The U.S.’s lagging commitment to religious freedom

Robert P. George and Katrina Lantos Swett ("The Washington Post," August 21, 2013)

Robert P. George is chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. Katrina Lantos Swett is a vice chairwoman of the commission.

Although religious freedom is a pivotal human right, critical to national security and global stability, key provisions of the landmark International Religious Freedom Act are being neglected years after its passage. A number of studies demonstrates the link between freedom of religion and societal well-being, while its absence correlates closely with instability and violent religious extremism, including terrorism. Many governments, including those topping the U.S. foreign policy and security agendas, perpetrate or tolerate acts of religious repression, such as arbitrary detention, torture and murder.

The International Religious Freedom Act provides vital tools, including identifying and sanctioning the world’s worst violators. But over many years and different administrations, the executive branch has not employed them fully or in a timely manner. With a key deadline for action arriving this month, it is time to confront this unwise failure to act.

When the act was passed in 1998, it made the promotion of religious freedom an official U.S. foreign policy priority and established at the State Department an ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom. The legislation also created a bipartisan and independent U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, on which we serve, to monitor this right worldwide and make policy recommendations to Congress, the secretary of state and the president.

Congress gave the legislation real teeth through a groundbreaking enforcement mechanism: requiring annual administration review and designation of “countries of particular concern,” defined as those governments engaging in or allowing “systematic, ongoing, egregious” violations.

While the law provides the administration with flexibility in how it will pressure those countries, the review and designation process is not discretionary. The law requires it. Whatever one’s view of appropriate sanctions for violators, there can be little disagreement on the imperative of bearing witness to abuses.

Unfortunately, neither Republican nor Democratic administrations have consistently designated countries that clearly meet the standard for offenders. The Bush administration issued several designations in its first term but let the process fall off track in its second. The Obama administration issued designations only once during its first term, in August 2011.

The result? Violators such as Egypt, Pakistan and Vietnam are escaping the accountability that the International Religious Freedom Act is meant to provide.

Even those nations currently designated as “countries of particular concern” could escape accountability if there are no designations this month; under the law, countries remain designated until removed, but any corresponding penalties expire after two years. Without new designations, sanctions attached in 2011 to Burma, China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea and Sudan will expire this month. And while those countries are subject to sanctions under other U.S. laws, allowing the International Religious Freedom Act’s sanctions authority to expire would send the disturbing message that the United States won’t implement its own law on religious freedom.

To be sure, the Obama administration has taken some positive steps. It created a State Department working group on religion and foreign policy and this month established a new faith-based office, both tasked with religious engagement.

Also this month, Secretary of State John Kerry announced a U.S. Strategy on Religious Leader and Faith Community Engagement. As our commission has recommended, promoting religious freedom is among the three key objectives of this engagement.

Engagement should be part of any strategy for the promotion of religious freedom. But what will move gross offenders to stop persecuting individuals if not the credible threat of consequences? By letting the process of designating offenders atrophy, the United States surrenders its leverage while creating a chilling precedent for other rights. If this process is allowed to wither, what will happen to similarly designed programs such as the tiered system of the Trafficking in Persons Report, which was modeled on this approach?

The process of designating countries of particular concern works when deployed as intended — that is, not as a single bludgeon but as a targeted tool. When diplomacy is combined with the prospect or reality of such designations and attendant sanctions or other specific diplomatic and related actions, repressive governments — including Vietnam and Turkmenistan — have made meaningful changes. Moreover, countries often consider such a designation a stigma and blow to their world standing. Because a designation of concern is rightly perceived as an important factor in a country’s relationships with the United States, it can create political will for reform where none otherwise would exist.

For the sake of freedom and security, it is time to apply the International Religious Freedom Act fully and the country designation process decisively. Congress has the right and the duty to press the executive branch to do so.

Nigeria's future depends on how its religious groups see each other

By Charlotte Keenan ("The Guardian," November 27, 2012)

Extracted from http://wwrn.org/articles/38603/

The development of Nigeria with its population of some 150 million people, oil reserves, and an abundance of entrepreneurial spirit, is arguably critical for the future of sub-Saharan Africa. It has had more than its fair share of misfortunes: civil war, serial military coups, tyrannical military government, spectacular corruption and all the downsides of its black gold economy. But today Nigeria is facing a new challenge. It comes from the confluence of three muddy streams in our contemporary globalised world: persistent poverty in the midst of affluence, the growing power of religion to boost and legitimise political ambition, and different forms of religious extremism threatened by modernity and led into violence.

