
"It is our duty to stretch
out our hand and hope that if
we reach out, there will be a
solution to our problems,"
Rabbi Max Schreier, presi-
dent of the council, said in
his keynote address to the
conference.
The Rabbinical Council
has faced opposition to its in-
terfaith and inter-movement
activities for more than 35
years, both internally and
from other Orthodox groups.
The debate has centered on
its membership in the
Synagogue Council of
America, which unites
Reform, Conservative and
Orthodox rabbinic and con-
gregational groups. Oppo-
nents say membership in
that umbrella group implies
legitimization of Judaism's
liberal streams.
Through the Synagogue
Council, moreover, the Rab-
binical Council is affiliated
to the International Jewish
Committee for Interreligious
Consultations (commonly
known by the acronym
IJCIC), which conducts
ongoing dialogue with the
Vatican and other Christian
groups.
In a panel discussion
following Schreier's speech,
several leading Orthodox
practitioners of interfaith
dialogue sought to explain
these activities and their
limits.
Toby Axelrod is a reporter with
New York Jewish Week.
"I see our job in the
Synagogue Council of
America and in IJCIC as
plain damage control," said
Rabbi Fabian Schonfeld, a
former Rabbinical Council
president who co-chairs the
Synagogue Council's inter-
religious affairs committee.
"We are not discussing
religion, but we are discuss-
ing issues from a religious
position," Schonfeld said of
his Synagogue Council ac-
tivities.
'We are people of spiri-
tual background. We can't
discuss a problem as a
stockbroker, a glazier or a
businessman. We watch over
the store, and we call it the
interreligious affairs corn-
mittee."
Israel Singer, another Or-
thodox activist involved in
"Communication
among the various
communities will
greatly contribute
toward mutual
understanding."
interreligious activity, said
he enters such dialogues
with a sense of cynicism.
"If you have to talk to this
guy to stay safe, you talk to
the guy," said Singer, who
as secretary-general of the
World Jewish Congress
plays a key role in IJCIC.
"My object is to enhance
the position of the Jewish
people in every way I can,
whether with a head of state
or church," Singer said.
According to Schonfeld,
the deciding factor in enter-
ing the Synagogue Council
and its interfaith panel — for
him personally and for the
Rabbinical Council — was
the opinion of Rabbi Joseph
Soloveitchik, the supreme
halachic authority of
modern Orthodoxy, known
to his followers as "the
Ray."
Soloveitchik, the Leib
Merkin Distinguished Pro-
fessor of Talmud and Jewish
Philosophy at Yeshiva Uni-
versity, is ailing and rarely
speaks in public today.
In 1965, Schonfeld recall-
ed, Henry Siegman, then
Synagogue Council head,
now executive director of the
American Jewish Congress,
"asked me to become the
chairman of the inter-
religious affairs committee. I
went to the Ray, and he said,
`We don't need it: "
"In 1967, when I was ask-