UP FRONT

James P Sheehy ck

Meeting Delayed

Continued from Page 20

[

Women Lawyers Assoc. of MI endorsesSheehy

IV The Oakland Press endorsesSheehy

Sheehy
• The Detroit News endorses Sheehy
Evr Oakland Bar Association endorses Sheehy
g The Eccentric Newspapers endorse Sheehy
g The Royal Oak Tribune endorses Sheehy
Nr Sheriff John Nichols endorses Sheehy
Nr L. Brooks Patterson endorses Sheehy
• Michigan Education Assoc. endorses Sheehy
Nr The AFL-CIO endorses . . . Sheehy
IV The United Auto Workers endorse Sheehy
iyr Joint Teamsters D.R.I.V.E. endorses Sheehy

g

•

The Detroit Free Press endorses

and yes, all of Oakland counties leading

newspaper editors endorse

Sheehy

10 years of experience lo as judge
year term of office
for

Paid for by District Judge Sheehy for Circuit Court Comm.. 3128 Walton Blvd., Suite 222, Rochester I-111k, MI 48309

22

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 1990

pope's meeting with Mr.
Waldheim.
The non-Orthodox SCA
members dispute the
sincerity of the objection to
Rabbi Waxman by noting
that Rabbi Waxman has
been a prominent member of
several IJCIC delegations
since Miami — including the
Prague gathering —without
any furor erupting.
Rabbi Waxman did not re-
spond to attempts to inter-
view him.
In an interview, Mr.
Kwestel, a New York at-
torney, declined to discuss
"personalities" and said
"any veto that we exercise is
exercised on the merits, as
far as we're concerned."
However, he insisted that
the OU, or any other SCA
member agency, "has a right
of veto over any decision of
the SCA."
In an article published last
month in Jewish Action, an
OU publication, Mr. Kwestel
wrote that "it is high time
for the Orthodox par-
ticipants to make a clear
statement by disaffiliating"
from the SCA, which he
asserted "has only
`symbolic' value, blurs
ideological lines, causes con-
fusion and is an obstacle to
unity and cohesiveness."
The OU has been criticized
for its participation in the
SCA by other Orthodox
organizations, including the
Agudath Israel of America.
Rabbi Marc D. Angel, the
Rabbinical Council of
America president, said his
organization had no objec-
tion to Rabbi Waxman, but
felt it important to support
the OU's insistence on the
right to veto, if only as a
future safeguard against the
possible Reform appoint-
. ment of a homosexual rabbi
or "patrilineal Jew" to rep-
resent it as part of an SCA
delegation.
"We can't have people like
that representing us," Rabbi
Angel said.
The references were to the
Reform movement's accep-
tance of homosexuals in the
rabbinate and the children
of Jewish fathers, but non-
Jewish mothers, as Jews.
Neither the Orthodox or
Conservative movements
agree with those two posi-
tions.
Reform Rabbi Jack Bem-
porad, the SCA's director of
Interreligious Affairs,
termed that possibility a
"red herring."
"It's their (the Orthodox)
way of saying they want to
control the make-up of dele-
gations and who goes to
meetings. Don't you think
the Reform and Conser-

vative have enough sense
not to send someone who is
so offensive to the Orthodox,
given how fragile the SCA
is?"
Rabbi Bemporad, who is
from Lawrence, L.I., noted
that the Reform and Conser-
vative organizations have
also refrained from naming
a woman rabbi as a delegate
because they know they
would inflame Orthodox
sensitivities.
Whether or not the Syn-
agogue Council might par-
ticipate in the upcoming
Rome meeting without its
Orthodox members, as it did
in Miami in 1987, has not
been decided, Rabbi Zaiman
said.
For now, all SCA decisions
are on hold until the OU's
future position is made clear
at the Orthodox group's na-
tional convention, which is
scheduled for Washington,
D.C., in late November.
Sheldon Rudolf, who is
also a New York attorney, is
running for the OU presi-
dency and is considered
more amenable to com-
promise on the veto issue
than is Mr. Kwestel.
However, he is opposed in
the race for the OU's top spot
by Mr. Berman, who is also a
New York attorney.
Mr. Berman was re-
portedly in Israel and
unavailable for comment.
Mr. Rudolf said that, if
elected, he would not
unilaterally decide whether
or not to force the veto issue
at this time. "I would take
this to the OU's appropriate
body for a decision," he said.
Mr. Rudolf, the OU's current
chairman of the board,
declined to voice his per-
sonal opinion on the matter,
maintaining instead that he
was not "fully current with
this situation." ❑

NEWS

E.C. Urges
Cooperation

Rome (JTA) — The Euro-
pean Community is continu-
ing its effort to urge that
Israel cooperate with the
U.N. Security Council's
decision to send a fact-
finding mission to Israel to
investigate the Oct. 8 fatal
shooting of at least 17 Pales-
tinians by Israeli police on
the Temple Mount.
The top leadership of the
12 E.C. member states con-
cluded a weekend summit
meeting here Sunday with a
statement criticizing Israel's
refusal to comply with the
Security Council's resolu-
tions.

