CONTROVERSY!

Home
In this issue

Dec. 1, 2008

Max Freidlander, as told to Jacklyn C. Wadler: India Inkings

Mark Steyn: Whodunit!?

Nov. 28, 2008

Rabbi Ahron Rapps: An evil seed that didn't have to be

Melanie Phillips: Carpe diem --- or can we all relax now?

Nov. 26, 2008

Michael Feldberg: Meet the Orthodox Jew who laid groundwork for scientific development of ordnance that undergirds America's current world leadership

Andrea Simantov: Shades of life

Nov. 25, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : Getting Emotional For Influence

The Kosher Gourmet by Ethel G. Hofman : Thanksiving feast!

Nov. 24, 2008

Rabbi S. Binyomin Ginsberg: 'I just Became a grandchild!'

Barry Rubin: Don't flatter your enemies, protect your friends

Nov. 21, 2008

Rabbi A. Henach Leibowitz: Money matters?

Caroline B. Glick: Civilization walks the plank

Nov. 20, 2008

Rabbi Avi Shafran: Bronfman's blindness

The Kosher Gourmet By Linda Gassenheimer: Portobellos add a hearty flavor to pasta with pesto

Nov, 19, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : Spread the wealth? Jewish tradition and income equality

Elliot B. Gertel: 'Mad Men': Tackling prejudices or reinforcing them?

Nov, 18, 2008

Dr. Debby Schwarz Hirschhorn: The End of the Age of Reason

Jonathan Tobin: Does Barack + Bibi = Disaster?

Nov, 17, 2008

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The End of the Age of Reason

Diana West: Gulling Americans into making terror legit?

Nov, 14, 2008

Rabbi A. Henach Leibowitz: The Power of Spiritual Inertia

Caroline B. Glick: The perils ahead

Nov, 13, 2008

Stratfor Intelligence Briefing: How Bush and Obama together could change the Middle East dynamic

The Kosher Gourmet by JeanMarie Brownson: Sweet and savory, crispy and meltingly tender bestilla

Nov, 12, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : Tyrannical Co-Workers

Michael Doyle: High Court to consider today donated monuments that may have religious messages in public parks

Nov, 11, 2008

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Will Obama stop government officials considering institutionalizing financial jihad?

Jonathan Tobin: They Will Decide Their Own Fate

Nov, 10, 2008

Rabbi Avi Shafran: $8 billion, modern-day Tower of Babel being built?

Barry Rubin: A letter to the president-elect from a Middle East realist

Nov, 7, 2008

Rabbi Francis Nataf: Of Children and Immortality

Caroline B. Glick: Livni's Obama strategy

Nov, 6, 2008

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: How I tricked a classroom of apathetic students into grasping the fallacy of moral relativism

The Kosher Gourmet By Gina Kim: Tips for making the perfect soup --- includes recipes

Nov, 5, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist By Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Destitute Debtors

Bruce Weinstein: 'Religulos': Bad title,even worse movie

Nov, 4, 2008

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Treasury Dept. submits to Shariah law

Frida Ghitis: A surprise for Obama in the Middle East

Nov, 3, 2008

Jonathan Rosenblum: Who says Jews are Smart?

Jonathan Tobin: Was He Wrong About Everything?

March 22, 2007

J-Rhythms with Avraham Rosenblum: JWR's cutting-edge music program showcasing performers -- singers, song writers, musicians, and bands -- who learn and live the Torah lifestyle (OUR NEWEST IGODCAST !)

Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review Dec. 15, 2003 / 20 Kislev, 5764

One less fellow traveler. 'God Squad' rabbi bolts Queer Alliance. Is 'Lieberman's rabbi' next?

By Evan Gahr


Printer Friendly Version

Email this article


JewishWorldReview.com readers take to the web, talk radio to declare 'you can't make a deal with the devil to do the Divine's work'


http://www.jewishworldreview.com | Gellman's out. Freundel, Lapin, Neuhaus and Schonfeld remain. Mouw is on the sidelines.


It sounds like the roster for an inter-religious basketball game designed to foster Jewish-Christian understanding, perhaps, but it's not. The issue is how conservatives choose allies. Are they willing to work with a reputed terrorist-friendly Muslim to pre-empt gay marriage?


Rabbi Marc Gellman is not. Roughly two weeks since JewishWorldReview.com reported that Gellman and other prominent religious conservatives were part of an anti-gay marriage coalition that includes a reputed terrorist-friendly Muslim group, Gellman bolted from this queer alliance.


JewishWorldReview.com has learned that Gellman, perhaps America's best known rabbi because of his frequent television appearances as the Jewish half of the two man "God Squad", quietly resigned late last week from the advisory board to the Alliance for Marriage because it includes the Islamic Society of North America.


