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Comments (0)The Mormon Church and a Jewish group have resolved a dispute over the church’s posthumous baptisms by proxy of Jewish Holocaust victims.
The church and the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Their Descendants announced the agreement Wednesday in a joint statement.
Under the resolution, the church agreed to eliminate the names of Holocaust victims from its genealogical database using a new computer system, while the Jewish group acknowledged that the church had good intentions when it practiced “baptism for the dead” in order to allow the deceased the option to join the Church of the Latter-day Saints—an ongoing practice since 1840.
Mormons no longer can submit the names of Holocaust victims or celebrities for the proxy baptism unless the deceased is a direct ancestor of the submitter.
Mormon officials have agreed in the past to remove Jewish Holocaust victims’ names from the database, but many names have remained, they say, due to inevitable errors. Church officials said the new computer system should take care of the errors, according to reports.
They also responded that the souls have the option of declining the baptism offer. Under the “baptism for the dead” practice, living people stand in for the deceased.
In the joint statement, the church and the Jewish group said that “It is gratifying that the good-faith efforts undertaken over the years to deal with an important issue of sensitivity to the Jewish Holocaust survivor community have eliminated a source of tension between our two groups, enhancing our ability to cooperate, including important programs of humanitarian aid across the world.”
Mass. Debate Rescheduled to Avoid Rosh Hashanah
A Boston television station rescheduled the initial Massachusetts gubernatorial debate to avoid a conflict with the first night of Rosh Hashanah.
The debate between the four candidates for governor to be aired on WBZ-TV has been moved to Sept. 7, the night before Rosh Hashanah, the Boston Herald reported.
“We heard from a number of members of the Jewish community and understand their concern,” station spokesman Ro Dooley Webster told the newspaper.
The local office of the Anti-Defamation League had protested the original date.
Jill Stein, the candidate for the Green-Rainbow coalition, who is Jewish, had agreed to debate on the original date.
Debra Berger, Founder of Project Interchange, Dies
Debra Berger, the founder of Project Interchange that sent influential leaders to Israel, has died.
Berger, of Rockville, Md., died Wednesday.
Project Interchange, which Berger founded in 1982 and became an institute of the American Jewish Committee a decade later, has brought more than 5,000 leaders to Israel from more than 60 countries for weeklong educational visits.
She founded Project Interchange out of a desire to inform the American public about Israel. The mission, Berger reasoned, could best be realized through educational visits for groups of highly influential leaders, who upon returning home could share their perspectives with vast audiences, thus shaping public opinion on Israel.
In 1983, she sent off a delegation of congressional staff from the United States, marking Project Interchange’s inaugural program. Berger ran Project Interchange first from first from her suburban Washington home and then from an office in Washington D.C.
AJC Executive Director David Harris called Berger “a visionary.”
“She started Project Interchange from scratch,” he said. “Her goal was to introduce the Israel she loved to leading American figures. She succeeded beyond anyone’s wildest dreams.”
Harris said Berger “suffered from a prolonged and debilitating illness, but her courage, strength and determination inspired everyone around her.”