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.