Posted on 12/15/2005 6:57:56 PM PST by freedom44
CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. Jewish leaders say they are increasingly worried that Christian conservatives want to turn America politically and culturally into a country that tolerates only their brand of Christianity.
"There is a feeling on all sides that something is changing," said Abraham Foxman, director of the New York-based Anti-Defamation League.
"The polls indicate a very serious thing -- that over 60 percent of the American people feel that religion and Christianity are under attack," he said on Thursday in an interview.
"Some are saying we are attacking (Christianity). This whole movement is not anti-Semitic or motivated by anti-Semitism. But sometimes unintended consequences are much more serious than intended" he added.
Foxman recently arranged a meeting in New York involving six Jewish organizations to discuss the problem. He said that while participants did not agree on the exact level of the problem, they felt a strategy was needed.
"It's not a war room strategy," he added. "It's to understand what's out there."
He said Jews are a people of faith but are opposed to anyone who would say only they know the truth and want to impose it on everyone else.
While every December brings disputes over what to call the "holiday season" and its trappings, the level of lobbying by those who fear Christmas is becoming something generic has been particularly high this year.
But the issues raised by Foxman and others goes much deeper into American society, ranging from challenges to teaching evolution to bans on abortion and same-sex marriage or deciding
what kind of people who should serve on the U.S. Supreme Court.
"Every room (from bedroom to classroom) in the American mansion is under assault to impose either de facto or de jure a Christian theocracy -- I call them Christocrats," said Rabbi James Rudin, former head of interreligious activities for the American Jewish Committee.
"They are people who believe there should be a legally mandated Christian nation, where the concept of separation of church and state is weakened or abandoned," he added.
Rudin said he has met pastors "who say that Jesus Christ is the ultimate leader of America and that God's law trumps the Constitution ... I'm very concerned."
While far from all evangelical Christians hold those views, he said, the influence of those who do is strong.
Rudin, whose book "The Baptizing of America: The Religious Right's Plans for the Rest of Us" will be published in January by Avalon, said those with a theocratic agenda are not anti-Semites, and in fact some of them are among the strongest supporters of the state of Israel.
But he said they are Christians who see secular humanists and globalists as their enemies and who feel they are being attacked.
Mathew (cq) Staver, general counsel of the Florida-based Liberty Counsel, a group which backs conservative Christian causes in court and which has been particularly active in Christmas-related issues, says "there is absolutely no effort that I'm aware of to theocratize America or put down other faiths to expand Christianity."
He credits the increased activity surrounding Christmas issues this year to three years of building an organization over the matter.
"People have said enough is enough," he said, citing such incidents as naming Boston's Christmas tree a "holiday tree" and the publication of a sales catalog by a major retailer which featured Kwanza and Hanukkah gifts but made no mention of Christmas.
President George W. Bush, who describes himself as a born-again Christian, also faced criticism recently for sending out cards wishing people a happy "holiday" season.
"This clearly demonstrates that the Bush administration has suffered a loss of will and that they have capitulated to the worst elements in our culture," William A. Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights told the Washington Post.
Maybe the meeting would have been more friutful if he also tried inviting some Christians to the meeting to discuss the "problem"....
Me too.
This is nonsense, is right (not you for posting it, not the article, but the paranoid opinion that's expressed in the article...it's nonsense).
There are two distinct areas of Americans today who affiliate as Jews and one is the Reformist, including atheists in that group and they also are the liberals among Jews who support the ACLU and similar.
Then there are Orthodox Jews who are dedicated faithfully to their religion and share much with Christians as to morality and nowadays, political sensibilies, who are not threatened by Christians and our religion (nor should be).
Christianity is a personal experience, a personal, individual commitment, a conversion that is wilful and not forced or coerced.