Nigeria has the assets to deal with this crisis. Entrepreneurial skills that can otherwise spill over into corruption can be channelled towards social responsibility and effective action towards the countless young people so readily caught up in violence because they are unemployed or underemployed. The corporate giants involved in Nigeria's extractive interests have a wealth of creative talent that could be directed towards the country's core social problems.

But with terrorist attacks on churches and cathedrals and subsequent lethal reprisals against Muslims, these assets are themselves being challenged. In that context a large population divided almost equally between Muslims and Christians in a multitude of states, is in one respect a potential formula for unmanageable conflict. But in many parts of the country a traditional African tolerance has made intermarriage and good inter-faith relations, not least within families, commonplace. Moreover, the different faith communities are blessed with some outstanding leaders who recognise the ambiguous quality of religion in building social harmony and are committed to making their faith and their communities a force for national unity and the common good.

The present situation puts an enormous responsibility on Nigerian schools. The way young people are taught to see other young people of a different faith is a critical element in eliminating the preconditions for communal violence. The experience of many countries suggests that at the heart of what makes a harmonious society is the implementation of a shared commitment to communication.

Communication is about telling your story without fear, without aggression and knowing how to listen to the other's story. It is about being able to participate as an interlocutor. It is a religious principle in the sense that communication is what makes humanity what it is, not warring gangs in conflict communicating only by violent acts but people living together, sharing the co-existence of different identities – national, gender, football teams, faiths, telling their stories.

That is why we launched our Faith Foundation religion reconciliation programme last week with Tony Blair and Justin Welby, archbishop of Canterbury designate alongside all Nigeria's senior religious leaders and the president.

Faiths are all about communication. For Muslims, Mohammed is rasul, a messenger, the embodiment of the most important imaginable communication of the Qur'an. For Christians, Jesus Christ is the word of God, the most important communication imaginable to humanity. Children need to be able to understand their faith and communicate it, and to comprehend what children of other faiths are communicating to them about their belief and practice. That is why diversity is enriching, not a threat, and why the challenge facing Nigeria today is not just a problem for government but a problem for schools and universities, business and corporate leaders, religious leaders and those in their communities desperate to find the path to peace and to move back from religious conflict.

The challenge is also for the international community. Yes, Africa and Africans must solve Africa's problems. But what Nigeria is facing is a global problem. The three muddy streams converge in a river of civil conflict that does not stop at borders. There has to be international solidarity. The bad sort of religion crosses frontiers and is mutually supportive. The bad sort of religion can only communicate with violence and calls to violence. The good sort of religion must be no less persuasive, no less international in its vision, and it must bring hope.

India appoints first Muslim to head Intelligence Bureau in 125-year history

By Jason Burke ("The Guardian," November 26, 2012)

Extracted from http://wwrn.org/articles/38596/

Since the heyday of the British Raj, India's Intelligence Bureau has been watching over all those myriad internal threats to the security of the citizens, who now number 1.2bn, of perhaps the most varied country in the world. Yet for all the vaunted secularism of the world's largest democracy, the IB, in its 125-year history, has never been led by a Muslim.

Until now. The appointment of 59-year-old Syed Asif Ibrahim as the IB's director has predictably raised eyebrows, particularly as other marginally more senior candidates were overlooked. In the intensely hierarchical Indian bureaucracy, the exact year an official passed the demanding exams at the start of his career is crucial. Some journalists have speculated that Ibrahim was appointed by the current government, led by the Congress party, because he is broadly sympathetic to a political organisation that has always been seen as supportive of Indian Muslims.

Ajit Doval, who led the IB from 2004 to 2005, says this is nonsense. "I worked with [Ibrahim] for 20 years. The media haven't got anything else to say so they are focusing on if he is Christian, Muslim, Hindu, whatever. He's a career intelligence officer and a very fine one," he says. "The Indian system is really a very secular one so this is a non-issue."

Except it isn't. Some Indian Muslims have greeted the appointment as a breakthrough. Successive government inquiries have shown that Muslims, who constitute around 14% of the population but are significantly underrepresented in the nation's security agencies and forces, are among the most disadvantaged communities in India.

