by david spett & ron kampeas
jta
rosemont, ill. | The head of the Reform movement became the first Jewish leader last week to speak before the largest assembly of Muslims in the United States.
“The time has come to put aside what the media says is wrong with Islam and to hear from Muslims themselves what is right with Islam,” said Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism.
Yoffie’s fiery indictment of Islam-ophobia at the annual conference of the Islamic Society of North America in this Chicago suburb turned heads, silenced chatters and, finally, earned an extended standing ovation.
“The time has come to listen to our Muslim neighbors speak, from their heart and in their own words, about the spiritual power of Islam and their love for their religion.”
Yoffie addressed not only how Muslims are perceived but how U.S. authorities treat them. ”The time has come to end racial profiling and legal discrimination of any kind against Muslim Americans,” he said. “Yes, we must assure the security of our country — this is absolutely our government’s first obligation. But let’s not breach the Constitution in ways we will later regret. After all, civil liberties are America’s strength, not our weakness.”
The society, based in Plainfield, Ind., invites representatives of other religious groups to attend every year, but no major Jewish leader had agreed until Yoffie.
The Reform leader touched briefly on the problem of Muslim anti-Semitism, but the bulk of his speech focused on bigotry and discrimination against Muslims.
“We are especially worried now about anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial,” Yoffie said. “Anti-Semitism is not native to Islamic tradition, but a virulent form of it is found today in a number of Islamic societies, and we urgently require your assistance in mobilizing Muslims here and abroad to delegitimize and combat it.”
Yoffie ended his speech with an appeal to unite in a commitment to bring peace to Israelis and Palestinians.
“Let us work toward the day when a democratic Palestinian state lives side by side, in peace and security, with the democratic state of Israel,” he said.
The rabbi’s Aug. 31 talk got mixed reactions from Jewish leaders over the weekend.
Daniel Pipes, the historian who directs the Middle East Forum, criticized Yoffie’s speech as naive.
“I found it profoundly ignorant and terribly superficial in its analysis,” said Pipes, who added that he “reluctantly” has arrived at the conclusion that there must be special scrutiny of Muslims.
”If the police are looking for a rapist, you look exclusively at male, not female, suspects,” Pipes said. “If you look out for Muslim terrorists, you look at the Muslim population.”
However, Steve Gutow, executive director of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, called Yoffie’s speech “healthy” and “very positive.”
The American Jewish Committee blasted Yoffie for choosing to address the Islamic Society, saying the group had not sufficiently disassociated itself from the Holy Land Foundation. The Islamic Society of North America has been named as “an unindicted co-conspirator” in federal investigations of the Holy Land Foundation, a charity believed to have funneled funds to Palestinian terrorists.
“This is not the right organization and not the right time,” said Yehudit Barsky, AJCommittee’s counterterrorism specialist. “Had they repudiated their association with the organization or its activities, this would have been welcome.”
But Abraham Foxman, the Anti-Defamation League’s national director, defended the Islamic Society, calling it the “most appropriate umbrella organization in the American Muslim community.”
“It is not perfect, and no umbrella organization is at all times perfect. It has spoken out against terrorism,” Foxman said.
Along with other major American Muslim groups, the Islamic Society’s private IRS records and its prison chaplain programs have been investigated by the federal government seeking to uncover any ties to terrorists, the Associated Press reported. No wrongdoing has been found.
The society bills itself as an umbrella group for a wide range of communal organizations, representing mosques, students, physicians, chaplains and groups that arrange Muslim marriages.
CopyrightJ, the Jewish news weekly of Northern California