FEATURED JOBS
Comments (0)The head of the Manhattan JCC is advising the effort to build an Islamic cultural center two blocks from Ground Zero. Rabbi Joy Levitt, executive director of the Jewish Community Center in Manhattan, is calling on Jewish and Christian institutions to accept the couple behind the project. She discussed her institution’s connection to the project in an appearance Sunday on ABC’s This Week with Christiane Amanpour. She appeared alongside Daisy Khan, the wife of Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf, who is the religious leader associated with the controversial project, which will include a mosque. “The JCC has invited Daisy and the imam to come speak at the JCC in September, and I hope that we’ll be able to do that,” Levitt said on the program. “They’ve certainly accepted our offer, and I hope that JCCs and other community centers in the Christian and Jewish community and in the secular world will come to do that, because clearly what this whole controversy has unleashed is a tremendous amount of misinformation, lack of knowledge about Islam that we need to address.” Levitt confirmed that the JCC has been advising Khan and Rauf. “Well, we got a call from Daisy when they began to think about this project, and said we want to build an MCC just like the JCC,” Levitt said. Many Republican lawmakers and several Democratic ones, a slew of conservative pundits and some people who lost loved ones in the Sept. 11 attacks oppose the project, saying that opening a mosque so close to Ground Zero is a slap in the face to those who died there and their families. Some of the opponents also argue that the symbolic location of the project will embolden anti-American Islamic forces. Khan said that when she and her husband begin to raise money for the estimated $100 million project, they will be seeking more advice from Levitt and the JCC. “Well, this is where my counselor on my right is helping us, because our funding is going to pretty much follow the same way that JCC got its fund raising,” Khan said. “First, we have to develop a board. Then the board is going to have a financial committee, fund-raising committee, that will be in charge of the fund raising.” Many critics of the project express concern that the money to pay for the Islamic cultural center might come from overseas sources with ties to terrorism. Khan said that she and her husband have pledged to work with U.S. authorities to alleviate such concerns. In the interview, Levitt slammed former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich—one of the most prominent critics of the project—for comparing the project to Nazis putting up a site next to U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. She also invoked periods in early American history when some colonies outlawed the building of synagogues.
Hagee Drops Support for Im Tirtzu
John Hagee Ministries will discontinue funding for an Israeli right-wing group that has depicted the New Israel Fund and its affiliates as anti-Israel. The decision to end funding for Im Tirtzu was revealed in an email by Lee Wunsch, the president of the Houston Jewish Federation, and obtained over the weekend by Richard Silverstein, a blogger who has campaigned against funding the group. “In light of recent events and in my discussions with Pastor Hagee, he will not continue that funding as we both believe that Im Tirtzu has morphed into a quasi-political organization and neither Pastor Hagee nor the Houston Jewish Federation will fund such groups,” Wunsch wrote in response to a query. Like many other pro-Israel fund-raisers, Hagee, who also heads Christians United for Israel and who is headquartered in San Antonio, uses local Jewish federations as a conduit. Wunsch is one of three members of a panel that advises Hagee on what to fund in Israel. Hagee Ministries donated $200,000 to Im Tirtzu over the last two years. After Im Tirtzu launched a campaign earlier this year depicting the New Israel Fund as anti-Zionist, a spokesman for Hagee said he would reconsider his support. Ari Morgenstern, a Hagee Ministries spokesman, would not comment Monday on Wunsch’s email, saying that the announcement of 2010 donations would not take place until October, when Hagee hosts one of his marquee Nights to Honor Israel in San Antonio. However, he repeated past statements that Hagee now felt that Im Tirtzu had misrepresented itself as an educational rather than a political group. “Im Tirtzu misrepresented its focus when they told us their mission was strictly Zionist education,” Morgenstern said. “We had no prior knowledge of Im Tirtzu’s prior political actions and we never seek to involve ourselves in Israel’s internal poltiical debate.” Morgenstern added that Hagee will continue to fund Ben-Gurion University, which has been the latest target of an Im Tirtzu campaign alleging anti-Zionism in the university’s political science department. “We do not believe that the political positions of a few professors characterize an entire university,” he said. “We believe that the people of Israel benefit from BGU’s success.” Hagee Ministries donated $100,000 to the university last year.
Knicks’ Stoudemire Says He Is Practicing Jew
Amare Stoudemire of the New York Knicks reportedly said he is a practicing Jew “spiritually and culturally.”
Stoudemire, who last month visited Israel on a spiritual journey to explore his Jewish roots, made the comments in an interview with Page Six of The New York Post. He also said that he is keeping kosher.
The NBA All-Star joined the Knicks this summer as a free agent. He formerly played for the Phoenix Suns. Stoudemire reportedly decided to visit Israel after learning that his mother was Jewish.
Stoudemire told the newspaper that he is continuing his Jewish studies. “I figure, what the scriptures speak about, that’s what I celebrate,” he said. He has reportedly been studying the Bible since he was young.
Some have suggested that Stoudemire is exploring Judaism as a way to help the Knicks sell more tickets, a charge that the star player denies.
Stoudemire told Page Six that he will celebrate the High Holidays, but will not miss any games for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. “Playing the games are my livelihood,” he said. “But I’m still going to celebrate the holidays.”