The job of the IB is varied. There is the obvious threat of Islamic militancy. News of Ibrahim's appointment broke only a few days after the only surviving gunman from the November 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai was hanged. That operation was the work of Pakistani-based extremists but homegrown militant groups are still active. Then there is the ongoing if improving conflict in Kashmir, widespread leftwing extremism and political violence. The IB chief is likely to be consulted by Congress party strategists as national polls scheduled for 2014 approach.

An evident economic slowdown, and a drifting government, have undermined the confidence of emerging India recently. But Ibrahim's appointment shows how minorities of all types – caste or religious – are making steady if slow progress in overcoming centuries of prejudice. "The IB's religion is serving our people and our country," says Doval, the former chief spook. "I'd like to say more about the new director and the service, but I'm afraid it's all classified."

What do religious leaders want for Obama’s next four years?

By Adelle M. Banks ("The Washington Post," November 7, 2012)

Extracted from http://wwrn.org/articles/38533/

Washington — Addressing poverty. Seeking reconciliation. Protecting religious freedom. Religious leaders already have their wish lists ready for President Obama’s second term. Here are 10 officials’ thoughts about what they’d like to see in the next four years. Some responses have been edited for length and clarity:

Salam Al-Marayati, president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council

It’s an opportunity to build on the foundation built the last four years, one of engagement and more inclusion of American Muslims in policy-making, both on the domestic and international fronts. Key issues will be bolstering partnerships with law enforcement for national security, working within faith-based government programs, and building bridges with the Muslim world that will help the U.S. navigate new frontiers of democracy and old battlegrounds of violent extremism.

Kathryn Mary Lohre, president of the National Council of Churches

As followers of Christ, we hope and work for a world in which people have nutritious food to eat, safe water to drink, affordable places to live, access to quality medical care, and opportunities for fulfilling work. Recent figures show that more than one in seven Americans — and one in five children — are living in poverty. President Obama, we now join others in calling you to account for this commitment ... to adopt and implement bold policies that will provide for “the least of these” (Matthew 25), addressing the root causes of poverty, and creating life-giving vocational opportunities. Eradicating poverty is a moral issue. As we join you in partnership, we will join you also in prayer.

The Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference

President Obama’s re-election offers an opportunity for the gifted motivator to convert rhetoric into action. My prayer is that our president advances an agenda that protects life, strengthens the family, protects religious liberty, while globally advocating for religious pluralism, especially in Muslim nations. In addition, I pray that our president engages his Christian optics in the spirit of reconciliation for the purpose of healing our nation. This will require him to provide not just political but moral leadership that refuses to sacrifice truth on the altar of political expediency. Let President Obama re-emerge with the spirit of his 2004 keynote address at the Democratic National Convention, resulting in a collective understanding that the kingdom of God is not red state or blue state, Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative but righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost.

Sister Mary Ann Walsh, spokeswoman, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops hopes the 2013-2016 Presidential administration:

* Will back legislation that protects the vulnerable, including infants in utero or the elderly in their waning days on earth and everyone in between.

* Will support efforts to help immigrants seeking refuge and citizenship in America.

* Addresses the problem of the widespread poverty that stands as blight upon our nation.

* Recognizes the need to show support for religious liberty, a concern of many different religious groups.

* Supports legislation on the institution of marriage that guarantees a child’s right to be raised in a loving home by a caring mother and father.

* Works to restore civility in dialogue and bipartisanship in government so all Americans can work as one for the spiritual and material health of our country and our world.

The Rev. Carroll A. Baltimore Sr., president of the Progressive National Baptist Convention

It is my sincere desire that President Obama will lead in addressing the issues of poverty and its long-term effects on our entire society. We rarely hear the term “poverty.” It’s a very revealing term and other words have been substituted to remove the reality and responsibility that we have to deal with poverty. Over the past decades, we have cut critical social and educational programs that have plummeted countless children and adults into poverty. The economic implications of poverty are felt globally, and really need to be addressed on an international scale. We need to enact policies and practices that lift people out of poverty. The religious community, and other entities are doing a great deal to help, but our policies and laws need to be revisited. It is impossible to secure the future of our children under these circumstances. As we claim to be the wealthiest nation in the world, my desire is that President Obama will lead the way in bringing other global leaders together and develop global policies and practices that will alleviate the staggering number of children and adults experiencing abject poverty.

Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission

The people have spoken. Now the really difficult battles are about to begin. Our nation is in dire need of sound, principled leadership. I submit the following requests, which I believe are essential to the future stability and prosperity of our nation:

* Defend the sanctity of all human life from conception to natural death in all laws and all medical programs, government and private;

* Respect and protect religious freedom and freedom of conscience for all Americans in any medical delivery and health insurance programs;

* Defend the sanctity of marriage as a relationship between a man and a woman in federal and state law;

* Forge a bipartisan program to cut the national debt and stimulate economic growth;

* Lead a bipartisan effort to bring about significant, meaningful, fair, and just immigration reform;

* Unequivocally support Israel’s right to exist within secure and defensible borders and her right not to be threatened with nuclear annihilation by the genocidal regime in Tehran;

* Lead a national bipartisan effort to reduce the impact of hardcore pornography and to eliminate the sex trafficking for which pornography produces the consumer demand.

Clearly, this would be an ambitious agenda. Yet I believe the American people are ready and would help advance each of those goals. We are ready for principled leadership. I commit to pray that God will enable President Obama to lead us to real, God-honoring solutions that will make a significant impact toward us becoming a more moral, more unified people.

The Rev. David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World

This election is the first step in what we are hoping will be a strong U.S. commitment to ending hunger — both domestically and globally. For more than a year, Christian leaders have come together to advocate for the formation of a “Circle of Protection” around funding for programs that are vital to hungry and poor people. As people of faith, it is now our responsibility to hold our newly elected president accountable for taking a stance against hunger and poverty.

There is more than enough food to feed the more than 7 billion people around the world, yet hunger and poverty persist on a large scale, even in the United States. Finding solutions to these issues will require the dedication of all leaders — whether they be Republicans or Democrats. As the new president takes his oath of office, we want him to lead the way in ending hunger at home and abroad. During his four-year term, we expect the president to set a goal to end hunger while ensuring that we do not balance the federal budget on the backs of hungry and poor people.

Leith Anderson, president of the National Association of Evangelicals

Most campaign speeches end with the words “God bless the United States of America.” I believe God has blessed our nation and my number one prayer and hope for the president over the next four years is that God will continue to bless America under his leadership. My desire is that President Obama and his administration will bring Americans together in peace without a national crisis and will fulfill the vision of the Old Testament prophet Micah: “And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”

Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations

I would like to see a president committed to continued American leadership in the defense of civil liberties. The president should work with Congress to end indefinite detention without trial of citizens and others. The president should also lead a vocal campaign in opposition to anti-Islam legislation that is sweeping the nation. And I think it is time we found out why some American citizens, almost exclusively Muslim, are being denied the fundamental right to return to their country.

My “wish list” for the White House:

* Repeal the indefinite detention provisions of the National Defense Authorization Act.

* Work to pass both the End Racial Profiling Act and Safe Schools Improvement Act.

* Close the Guantanamo Bay detention center and end the unconstitutional practice of prolonged detention outside of our nation’s justice system.

* Reassess the nation’s CIA/military drone strike program that has led to civilian deaths in Pakistan (now being expanded to the Horn of Africa) and harmed America’s image and interests.

* Reassess the nation’s policy of assassinating American citizens overseas.

* End the questioning of Muslims at the U.S. border about their faith and religious observances.

* Reassess the nation’s policy of preventing some American Muslim citizens from returning home after overseas travels.

* Review the nation’s Watch List program to make it easier for individuals wrongly placed on the list to have their names removed.

* End the CIA’s relationship with the New York Police Department to spy on American Muslims.

Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism

Someday, a president may take the oath of office and find himself with a prospering nation, budget surpluses and a world at peace. Jan. 20, 2013 will not be that day. Instead, the newly inaugurated president will face a host of challenges at home and abroad. The voices of people of faith “speaking truth to power” as the president decides how to meet those challenges will be more vital than ever.

During the campaign, discussion of our responsibilities to provide a safety net to the poor were alarmingly absent. Our voices must be raised on behalf of Americans struggling to recover from the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, even as some misguidedly call for weakening parts of that safety net from food stamps to Medicaid to Social Security.

It is unlikely that we will quickly find consensus on gay marriage; allowing states to continue to make their own decisions is the right course to follow at this time. But until the past few years, there was significant Republican support for a law that would ban employment discrimination because of sexual orientation or gender identity. A concerted effort for passage now could attract the support of those Republican legislators determined to heal some of our nation’s wounds.

So, too, on immigration. Actions must be taken to address the plight of undocumented immigrants who too often live in the shadows even as they contribute to and are a vital part of the fabric of our communities, including implementation of the Dream Act provisions the first Obama administration began. The results of this election reflect the need for both parties to address the needs of the Latino community more assertively than they have before.

