everyone in the emotional debate.
The court let stand a 1993 Alabama
law requiring schools to allow student-
led prayers at school events such as
football games and graduations.
A DeKalb County student's family
sued to overturn the law; since then, it
has pinballed from court to court..
This week, the Supreme Court refused
to take up the case, effectively letting
the Alabama law stand.
But Jewish activists say the case
could come back for a third Supreme
Court appearance after lower courts
thrash out implementation of the law
and the myriad court rulings.
In a second case, the court vacated a
lower court ruling barring the
Christian Coalition from using a pub-
lic school in Louisiana after school
hours.
That ruling echoed last week's ruling
in the "Good News" case, in which
the justices overturned a decision by
an upstate New York school district
barring Christian clubs that evangelize
young children from using school
facilities after hours.
Both cases strengthen the concept of
"equal access" — the idea that reli-
gious groups should enjoy the same
access to public school facilities as
nonreligious extracurricular groups.
A third case went better for church-
state groups; the justices declined to
hear a case involving a Medford, N.J.,
first-grader who had been barred from

the various drafts have been shared
extensively and many rabbis have'
influenced the revisions, according to
the CCAR's executive vice president,
Rabbi Paul Menitoff.
Rabbi Menitoff said the guidelines
reflect what is "normative," even if not
required, in the Reform world, and are
"a snapshot of where we are when it
comes to conversion." "There was a
period within the Reform movement
where these rituals were not offered as
options and were, if anything, discour-
aged, but that's the past," he said.
The conversion guidelines are "part
of the same mindset" as the 1999 prin-
ciples, recognizing that rituals can add
spiritual meaning to life cycle events
and Judaism, Rabbi Menitoff said.
The UAHC's Greenwood, herself a
Jew by choice, praised the guidelines
for providing rabbis with an opportu-
nity to "speak with 'one another about
what their practice is."
"I think it will be very useful for
people in thinking about what they
want to do and how they can deepen
and improve the conversion process

reading Bible stories to his public
school class.
Marc Stern, legal director for the
American Jewish Congress, warned
against reading too much into the two
equal access cases.
"It's very hard to tell what the court
meant," he said. "In both cases, the
plaintiffs were no longer at the
schools, so these were not the ideal
cases for Supreme Court review."

The Lieberman Watch

Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., last
year's Democratic vice presidential
nominee and a likely contender for the
presidency in 2004, has one opponent
less to worry about. Sen. Birch Bayh,
D-Ind., one of a group of up-and-
coming young members of the Senate,
has taken himself out of the running,
saying he wants to spend more time
with his family.
Bayh is the chairman of the
Democratic Leadership Council, the
Democratic faction that Lieberman
once chaired. His withdrawal means
there won't automatically be a split in
the DLC vote.
Lieberman has done many of the
things prospective candidates do early
in a campaign, including visiting some
key primary states and starting his
own political action committee to help
other Democrats, and build a bank
account full of political IOUs. ❑

for people," Greenwood said.
Some welcome the conversion
guidelines as a harbinger of normative
standards in other areas of Reform, a
movement with a long tradition of
rabbinic autonomy in which most
statements and resolutions carry quali-
fiers that they are not binding.
"If we pass a resolution about conver-
sion standards, it is going to suggest that
we need to have standards in other areas
as well," said Rabbi Robert Orkand of
Temple Israel in Westport, Conn.
Rabbi Sandra Cohen, of Temple
Micah in Denver, said the conversion
guidelines are "reflective of what many
Reform rabbis are doing in the
Denver/Boulder area."
Rabbi Cohen, who described work-
ing with prospective converts as "a
'major part of the rabbinate," said she
and her colleagues have become
increasingly enamored of the role of
ritual in conversions and life-cycle
events. "It is really powerful for people
that there's a discrete event that sym-
bolizes the transformation from non-
Jew to Jew," she said.

❑

Israel NOW

UJC launches comprehensive slate
of solidarity events.

MICHAEL JORDAN
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

T

New York –
he umbrella group of
North American Jewish
. federations is set to unveil
a multi-pronged, $4 mil-
lion solidarity campaign titled "Israel
NOW — and Forever."
• The United Jewish Communities
project — which should receive final
approval by late July — combines
various advocacy, education and
fund-raising activities and will last
until winter, said Gail Hyman,
UJC's vice president for marketing
and public affairs.
"We understand there's a great
desire for a national program,"
Hyman said. "We have a responsibil-
ity to listen to our community and
to offer the kind of program that
will resonate from coast to coast.
And unfortunately, that takes a little
time. But now we have the support
and we're ready to act."
The first step will be this week-

end's "Solidarity Shabbat" of UJC
leadership in Jerusalem, where they
will meet with Israeli leaders and
hammer out final details of the cam-
paign. Jane Sherman will represent
the Detroit federation leadership at
the event.
Among the other campaign high-
lights:
• Heavy promotion of solidarity
missions to Israel.
• Advocacy and media training for
campus and community activists, in
conjunction with local Hillels and
Jewish community relations coun-
cils, "to train their leadership to
become strong advocates on behalf
of Israel," Hyman said.
• A fund-raising initiative to assist
all Israeli families directly affected
during the violence by death, injury,
property destruction, psychological
damage — "We understand there are
lots of children having great difficul-
ty," Hyman said — and perhaps
even economic support for small

ISRAEL on page 21

Changing Times

A young boy fixes the Lebanese flag at an outpost vacated by the Syrian army,
in the Jnah district south of Beirut on June 1.9. Nearly a week into Syria's troop
withdrawalfrom the Beirut area, only a few soldiers and security agents were
visible in the Lebanon capital they ruled unchallenged for much of the past
25 years since they entered Lebanon to quell a civil war.

6/22

2001

19