What is ISNA?


The AFM contends that ISNA is a legitimate, mainstream Islamic group. The "proof" is that ISNA is not on the State Department's list of terrorist front groups.


But that rationale doesn't impress terrorist expert Steve Emerson. True, he explains, "you will not find ISNA on any formal list of terrorist front groups. (And the government does not publicly reveal who its investigating.) And its unlikely that ISNA will be designated as such given the way it is structured and financially organized (it does not hold any assets but shifts them to a corporate subsidary — very complex situation.) But if you look at ISNA's involvement with terrorist groups, its hosting of actual terrorist leaders. Its ideological support for Islamic terrorist groups, you will find that it serves as an umbrella group for the Muslim Brotherhood."


Nevertheless, many of Gellman's fellow clerics and religious conservatives remain wedded to the AFM, despite its inclusion of ISNA. The group is spearheading the drive for a constitutional amendment to limit marriage to heterosexuals.


These conservatives include Rabbi Barry Freundel, spiritual leader of Kesher Israel, the Georgetown shul that counts Joe Lieberman among its congregants, Rabbi Daniel Lapin, president of Toward Tradition, an organization that intends to unite Jews and Christians committed to traditional values, neo-conservative author Father Richard John Neuhaus, editor of First Things, and Rabbi Yoel Schonfeld, a top official at the best known kosher supervision agency in the nation, the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America.


Other prominent religious conservatives who remain on the advisory board with ISNA — and thus enable an extremist organization that should be ostracized to maintain mainstream credibility — include the noted Evangelical, Richard Mouw, president of Fuller Theological Seminary, Ray Flynn, Bill Clinton's ambassador to the Vatican, Harvard Law School professor Mary Anne Glendon, a prominent Catholic conservative, and the Public Affairs Office of the Philadelphia Archdiocese.


That's quite a God Squad, even if it no longer includes Gellman.


Now that Gellman has bolted, are his colleagues likely to follow suit?


Rabbi Daniel Lapin declined comment. But he previously refused to resign from the AFM advisory board when JewishWorldReview.com reported its advisory board included a different terrorist-friendly Muslim group. So it's unlikely he'll quit now.


READ THE ORIGINAL EXPOSES
To read the first installment, please click here

To read the follow-up, please click here

Comment by clicking here.


But Rabbi Barry Freundel a.k.a "Lieberman's rabbi" might be a different case. Freundel won't talk on the record. Privately, however, he could be under pressure from colleagues.


Rabbi Kenneth Auman, president of the Rabbinical Council of America, of which Freundel is a vice president, tells JewishWorldReview.com "I know [Freundel's association with ISNA] is being looked into." Freundel, he said, is now "aware," of ISNA's memberbship, but was previously in the dark. "He is re-assessing his position."


Auman said he was confident Freundel would show "good judment" in making his decision.


Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, executive vice president of the Orthodox Union, said his organization has not discussed the matter with Freundel or Schonfeld. He refused to comment on their membership in the AFM, except to note that the Orthodox Union previously withdrew its official representative from the Alliance for Marriage (in 2001 after the AMC connection was first reported by JewishWorldReview.com) and that Rabbis Freundel and Schoenfeld were not representing the OU as members of the AFM advisory board.


However, Rabbi Fabian Schonfeld, father of the AFM member, and a member of the Orthodox Union's board of directors, defended his son's decision to remain with the group.


"I wouldn't resign. I would get rid of them [ISNA]."


He refused to say what the younger Schonfeld should do if ISNA remains on the advisory board.


Other men and women of faith however, are unwilling to countenance the AFM's alliance with ISNA.


Christians all over the country, many apparently Evangelicals, wrote JewishWorldReview.com and this reporter to thank them for the expose. And they echoed those sentiments on talk radio shows. Although fervently opposed to gay marriage, they essentially said that you can't make a deal with the devil to do the Divine's work.

Donate to JWR

"Thank you for your expose on the 'unholy' alliance between ISNA and its Christian and Jewish friends," one woman wrote. "I as a strongly committed Christian, will be forwarding this onto my friends. Simply stated, the ends do not justify the means."


That is certainly true. More generally, Gellman has landed on the right side of a moral litmus test that most anyone in public life faces at one time: How to choose allies. It's the stuff that separates men of true integrity from cowards whose adherence to an ends justify the means ethos renders them morally indistinguishable from godless communists.


Gellman has acted honorably. Hopefully, others will follow his lead.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in Washington and in the media consider "must reading." Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

Evan Gahr is a journalist in the Washington, DC area. Comment by clicking here.


© 2003, Evan Gahr