Pakistan's minority Hindus feel under attack

By Rebecca Santana (AP, November 8, 2012)

Extracted from http://wwrn.org/articles/38541/

KARACHI, Pakistan (AP) — They came after dusk and chanted into the night sky "Kill the Hindus, kill the children of the Hindus," as they smashed religious icons, ripped golden bangles off women's arms and flashed pistols. It wasn't the first time that the Hindu temple on the outskirts of Pakistan's largest city was attacked, and residents here fear it will not be the last.

"People don't consider us as equal citizens. They beat us whenever they want," said Mol Chand, one of the teenage boys gathered at the temple. "We have no place to worship now."

It was the second time the Sri Krishna Ram temple has been attacked, and this time the mob didn't even bother to disguise their faces. The small temple, surrounded by a stone wall, is a tiny religious outpost in a dusty, hardscrabble neighborhood so far on the outskirts of the city that a sign on the main road wishes people leaving Karachi a good journey.

Local Muslim residents blamed people from a nearby ethnic Pashtun village for the attack, which took place in late September on the Day of Love for the Prophet, a national holiday declared by the government in response to an anti-Islam film made in the U.S. No one was seriously injured in the attack.

It was the latest in a rising tide of violence and discrimination against Hindus in this 95 percent Muslim country, where Islamic extremism is growing. Pakistan's Hindu community says it faces forced conversions of Hindu girls to Islam, a lack of legal recognition for their marriages, discrimination in services and physical abuse when they venture into the streets.

The story of the Hindu population in Pakistan is one of long decline. During partition in 1947, the violent separation of Pakistan and India into separate countries, hundreds of thousands of Hindus opted to migrate to India where Hinduism is the dominant religion. Those that remained and their descendants now make up a tiny fraction of Pakistan's estimated 190 million citizens, and are mostly concentrated in Sindh province in the southern part of the country.

Signs of their former stature abound in Karachi, the capital of Sindh. At the 150-year-old Swami Narayan Temple along one of the city's main roads, thousands of Hindus gather during the year to celebrate major religious holidays. Hindus at the 200-year-old Laxmi Narain Temple scatter the ashes of their cremated loved ones in the waters of an inlet from the Arabian Ocean.

But there are also signs of how far the community has fallen. Residents in a city hungry for land have begun to build over Hindu cemeteries, the community's leaders say. Hindus helped build Karachi's port decades ago, but none work there now.

Estimates of the size of the Hindu population in Pakistan are all over the map — from 2.5 million or 10 million in Sindh province alone to 7 million across the country — a reflection of the fact that the country hasn't had a census since 1998.

It isn't just Hindus who are facing problems. Other minorities like Christians, the mystical Muslim branch of Sufis and the Ahmadi sect have found themselves under attack in Pakistan, where the rise of Muslim fundamentalists has sometimes unleashed a violent opposition against those who don't follow their strict religious tenets.

The discrimination has prompted some Hindus to leave for India, activists warn, though the extent is not known. Around 3,000 Hindus left this year, part of a migration that began four years ago, sparked by discrimination and a general rise in crime in Sindh, said DM Maharaj, who heads an organization to help Hindus called Pakistan Hindu Sabha.

He said he recently talked to a group of Hindus preparing to move to India from rural Sindh, complaining that they can't eat in Muslim restaurants or that Muslim officials turned them down for farming loans. Even during recent floods, they said Muslims did not want them staying in the same refugee camps.

Other Hindu figures such as provincial assembly member Pitamber Sewami deny there's a migration at all, in a reflection of how sensitive the issue is. Earlier this year, there were a string of reports in Pakistani media about Hindus leaving the country, sparking a flurry of promises by Pakistani officials to investigate.

In India, a Home office official said the Indian government noticed an upward trend of people coming from Pakistan but called reports of Pakistanis fleeing to India "exaggerated." He said he does not have exact figures on how many Pakistani Hindus have stayed in India after entering the country on tourist visas. The official spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the topic.

There's more of a consensus of the seriousness of the problem of forced conversion of Hindus.

Zohra Yusuf, the president of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan says the pattern goes like this: A Hindu girl goes missing and then resurfaces days or weeks later married to a Muslim boy. During court hearings to determine whether the conversion was voluntary, students from nearby Islamic schools called madrassas often flood the room, trying to intimidate the judges by chanting demands that the conversion be confirmed.

