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Comments (0)The Anti-Defamation League has issued a statement opposing the building of a mosque near the World Trade Center memorial site.
The proposed construction of Cordoba House, a Muslim center at 45-47 Park Place, just two blocks form the former World Trade Center, has sparked a heated debate. Supporters of the plan accuse opponents of bigotry, slamming them for equating all Muslims with the 9/11 terrorists.
In its statement last Friday opposing the plan, the ADL called the bigotry that has surrounded the decision “unfair and wrong.” Nonetheless the ADL opposes the construction, it says, out of sensitivity to those who had family members killed on 9/11.
“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,” the statement reads. “The controversy which has emerged regarding the building of an Islamic Center at this location is counterproductive to the healing process. Therefore, under these unique circumstances, we believe the City of New York would be better served if an alternative location could be found.”
The ADL statement also evinces concern about the motivation behind the proposed mosque.
“In recommending that a different location be found for the Islamic Center, we are mindful that some legitimate questions have been raised about who is providing the funding to build it, and what connections, if any, its leaders might have with groups whose ideologies stand in contradiction to our shared values,” it said.
“These questions deserve a response, and we hope those backing the project will be transparent and forthcoming. But regardless of how they respond, the issue at stake is a broader one.”
The ADL in the past also has opposed the construction of a convent at Auschwitz.
Rabbi Co-Officiates at Clinton Wedding
Chelsea Clinton was married under a chuppah in a ceremony co-officiated by a rabbi.
Rabbi James Ponet, head of the Joseph Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale, was joined by Rev. William Shillady, a Methodist minister. Clinton and the groom, Marc Mezvinsky, reportedly were married under a chuppah, in a ceremony that featured friends and family reciting the seven traditional blessings and a ketubah, the traditional Jewish wedding contract. The event took place Saturday night before the end of the Jewish sabbath.
Mezvinsky, who is Jewish, wore a yarmulke and prayer shawl.
Ponet, a Reform rabbi, has been the Jewish chaplain at Yale since 1981. He currently teaches a college seminar with Dr. Ruth Westheimer on “The Family in the Jewish Tradition,” according to the bio on the Slifka Center website. He and his wife, Elana, also “lead a weekly discussion in Slifka Dining Room on the value of peace in Jewish life and thought.”
Report: U.S. Companies Helped Finance Dubai Slaying
Money transfers made through U.S. companies may have been used to help finance the January assassination of a senior Hamas leader, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The transfers were discovered by American investigators cooperating with the probe into the Jan. 20 assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in a hotel room in Dubai.
Some 33 members of an assassination team widely speculated to have been agents of Israel’s Mossad used forged passports from Britain, Ireland, Australia and Germany to enter and leave Dubai. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied that its intelligence service was behind the assassination.
Saturday’s report in The Wall Street Journal shows American authorities playing a larger role in the investigation than previously thought.
Following the trail of the money transfers made through the U.S. companies could provide clues to identifying the suspects in the case, sources told the Journal. The companies include Internet-based businesses that process payments between employers and freelance employees into prepaid, cash-card accounts. The suspects in the Dubai killing reportedly used such accounts to pay for airplane tickets and hotel rooms.
The companies did not know the money would be used in the plot, a source told the newspaper.
Earlier this year, Dubai police identified 13 U.S.-issued cash-card accounts that they said suspects used in the operation, obtained with false passports, the Journal reported.