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NEIL RUBIN SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

D

on't you hate it when the
frisbee calls the kippah
round? Last week, a lead-
ing Reform rabbi did just
that. And if his remarks go un-
challenged by non-Orthodox
Jews, the Jewish unity pledged
four months ago will become a
crude joke.
Orthodoxy suffers from "tri-
umphalism," declared Rabbi Si-
mon J. Maslin, during his
presidential address at the Cen-
tral Conference of American Rab-
bis meeting in Philadelphia.
Further, "The time has come to
stop deferring to an Orthodoxy
that insults us at every opportu-
nity, an Orthodoxy that consid-
ers itself, like the Sadducees of
old, to be 'Torah true' Judaism."
As if enough salt hadn't al-
ready been poured on the stale
challah, Rabbi Maslin, who grew
\
up Orthodox, noted that Ortho-
/—
doxy has raised men like Dr.
Baruch Goldstein, the Hebron
massacre maniac, and Yigal
Amir, the calculated assassin of
Yitzhak Rabin.
Lees not beat around the burn-
ing bush. Rabbi Maslin's remarks
are disgusting. While I am not
/--) Orthodox, I am angered and em-
barrassed that a legitimate Jew-
ish leader would make such
comments. Rabbi Maslin's re-
marks are, in their own right, tri-
umphalist.
For starters, to argue that
Goldstein and Mr. Amir are prod-
ucts of Orthodoxy? Yes, they are.
And I know of a Conservative
Jew in banking who went to jail
for bilking his clientele, many of
whom were Jewish, out of mil-
lions of dollars. And I know of a
Reform leader who's a suspect in
the murder of his wife. Are they
horrible products of Conservative
and Reform Judaism, or just hor-
rible people?
I'm aware that Rabbi Maslin
gave a complete address at the
convention and that these words
were not the entirety of his re-
marks. In addition, he has dedi-
cated his life to the betterment of
the Jewish people. But that does
not give him license to attack
Jews or anyone else.
After all, words, our tradition
teaches us, have incredible pow-
er. In fact, tradition says that the
Second Temple was destroyed be-
cause of an argument between
two Jews.
Rabbi Maslin's remarks, it
must be noted, are simplified

/—

Neil Rubin is editor of our sister
paper, the Atlanta Jewish
Times.

slander. As but one refuting ex-
ample, Atlanta's local Young Is-
rael synagogue, which is
Orthodox, recently included an
interesting pamphlet in its
newsletter — the remarks of Or-
thodox Yeshiva University Pres-
ident Dr. Norman Lamm at the
conclusion of the mourning peri-
od for Yitzhak Rabin.
After noting that "the Amirs
and Goldsteins" were "weeds in
our gardens," Dr. Lamm an-
nounced a commission to study
how Jews deal with one another
"and extremism and respect for
dissent and genuine love of Israel
and love of humanity and democ-
racy — yes, democracy."
Is this a leader of "triumphal-
ist" Orthodoxy? Yes, there are
other camps within the Orthodox
world that are not as enlight-
ened. But that doesn't mean that
you slam an entire group.
Mind you, the Rabbinical
Council of America, an Orthodox
group, didn't let Rabbi Maslin's
caustic remarks blow by. They

Orthodoxy is
blind-sided in a way
that indicts us all.

did, however, respond with more
dignity than with which they
were attacked.
Reform rabbis, it said in a
statement, met to discuss nu-
merous items that Orthodoxy
opposes, including co-officiating
with non-Jewish clergy at mixed
marriages, proposing official
approval of gay marriages and
reviewing, but affirming, patri-
lineal descent, which claims a
child is Jewish if he or she is
raised a Jew and either parent
is Jewish, which violates strict
interpretation of Jewish law.
"Despite Rabbi Maslin's state-
ment that we have ceased to be
one, we reaffirm. our commitment
to the oneness of the Jewish peo-
ple," the Rabbincal Council of
America, an Orthodox group,
said, adding, 'The RCA does not
propose to respond to such broad-
side attacks with equally repre-
hensible counter-attacks."
Orthodoxy does not, and like-
ly never will, hold the answer for
many Jews. That, however, does
not mean that it is an anachro-
nism.
A leader of Reform Judaism
has many merits to talk about.
Lashing out at other groups of
Jews is not one of them. It must
be condemned. El

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