Shame
On ADL For Opposing Mosque 2 Blocks From Ground Zero
09 August 2010By Rabbi Michael Lerner
The ADL (Anti-Defamation
League) publicly opposes the
construction two blocks from Ground Zero of the
Cordoba House (also known as Park 51), which the
planners imagine as hosting a range of activities
similar to those offered at the
92nd Street Y, and including a Mosque at
which Muslims could worship. The plan, supported by
Mayor Bloomberg, is opposed by some who have
consistently used the attack on the
World Trade Center as
justification for war and fear+hatred of Muslims.
ADL leader Abe Foxman presented the position of this
organization that claims to oppose discrimination by
reading a formal statement that seemed to be a perfect
example of "shooting and crying" (first you attack
brutally, then you cry about how sad it is to be put
into this difficult position, often blaming the
victims for having "forced" us to attack them). The
key to that statement was this:
"Proponents of the Islamic Center may have every
right to build at this site, and may even have chosen
the site to send a positive message about Islam. The
bigotry some have expressed in attacking them is
unfair, and wrong. But ultimately this is not a
question of rights, but a question of what is right.
In our judgment, building an Islamic Center in the
shadow of the World Trade Center will cause some
victims more pain - unnecessarily - and that is not
right."
This kind of argument is deeply mistaken. It was not
"Muslims" or Islam that attacked the World Trade
Center, but some Muslims who held extreme versions of
Islam and twisted what is a holy and peace-oriented
tradition to justify their acts and their hatred. We
see the same thing happening in the name of
Christianity (many of those who justified the war in
Iraq were Christians who felt they were acting from a
Christian ethical perspective) or in the name of
Judaism (the immoral behavior of some of the settlers
who use Judaism as their cover for stealing land and
destroying the olive trees of their Palestinian
neighbors). Just as we would rebel against others
dismissing Judaism or Christianity, or prohibiting
Jews and Muslims from constructing our holy places of
worship or community centers where we wish because
some of those who had suffered from the immorality of
some Jews or some Christians had decided that it was
painful to them to see the presence of these
institutions near the site of previous suffering, so
we reject this claim.
Arthur
Waskow asks us to imagine how we would
feel if some group of Muslims in the US, identifying
with the suffering of Palestinians, and including
within them some who had lived in
Israel and had
to leave to protect themselves from the oppression of
Occupation that they labeled as "Jewish oppression,"
had opposed the construction of a synagogue in their
predominantly Muslim neighborhood because it would
cause some of the victims of Israeli policy to
experience more pain. Would we accept that? Certainly
not.
Underlying the ADL position is its references to the
Holocaust and
the need to respect the feelings of its survivors.
Sadly, the memory of Jewish suffering is appropriated
by right-wing forces to justify special privilege for
Jews in general and Israel in particular, now is to be
extended to victims of 9/11 (but not, for example, to
the survivors of US military assaults on civilians in
Vietnam,Cambodia,
Laos,
El Salvador,
Haiti,
Dominican Republic,
Guatemala, Nicaragua,
Iraq, or
Afghanistan).
The aggression of others is always evil, ours always
justifiable, to the political right. That's bad
enough. But shame on ADL in particular for now using
our suffering in the Holocaust to justify
discrimination toward others, whether in Israel or in
the U.S.
Actually, to those of us who take seriously the
Torah command
to "love the stranger" (the Other), it seems clear
that the rebuilding of Ground Zero should include the
construction of an interfaith center in which all of
the world's religions could be represented,
particularly that of Islam as a way of affirming and
supporting those many Muslims who do not adopt an
extreme anti-American or anti-Jewish perspective.
The
American Jewish Committee
tried to adopt a more nuanced position, but wanted to
withhold endorsement till they can establish that the
source of money for this building did not come from
extremist elements in the
Muslim world.
Yet how would we feel if construction of a Jewish
center was similarly conditional? Would money from
those who support the settlers or others who believe
that Jews have a right to all of the
Biblical Land of Israel and have a right
to use violence to achieve that end be sufficient
reason to prevent the construciton of a Jewish center?
Would a Church that received money from sources in the
Christian community that believed it
appropriate to engage in violence to create the world
they wanted (e.g. to support a US military
intervention in Iran)
be sufficient reason to deny them the right to build
their Christian center? I don't think so.
No wonder, then, that we at Tikkun--seeking to build a
world in which animosities among religions can be
dramatically reduced so that all of us can recognize
our common humanity (or what we Jews call "being
created in the image of God") and recognize the
immediate global environmental emergency to overcome
national and religious antagonisms so that we can work
together to save the planet and its peoples from
destruction--strongly endorse and support the
construction of the Muslim community center/mosque a
few blocks from Ground Zero.
Shame on ADL and the American Jewish Committee for not
understanding the moral imperatives of this moment!
They not only betray Jewish values ("do not do unto
others what you would not wish them to do to you") and
American values (government should not interfere with
the operations of religious communities), they
unintentionally but nevertheless certainly increase
the tensions between Jews and Muslims at a moment when
all sane people in both communities recognize the need
to build bridges of understanding, friendship and
mutual caring as a prelude to supporting peace in
Israel. Given that both ADL and the AJCommittee have
consistently supported the most outrageous actions of
the Israeli government toward Palestinians, is it
possible that unconsciously they are taking these
kinds of stands because they do not see the supreme
importance of creating caring and sensitivity to the
needs of the other? Yet it is this sensitivity which
is the necessary prerequisite for a lasting peace with
justice and security for both sides in the
Middle East conflict.
And that peace would be a major step toward
undermining the support that terrorists have been able
to amass, in part because such a peace is absent.
Rabbi Michael Lerner is editor of Tikkun Magazine
www.tikkun.org,
chair of the
interfaith Network of
Spiritual Progressives
www.spiritualprogressives.org,
rabbi of Beyt Tikkun synagogue in Berkeley, Ca. and
author of eleven books, most recently the national
best-seller
The Left Hand of God:
Taking Back our Country From the
Religious Right.
If you wish to support this kind of thinking, please
join our Network of
Spiritual Progressives at www.spiritualprogressives.org.
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