Maharaj says he's tried to intervene in roughly 100 cases of forced conversions but has only succeeded in returning a girl safely back to her family once. If a girl decides to renounce Islam and return to Hinduism, she could be signing a death warrant for herself and her family even if her conversion was forced.

The Hindu community has also been hurt by a lack of unity within its ranks. Hindu society within Pakistan and elsewhere has historically been divided by caste, a system of social stratification in which the lower castes are often seen as inferior. Members of the lower castes in Pakistan say it wasn't until two girls from a high-caste family were forcibly converted this year that high-caste Hindus took the issue seriously, although it's been happening for years.

"We always fight our war ourselves," said Bholoo Devjee, a Hindu activist from Karachi, speaking about the lower castes.

In recent months the government has begun to take the concerns of the Hindu community more seriously. In Sindh province, legislators proposed a law to prevent forced conversions in part by implementing a waiting period before a marriage between a Hindu and a Muslim can go forward, and there's discussion about proposing such a law on the national level as well.

In the case of the Sri Krishna Ram temple, law enforcement authorities opened a blasphemy case against the people who rampaged through the building. But residents here are skeptical that these developments signify any long-term improvement in their plight. Weeks after the incident no arrests have been made, and the Hindus complain that no high-ranking Hindu officials have come to visit them or help them get compensation.

Sunda Maharaj, the spiritual leader at the temple, which was first attacked in January 2011, said he and the other residents do not want to move to India. "We are Pakistani," he said.

But he would like more help from the government, specifically a checkpoint to stop people from getting close to the temple and money for the Hindus to buy weapons.

"Next time anyone comes we can kill them or die defending our temple," he said.

Muslims Back Obama, But By Smaller Margin Than In 2008

By ("Huffington Post," October 30, 2012)

Extracted from http://wwrn.org/articles/38462/

Nearly nine in 10 Muslim American voters pulled the lever for the Democratic candidate in the last two presidential elections, partly because of Republican policies and rhetoric that many considered anti-Muslim. In 2008, they also thought President Obama would usher in an era in which Muslims would be more accepted at home, and relations between America and the Islamic world would see improvement.

But this year, Muslim American support for President Obama shows signs of waning, which could be enough to affect the 2012 election in key swing states where a few thousand votes could have a big impact.

Several of those swing states -- most notably Virginia, Michigan, Florida, Pennsylvania, Colorado, and Ohio -- have enough Muslim voters to turn a tight race, experts say.

According to a poll of 500 Muslim American voters released Wednesday (Oct. 24) by the Council of American-Islamic Relations in Washington, 68 percent of Muslims said they would vote for President Obama, while 25 percent were undecided. The poll, which had a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points, also found that 91 percent of Muslims intend to vote.

While Muslim Americans continue to place high importance on civil rights and foreign policy, the CAIR survey shows that they, like other Americans, have ranked the economy and jobs as their top concern, followed by education and health care.

"We came to this country for the opportunities it offered us, and we need to be focused on domestic issues that impact all Americans because now this is our home," said New Yorker Zeba Iqbal, an Obama supporter and former executive director of the Council for the Advancement of Muslim Professionals.

But many Muslim Americans are disappointed with Obama on a range of issues, including his support for the Patriot Act, a counterterrorism law that that they say unfairly targets Muslims. Many Muslims are also upset about FBI sting operations against Muslims that civil rights activists say amount to entrapment.

In addition, many Muslim Americans were disappointed that Obama did not confront the New York City Police Department for allegedly spying on Muslim Americans in and around New York.

Overseas, Obama has stepped up drone attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan that have killed dozens of civilians; Palestinians still have no independent state; and some Muslim critics say Washington still goes too easy on oppressive regimes in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and other countries.

Most Muslim Americans believed the Iraq war was reckless, and have advocated for an American exit from Afghanistan. Many also believed America was right to to stay out of Iran's short-lived Green Revolution, where people are suspicious of the American government.

But in Syria, where strongman Bashar al-Assad's forces have killed thousands in massacres and bombardments, more than two-thirds of Muslim Americans want the U.S. to be more supportive of anti-Assad rebels, according to the CAIR survey.

"The people on the ground are asking for it. People are dying there," said Rashad Al-Dabbagh, a spokesman for the Syrian American Council, an advocacy group supporting the Syrian rebels. He said they want America to provide the rebels with heavy arms like anti-aircraft and anti-tank guns, and to fund rebel councils -- two ideas that Romney floated during the third presidential debate.