By the mere fact that this nonsense, this article's information as reported (opinions, not the article, sorry), expresses the fearful paranoid, wrongful assumptions that there's some sort of nefarious, corrupt intention motivating Christians to "conquer" Jews and such, it indicates to me that whoever opines that way is not at all religious but claims "Jew" as a racial term, a cultural thing, not in any religious sense, and has no religious understanding.
They're projecting whatever fears and paranoia they experience onto the "class" of people they assume they can victimize and that's Christians.
The religious right has it's back up against a wall, something a person of Jewish faith should understand.
We're not trying to eliminate other people's observances, and think it's not too much to ask that we be treated the same way.
I have never suggested in any way shape or form that Jews or people of the Jewish faith should not be free to practice their religion and or obserences any way they like.
I'd imagine nearly all of them feel the same way about Christians.
This article must have been written by a wing-nut.
I agree 100%!
"U.S. Jewish leaders"
Who appointed them "leaders"- what is Jewish about them- are they going to say Hallel on Chanukah?
"US Jews .."- some Jews? majority?
Not this one! (It's the areligious left that I have a problem with.)
ML/NJ
"...bans on same-sex marriage..." used as an example of us Christians suppressing Jews?!
Homosexuality is defined to Jews the same way it is to Christians, and that is that it's unacceptable.
This article obviously is focused on the Reformist, Liberals who claim Judaism as a cultural, racist thing and have little to no relationship with Judaism as a religion. Hollywood is full of people like this, like Barbra Streisand, Speilberg, and so many others...many who are homosexual and campaign for homosexuality and such who are also Jewish by ancestry.
If they had any relationship with Judaism as Orthodox Jews...well, suffice it to say that anyone can call themselves anything but it's what they crusade for and care about that reveals a man's (or a woman's) heart.
Doesn't every minority group feel somewhat threatened by the majority?
I do not claim to have any personal expertise on this subject, but I note that the Conservative and Hasidic Jews (who stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the so-called 'religious right' on both morality and Israel), would say that the 'reform' Jews like Foxman are, at best, JINOs.........
um... God's law does trump the Constitution...
god, family, country... in that order for me at least.
First of all, American Jews don't have Jewish leaders (with the exception of certain ultra Orthodox sects who follow their Rabbi).
Second, do you ever notice that all these type stories quote the same two to five Jews who head similar Liberal organizations?
Third, William A. Donohue proves that Foxman has a long lost mirror image lunatic Catholic brother. I assume there is also a Protestant somewhere who would be right at home in that family of crazies.
I'm Jewish and I love all you Christians. You are what keeps this country together and keeps us safe. America is the best place to live if you are a Jew and it is because of Christians. People like Abe Foxman can go jump off a bridge for all this Jew cares. He doesn't represent me.
Evidently some Jews feel it is their duty to uphold some of Hitler's stereotypes - in particular their Bolshevism. I also don't get it. We Christians are taught to bless the Israelites and blessings from the Lord will be passed upon us. How anyone could say the Religious Right is full of anti-Semites focuses on a few nitwits, and ignores the main force. John Hagee, a right-wing conservative pastor in San Antonio is a true supporter of Israel and focuses many of his teachings on the Jewish people and their role in end-times. And he isn't the only one. My best friend is a Messianic Jew and a libertarian to boot.
I meant to say "Orthodox" Jews are also shoulder to shoulder with the so-called 'religious right' on most issues, and why not? At heart they both worship the same God.
The Rabbi sees only what he wants to see, obviously. If anything, our classrooms are under assault by fanatics on the left that teach kids that having two daddies is completely normal, that any sign of masculinity in adolescent boys is abnormal, and that Republicans aim to destroy the environment and rape "Gaia."
"Foxman and his ilk are no friends of Israel."
Their ilk were the first to march for the Rosenbergs, civil rights and nuclear freeze. They NEVER marched during the Holocaust- NEVER!!!!!!!!
They also only marched for Soviet Jewry only after the JDL and Students for Soviet Jewry embarassed them into getting involved.
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