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Comments (0)Jews are being urged to oppose a church’s call to burn Korans on Sept. 11.
Rabbi Arthur Waskow of the Shalom Center has called upon Jews instead to read from the Koran during Shabbat services that morning.
The call comes as part of an interfaith protest against the Dove World Outreach Center, an evangelical church in Gainesville, Fla.
The church’s founder, Pastor Terry Jones, has announced that he will burn copies of the Koran on the evening of Sept. 11 to remember the victims of 9/11 and “to stand against the evil of Islam.”
Jones has declared Sept. 11 “international burn a Koran day.” A Facebook site dedicated to the project has more than 7,000 fans—for and against the project.
The National Association of Evangelicals, the nation’s largest umbrella evangelical group, has denounced Jones’ plan, and he has been denied a fire permit from the city. But Jones told reporters that he is going ahead anyway.
Faith leaders in Gainesville are planning a protest prayer service on the night of Sept. 10, and similar interfaith events are coming together nationwide. One is planned for 51 Park Place in New York City, the site of the proposed Muslim community center.
In a news release, the Shalom Center notes that Sept. 11 is Shabbat Shuvah, “the special Shabbat between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur when Jews focus even more deeply on turning themselves toward God and to changing their lives toward compassion and reconciliation with other people.”
The center suggests that synagogues add a passage from the Koran to their regular readings that day.
One of three suggested readings comes from Asad 49:13: “Behold, we have created you all from a single male and female, and have made you into nations and tribes so that you might come to deeply know one another [not to hate and despise each other]. Truly, the noblest of you in the sight of God is the one who is most deeply conscious of God. Behold, God is all-knowing, all aware.”
Court Rejects Jewish Inmate’s Claim on Beard
A prison can require an Orthodox Jewish prison inmate to keep his beard short, a federal judge ruled.
U.S. District Court Judge Steven McAuliffe in Concord, N.H., ruled Aug. 27 that prison inmates do not have a First Amendment right to grow a beard, rejecting Orthodox Jewish inmate Albert Kuperman’s claim.
In his ruling the judge said that the maximum length of one-quarter inch allowed by prison officials in Concord to easily identify prisoners and that allowing a longer length would require more intimate searches.
Kuperman, 25, is serving a seven-year sentence for child molesting and is eligible for parole in January, the Associated Press reported. He challenged the prison in court last year after he was removed from a kosher diet after being caught eating non-kosher food.
Suspect Arrested in L.A. Murders
Los Angeles Police have arrested a suspect in the shooting deaths of three members of the city’s Iranian Jewish community.
Harold Yong Parks, 31, of Los Angeles, was in possession of several pounds of marijuana when he was arrested Monday, according to the Sacramento Bee.
Police investigators believe that Park stole the marijuana from Pirooz Moussazadeh, 27, and his brother, Shahriar Moussazadeh, 38, and Bernard Khalili, 27, who were shot on the night of Aug. 25 at the brothers’ apartment.
Park was arrested during a traffic stop near West Hollywood and booked for possession of marijuana for sale. After interviews with detectives he was booked for murder and ordered held without bail, according to the Bee.
The men all moved to the United States as young children.