While fewer Muslims are supporting Obama this year, Muslim support for Mitt Romney -- at just 7 percent, according to the CAIR poll -- is more than triple the 2.2 percent of Muslims who voted for GOP nominee John McCain in 2008.

"Muslims need tough love, not soft coddling to get over their illusions of Islamist fantasies," said Ahmed Vanya, an engineer in San Jose, Calif.

Vanya fears that many Muslims won't give Romney a fair chance.

"Many Muslims are not going to be happy with the way Romney would handle the civil rights issues," Vanya said. "Even if he follows exactly the same policies as Obama, he would be perceived as worse for the Muslims."

Many Muslim Americans worry that the former Massachusetts governor will continue security policies they say disproportionately target them while embracing an George W. Bush-style foreign policy that will lead to more conflict with the Muslim world.

"The way Romney talks about eliminating extremism, like it can be done with a formula, shows that he doesn't get it. And that's dangerous," said Ani Zonneveld, president of the Los Angeles-based Muslims for Progressive Values.

While Romney has not been explicitly anti-Islam or used the inflammatory rhetoric deployed by some Republicans, many Muslims say his failure to condemn such rhetoric, and his willingness to use words that alarm Americans, like "jihad" and "Islamic extremism," shows he isn't above exploiting fears about Muslims.

"Gov. Romney has not spoken out against this before the election, why would he do anything to minimize the Islamophobes after the election?" said Iqbal.

And for all the criticisms they have of Obama, Muslim Americans have found more than enough reasons to vote for him.

"To get one Osama bin Laden, our irresponsible President Bush destroyed a nation and a people," said Mike Ghouse, a Muslim commentator in Texas, referring to the invasion of Iraq. "In contrast, President Obama got the guy with no collateral damage and no damage to bin Laden's religion or the nation," Ghouse said.

Some Muslim voters have taken a more pragmatic view: even though they may disagree with Romney and running mate Paul Ryan, they argue that being adversarial now would not be helpful if the GOP ticket wins the White House. That's why Obama supporter Aziz Poonawalla introduced himself to Ryan at a Wisconsin apple farm several weeks ago.

"He needs to see and meet Muslim Americans," Poonawalla wrote on the website Patheos.com, "(so) he has something/someone real to compare against the cartoon that his fellow Republicans have constructed about our community."

Imran Khan says Taliban's 'holy war' in Afghanistan is justified by Islamic law

By Jon Boone ("The Guardian," October 14, 2012)

Extracted from http://wwrn.org/articles/38320/

Afghanistan's government has lashed out at Imran Khan after the former Pakistan cricket star, now a politician, said the Taliban were fighting a "holy war" in the country that was justified by Islamic law.

Speaking after visiting a hospital in Peshawar where Malala Yousafzai – the 14-year-old activist shot in the head by the Taliban for supporting girls' education – was treated last week, Khan told reporters that insurgents in Afghanistan were fighting a "jihad". Citing a verse from the Qur'an, he said: "It is very clear that whoever is fighting for their freedom is fighting a jihad …

"The people who are fighting in Afghanistan against the foreign occupation are fighting a jihad," he added, according to a video of remarks to journalists.

Afghan politicians have reacted with disbelief, with one parliamentarian suggesting Khan should be arrested. The Ulema Council, a grouping of senior clerics, declared his comments "unislamic".

A Kabul foreign ministry spokesman said Khan was "either profoundly and dangerously ignorant about the reality in Afghanistan, or he has ill will against the Afghan people.

"Our children are killed on daily basis, civilians killed and our schools, hospitals and infrastructure attacked on a daily basis. To call any of that jihad is profoundly wrong and misguided."

Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, has written to all of Pakistan's political leaders, including Khan, saying: "We must ask why we have been unable to counter the terrorism that is attacking our people, and the promise of a better future for our children."

Khan has also courted criticism by saying he will not publicly name the Taliban while criticising the men who attempted to kill Malala, because he feared it would put his party's supporters at risk.

The row with Kabul highlights the awkward political situation Khan has found himself in recent days. He has long blamed the rise of the Taliban in the country on the US, saying its military operations in Afghanistan and the CIA drone strikes in Pakistan's tribal belt are responsible for the upsurge in militancy.

But his populist position has been challenged by the almost unprecedented public anger against the Pakistani Taliban triggered by the attempt to kill Malala as she sat in a van with her classmates in Swat last Tuesday.

