This Week
Washington Watch
Tax-Cut Tzedakah
UAHC plans your tax savings; church and school.
JAMES D. BESSER
Washington Correspondent
N
ow that President George W
Bush's $1.3 trillion 10-year
tax cut package has been
signed into law, Congress is
trying to figure out how to pay for it.
That means the likelihood of sweep-
ing cuts in government health and
social service programs — a point the
Union of American Hebrew
Congregations (Reform) is punctuating
with a nationwide call for "tzedakah col-
lectives." The goal: to get members of
more than 900 UAHC congregations to
pool all or part of their rebate checks,
due in late August, in special accounts.
Then, each congregation will make a
decision about which cash-starved
agencies will get the money.
The effort is designed both to make a
political statement about what the group
sees as a misguided, unfair policy and to
encourage congregations to get more
involved in meeting community needs
through voluntary giving, said Rabbi
Eric Yoffie, the UAHC president.
"This is a way of encouraging
involvement in the -world and in our
communities by Reform Jews," he said.
"Sometimes, we tend to isolate ourselves
within our own communities; this gives
congregations a chance to see what kind
of difference they can make."
Participants will study texts on
tzedakah (charity) with a rabbi, he
said. "Then they will study the local
community and determine its needs.
On that basis, they will make a deci-
sion about where the money that is
collected will go."
UAHC will help with lists of pro-
grams that may be particularly hard
hit by the budgetary fallout from the
huge tax cut, including anti-poverty,
reproductive choice, environmental
and church-state separation programs.
Church And School
The Supreme Court dealt church-state
separation groups a major blow
Monday in a decision that will force
an upstate New York school district to
allow after-school meetings of a
Christian group that targets young
children for evangelization.
As a result of the 6-3 decision in
Good News Club vs. Milford Central
School, "Jews who are worried about
their children being subject to prosely-
tization in public schools will have to
find other strategies," said Marc Stern,
legal director for the American Jewish
Congress, which filed a brief support-
ing the school district.
But Orthodox Jewish groups hailed
the decision as another judicial step
toward equity for religious groups in
public facilities.
"This is just part of a natural progres-
sion," said Nathan Diament, director of
the Orthodox Union's Institute for
Public Affairs. The decision means that
the court "has once again declared that
the Constitution does not condone dis-
crimination against religion," he said.
The case began when the Milford
school district barred the Good News
Club from conducting adult-led meet-
ings for grade-school children immedi-
ately after school hours. Club leaders
said they wanted to use the school for
the convenience of the
children; the school
board argued that this
would violate a state law that allows
non-religious groups to use school facil-
ities but bars sectarian organizations.
A New York appeals court ruled
the school board decision did not
violate the club's free speech rights.
But the Supreme Court overturned
that decision.
In his majority opinion, Justice
Clarence Thomas said that "when
Milford denied the Good News Club
access to the school's limited public
forum on the ground that the club was
religious in nature, it discriminated
against the club because of its religious
viewpoint in violation of the free
speech clause of the First Amendment."
Justices William Rehnquist, Antonin
Scalia, Sandra Day O'Connor and
Anthony Kennedy joined in the
majority opinion. So did Justice
Stephen Breyer, one of two Jewish
members and a frequent swing vote on
church-state questions.
The club is one of 4,500 Good
News Clubs nationwide, affiliated
with the Child Evangelism Fellowship.
Critics say the clubs target children
between the ages of 5 and 12 for
intensive proselytization.
Meetings are structured to be highly
attractive to young children, said
Michael Lieberman, Washington coun-
sel for the Anti-Defamation League.
First Limo
A New Aliyah for Chaim Weizmann's Presidential Car.
NECHEMIA MEYERS
Israel Correspondent
T
Rehovot
he elegant car that once carried Israel's
first president, Dr. Chaim Weizmann,
was little more than a piece of junk until
recently
But now, thanks to the initiative of Delek Motors,
the importer and distributor of Ford and Lincoln
vehicles in Israel, supported by the Ford Motor Co.
itself, the automobile will soon be restored to the
condition it was in 52 years ago when first presented
to Weizmann.
This story really begins with the first Henry Ford,
both a production genius and a diehard anti-Semite.
Thus, while most Americans think of him in terms
of the Model A and Model T, which revolutionized
American motor transport, American Jews primarily
associate him with the viciously anti-Semitic articles
6/15
2001
18
he published in the Dearborn Independent. They
soured relations between the Ford Motor Co. and
the Jewish community for many long years.
The subsequent generations of the Ford family
were not influenced by the ethnic attitudes of
Henry; indeed, they went out of their way to estab-
lish closer links to the Jewish people, both in the
U.S. and in Israel. And one of the ways they showed
it was Henry Ford II's presentation of an elongated
version of the Lincoln Cosmopolitan to Weizmann,
at roughly the same time that another one was being
used by U.S. President Harry S. Truman.
The Lincoln that arrived in Haifa on July 20,
1950, was truly luxurious, particularly by the stan-
dards of the time. It had room for seven plus the
driver. It was equipped with, among other things,
two radios, automatic windows, central heating and
what Weizmann required as a heavy smoker, a gold
lighter and boxes of cigars and cigarettes.
It served Weizmann for the last two years of his life,
Dr. Chaim Weizmann, second from left, receives the Lincoln
Cosmopolitan in Tel Aviv from the Ford Motors dealer in
Israel, Dr. Saul Lipshitz, left, in September 1950. Also
shown are, thirdfrom left, Major David Arnon,Weizmann's
military secretary and J. Harlap,Weizmanns driver.
mainly when he traveled to official ceremonies. During
the next 14 years, it was used by his widow, Vera, after
which it was moved from place to place, finally ending
up on display at the entrance to their stately home in
Rehovot. Maintenance wasn't what it should have been
and the vehicle gradually deteriorated.
Efforts to restore the Lincoln began in 1990, but
the substantial sum of money required to carry out
the project was simply not available. The situation
changed only in 1999, when Delek Motors and the
Ford Motor Company — in an agreement signed by