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11 Kislev 5765 - November 24, 2004 | Mordecai Plaut, director Published Weekly
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NEWS
Agudas Yisroel Protests WJC Leader's Intermarriage Remarks

by Rabbi A. Shafran

In response to a strong protest lodged by Agudath Israel of America's executive vice president Rabbi Shmuel Bloom, World Jewish Congress president Edgar M. Bronfman backed away from statements attributed to him in the London Jewish Chronicle.

Mr. Bronfman, who also serves as chairman of Hillel's International Board of Governors, was quoted in the Chronicle as maintaining that the time has come for the Jewish community to abandon its fight against intermarriage.

The WJC head, according to the paper, called objections to intermarriage "racist" and complained that "the whole concept of Jewish peoplehood, and the lines being pure, begins to sound a little like Nazism."

He was further reported to have opined that "we can make an attempt to double the amount of Jews that there are, or we can irritate everybody who's intermarried, and lose them all."

In a November 3 missive to Mr. Bronfman, Agudath Israel's Rabbi Shmuel Bloom expressed his "shock beyond belief" over the reported comments, which the Agudath Israel leader characterized as "profoundly offensive, incredibly irresponsible, and entirely inappropriate for a person in a position of Jewish communal authority."

While acknowledging Mr. Bronfman's subsequent letter to the editor of the Chronicle in which he had apologized for his "tasteless comparison," Rabbi Bloom nonetheless declared that "my objection to your remarks goes far beyond the insensitivity of your rhetoric."

Noting that the very fact of geirus conclusively undermines any accusation of halacha's "racism" and that "the traditional Jewish `attitude' toward intermarriage, is not an attitude at all but an immutable aspect of Jewish law," Rabbi Bloom suggested that Mr. Bronfman, if he indeed rejects Judaism's teachings on intermarriage, "face the implications" of the chasm between his personal views and Jewish truths: "that you are simply not suited for any leadership role perceived as representative of Judaism or the Jewish people."

In a response Rabbi Bloom received on November 10, the WJC president appeared to retreat from the statements reported in the Chronicle.

He characterized the comments attributed to him as "both regrettable and misrepresented," and contended that he had often spoken "in opposition to intermarriage and assimilation" and that, as "assimilation represents a clear and present danger to the continuity of the Jewish people," he would "continue to do so."

Mr. Bronfman added, though, that "intermarried couples and their children . . . pose many questions and challenges for Jewish institutions and communities around the world," and that Jewish leaders "must reassess our efforts to combating assimilation and disaffiliation."

Rabbi Bloom responded the next day, thanking Mr. Bronfman for his pledge to speak against intermarriage in the future. But he went on to reiterate the need for the WJC leader to counter the many subsequent media accounts of his original reported comments by making "your true views known, loudly and clearly, to the broader public."

The Agudath Israel leader pointedly wrote too that, while he was in agreement that "the tragedy of intermarriage poses serious challenges" to the Jewish community, meeting those challenges can only proceed "on the clear understanding that the immutable underlying religious prohibition against intermarriage, and the unshakable stance the Jewish community needs to take on the matter, can never be open for `reassessment.'

"Throwing in the towel and declaring victory," Rabbi Bloom asserted, "is not a strategy for addressing problems."

 

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