Opinion

A MIX OF IDEAS

On Conversion, A Way

New York/JTA

A

s the controversy over the con-
version issue reached a fever
pitch recently, a group of Israeli
soldiers shuffled past flowerbeds into
classrooms at the Jewish Agency's Kiryat
Moriah educational center in Jerusalem.
Four-hundred soldiers, many of them
immigrants, come together from every
army unit for 14 hours a day of learning.
Today's lesson has nothing to do with
combat, Hebrew or citizenship. It's a
Jewish history lesson about the Second
Temple period.
Many of the soldiers are not registered
as Jews by Israel's Interior Ministry, but
are given leave from their army units to
participate in this seven-week intensive
course on Judaism. Called Nativ, it is both
a crash course in Judaism and also an
opportunity to fast-track the conversion
process through the Israel Defense Forces
(IDF). Half of those who attend Nativ and
are not Jewish by Halachah, or Jewish law,
end up converting.
Nativ was created when a group of

people came together to brain-
have ended with Israeli Prime
storm the explosive issue of
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
conversion at the Neeman
calling on Jewish Agency
Commission in the late 1990s.
Chairman Natan Sharansky
With the proper sensitiv-
to convene all sides for con-
ity and excellent facilitators
versation. We must not only
— in this case, the Institute
rework the language of the
for Jewish Studies, the Jewish
proposed legislation, but also
Agency and the IDF with the
have a frank, open and incisive
support of North American
discussion about conversion
Misha
Jewish Federations, Keren
and Jewish identity. We need to
Galperin
Hayesod and Genesis Fund —
brainstorm once again.
Special
frameworks can be created to
With Nativ and the conver-
Commentary
make the conversion process in
sion issue, we have the nexus of
Israel reasonable, accessible and
Jewish Agency programming
meaningful.
capacity and its serving as the table that
Since Nativ's inception in 2001, more
includes all the major religious streams
than 10,000 immigrants have participated
and all Israeli Zionist political parties as
in the program, with more than 4,000
well as North American and world Jewry.
converting to Judaism. After the course,
Coincidentally, this episode comes on
those who are not Jewish by Halachah and the heels of our adopting a new strategic
are interested in converting continue for
plan for the Jewish Agency. The plan —
two more two-week seminars. They then
Securing the Future: Forging a Jewish
appear before the IDF Rabbinate, which
Agency for Israel and the Jewish People
performs the conversion.
— concentrates on Jewish identity and
The tumultuous recent events of the
peoplehood, focusing on the "unraveling
past few weeks on the conversion issue
of our solidarity and cohesion" as a people.

Our new plan will broaden and increase
future funding to programs like Nativ.
And with our chairman just charged with
mediating this full-blown peoplehood
dilemma, we view this challenge as a great
opportunity.
Ilan Sabiyotanski, 21, participated in
Nativ at the beginning of this year. As an
immigrant from the former Soviet Union
who was not Jewish by Halachah, he saw
the program as an opportunity to con-
vert and become more fully a part of the
Jewish people. On March 27, a few weeks
before his conversion, Ilan was killed in an
exchange of fire with Palestinian gunmen
along the Gaza border.
After his death, the Israeli government
and rabbinic authorities had to decide:
Could Ilan be buried as a Jew as someone
who gave his life for the Jewish state? His
story is one more reason that we cannot
fail this time. We need to resolve the con-
version issue once and for all. The Jewish
Agency is proud to take the lead.

Dr. Misha Galperin is president and CEO of

Jewish Agency International Development.

Allow The Mosque

Philadelphia

T

he Anti-Defamation League
(ADL), one of the nation's
staunchest fighters against bigot-
ry and injustice and not just for Jews, has
taken a position that besmirches its name
and its outstanding work for social justice
for almost a century.
Stepping into a highly emotional fire-
storm that has torn New York apart, the
ADL opposes the proposed construction of
a mosque just two blocks from ground zero
in New York.
In its statement on the proposed project,
the ADL stated that this issue was not about
"a question of rights, but what is right." The
organization added that the mosque "will
cause some victims more pain — unneces-
sarily — and this is not right"
Further, said the ADL "some legitimate
questions have been raised" about who is
funding the project and "what connections,
if any, its leaders might have with groups
whose ideologies stand in contradiction to
our shared values."
First, some background: The project
known as Park 51 is being proposed by
SoHo Properties, Muslim developers. They
propose to raze a vacant five-story build-
ing and construct a 15-story, $100-million
Islamic Center that would include a mosque

38

August 12 • 2010

two blocks or just a couple of
The real test of liberty comes
hundred yards from the World
when society is asked to permit
Trade Center 9-11 site.
what might be called uncom-
Opponents tried to have the
fortable speech and actions;
existing building designated
when nothing is at stake, it is
as property of historic value,
easy to live up to civil libertarian
prohibiting its demolition,
principles.
thus blocking the project. But
The second part of the AIM
last week (Aug. 3) New York's
statement, regarding the devel-
Landmarks Preservation
opers' possible associations,
Commission voted unanimously
Berl Fa lbaum
borders on demagoguery. If the
(9-0) against any such a desig-
Spe cial
ADL has any evidence of ques-
nation, clearing the way for the
Comm entary
tionable connections between
project. Lawsuits, of course, are
the developers and others, it
sure to follow.
should make those public.
The city's mayor, Michael R. Bloomberg,
It cannot and should not hide behind a
who supports the project, said in a speech
scurrilous phrase such as "what connec-
delivered with the Statue of Liberty as a
tions, if any, (emphasis supplied), its leaders
backdrop, "Political controversies come
might have with groups whose ideologies
and go, but our values and our traditions
stand contraction to our shared values."
endure.
The ADL should know better and one
"Government can't deny private owners
suspects it does.
to use buildings as houses of worship. That
ADL President Robert G. Sugarman,
may happen in other countries, but we
apparently reeling on behalf of his organi-
should never allow it to happen here."
zation on the backlash of its actions, said
That is the kind of statement one would
in a New York Times letter to the editor,
have expected from the ADL. Yes, the
"We have not denied the right to build the
mosque may cause some "pain" as the ADL
mosque on the site. We simply appealed to
said, but the Constitution, with its First
the initiators to consider the sensitivities of
Amendment, protects expressions — from
the victims and find another location."
hate speech to pornography — that may be
Unfortunately, the veiled implications of
painful for some.
the ADL statement went well beyond that.

Perhaps Roseanne Weston, a New Yorker,
said it best also in a Times letter to the edi-
tor. She wrote:
"As a woman who went through the
anguish of losing a husband and the father
of her children in the Lockerbie bombing of
Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988, I can agree with
Abraham H. Foxman, national director of
the Anti-Defamation League, that certain
traumas can lead to 'feelings that are irra-
tional' and to 'positions that others might
categorize as irrational or bigoted.
"But, as we try to teach our own children
and grandchildren, there is a difference
between feelings and actions. Tarring every
Muslim with the same brush will not, in
the long run, assuage any pain or ease any
anger. It will serve only to widen the divide
and deepen the lack of understanding
among people.
"On a personal, social and universal level,
unabated anger is not the road that leads to
healing."
If there ever was a candidate with the
philosophy to serve on the board of such
an organization as the ADL — pre-Muslim
mosque controversy — Ms. Weston is it.

Berl Faulbam of Farmington Hills is an author

and public relations executive and a former

political reporter. He teaches journalism part-

time at Wayne State University in Detroit.