Mishegas

When the ADL is the Pro-Defamation League

The ADL has come out against the bigotry of those who want to stop the Cordoba Project Muslim community center in downtown Manhattan… but they’re still opposed to building it. Wait. What?

We regard freedom of religion as a cornerstone of the American democracy, and that freedom must include the right of all Americans – Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and other faiths – to build community centers and houses of worship.

We categorically reject appeals to bigotry on the basis of religion, and condemn those whose opposition to this proposed Islamic Center is a manifestation of such bigotry.

However, there are understandably strong passions and keen sensitivities surrounding the World Trade Center site. We are ever mindful of the tragedy which befell our nation there, the pain we all still feel – and especially the anguish of the families and friends of those who were killed on September 11, 2001.

Full pile of steaming hypocrisy here.

12 thoughts on “When the ADL is the Pro-Defamation League

  1. Honestly, I don’t care about the building of a mosque one way or another. To me, it’s no different than a church or a shul in the same spot. But I hope just for a triumph of freedom of religion they let them build it.
    To everyone saying, “Oh, it’s insensitive to the victims!” Well, there were Muslim victims in the WTC. There’s no way to know, but I’m pretty sure they might appreciate a mosque built in their honor.
    This whole issue is a non-issue manufactured by Rupert Murdoch.d

  2. As a Gedankenexperiment, imagine what the ADL would do if a group tried to block a new JCC from being built. In such a scenario would CAIR join with the opponents or defend the Jews?
    We know that the ADL would pounce on the anti-Semitism and we know that CAIR would stand with the JCC.
    So now the question is —
    Where are the moderate Jews?

  3. The function of Abe Foxman in the Jewish world is to make Mort Klein look good. The function of Mort Klein is to make Abe Foxman look good. With friends like these, who needs enemies?

  4. David-Here are the moderate Jews:
    http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/new_york/jewish_leaders_back_ground_zero_islamic_center
    […]
    “They came to us because they felt the values we represented — diversity, dialogue, the education of children — were values they wanted to espouse,” [JCC Executive Director] Rabbi [Joy] Levitt said. “They have the same kind of diversity in their community that we have in ours, and they were looking for strategies to bring [those different segments] together.”
    […]
    Two Jewish figures who spoke, Walter Ruby and Yehezkel Landau, both praised the center’s organizers as moderate Muslims who have worked in the past for understanding and dialogue among people of every faith.
    “I have no illusions about anything,” said Landau, a faculty member at the Hartford Seminary who, for many years, lived in Israel. “We have enemies. … But Daisy Khan and Imam Feisal are not enemies of anyone.”
    Ruby, the Muslim-Jewish relations program officer at the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding and also a freelance writer for The Jewish Week, described both the imam and his wife as “unequivocally opposed to violence and terrorism, and deeply committed to the American values of democracy and pluralism.”
    […]
    And Rabbi Simkha Weintraub, rabbinic director of the New York Jewish Healing Center and leader of the Jewish support group for 9/11 victims, said he, too, would have favored a multifaith center.
    On the other hand, he added, some of his Muslim friends see the center as a Muslim voice for peace, which moves him greatly. “I haven’t heard that it’s being done to l’hakhiss — to provoke or offend.”

  5. The ADL’s statement really is a shonda. Following the 9/11 attacks, we all heard much demand for moderate Muslims to deal with the extremism in their “camp,” so to speak. Now that we have Muslim leaders like Imam Faisal of Cordoba House (also an honorary board member of the OneVoice Movement) actually doing it, we get the ADL bowing down to cynical demagogues and sucking up to mom rule. Unreal.
    Please, everyone, click on the link to the full pile of steaming hypocrisy in the post and tell it to the ADL.

  6. [Previous comment, first paragraph, last line should read “mob rule,” not “mom rule.” My mom would never have raised me like that.]

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