While many observers fear the mood of national outrage will ultimately change little, the country's media continues to cover the saga intensively while the country's powerful military chief called on the nation to "unite and stand up to fight" against extremism.

The foreign minister has even suggested the attack might be a turning point for a country that has long struggled to muster support for a decisive push against militants. On Sunday, tens of thousands of people attended a rally in Karachi in support of Malala, organised by the Muttahida Qaumi movement, the dominant political party in the southern city.

Malala is unconscious and in intensive care in a military hospital in the garrison city of Rawalpindi. A military spokesman said her condition was improving and that no decision had been made as to whether she should be sent overseas, despite an offer from the United Arab Emirates to supply an air ambulance.

Local media continued to focus on her condition despite government warnings that the Pakistani Taliban, apparently angered by criticism of the attack on Malala, had ordered attacks on journalists.

A Model of Inclusion for Muslim Women

By Didi Kirsten Tatlow ("The New York Times," October 9, 2012)

Extracted from http://wwrn.org/articles/38267/

Beijing, China - Could an old religious tradition from China help solve one of the world’s most pressing problems — violence committed in the name of Islam?

The irony of an officially atheist country possibly offering a way out of an international religious problem is intense. Yet that is what some Islamic scholars in China and elsewhere hope may happen as they point to a quietly liberal tradition among China’s 10 million Hui Muslims, where female imams and mosques for women are flourishing in a globally unique phenomenon.

Female imams and women’s mosques are important because their endurance in China offers a vision of an older form of Islam that has inclusiveness and tolerance, not marginalization and extremism, at its core, the scholars say.

Exact numbers are not available, but Shui Jingjun, a leading scholar of women in Hui Islam (the Hui are scattered across China and are distinct from the Uighur Muslims of the far western region of Xinjiang) estimates there are hundreds of female imams leading mosques around the country, educating boys and girls, and organizing social services in their communities.

Female imams and women’s mosques are not “a new thing here. It’s just a cultural tradition that was never interfered with,” Ms. Shui, an author and researcher at the Henan Academy of Social Sciences in Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan Province, said in an interview.

That is what makes it so important, said Khaled Abou El Fadl, a prominent Islamic legal scholar.

“The Chinese tradition of women’s mosques is rooted in Islamic history. It is not novel, a corruption or innovation or some type of heretical practice,” Mr. Abou El Fadl, a professor of Islamic law at the University of California, Los Angeles, said in a recorded interview.

China’s liberal Hui tradition therefore challenges the power of Wahhabism, a puritanical, patriarchal sect dominant in Saudi Arabia today that is behind much Islamic extremism, he said.

“The Chinese example preserves and reminds Muslims of an important jurisprudential and historical phenomenon that Wahhabism tried to wipe out,” he said.

“Contemporary fundamentalist movements use the space provided by the mosque to affirm all types of patriarchy and male power over women,” he said. “When you have something like the Chinese example, which ultimately empowers women to work within their own space and lead prayer and manage that space on their own, it’s a significant form of women asserting themselves in the Islamic tradition, helping in constructing it and perpetuating it.”

“I always see Islam in places in China as reminding Muslims of their authentic tradition before it was impacted by petrol dollars and this very gruff and dry form of Bedouin Islam that came out of Saudi Arabia,” said Mr. Abou El Fadl. “So the point is there’s an old, historically rooted tradition, and the Chinese, if they tap into this tradition, they can effectively provide resistance or examples of resistance to puritanical Islam.”

Muslims arrived in China during the Tang dynasty, more than 1,000 years ago, and their numbers swelled during the Yuan dynasty in the 13th century. Mostly from Persia and Central Asia, though some were Arabs, they brought with them traditions that had always emphasized women’s education, said Ms. Shui. But women’s status really took off in the early Qing dynasty, more than 300 years ago, when the numbers of Hui declined as they were absorbed into the majority Han Chinese culture, she said.

By then, she said, “most Muslims couldn’t read or speak Arabic. So they relied on women to spread the word, to educate. It wasn’t possible to rely just on the men. There weren’t enough of them.”

Far away, in the Arab world, Wahhabism began spreading.

“About 300 years ago, there were changes in Islamic education” in the Middle East, said Ms. Shui. “In other Islamic nations, what men said was decisive. But that wasn’t going to work here.”

Over the past decade, Hui Muslim women’s role in offering both religious and secular education in their communities has grown, said Jackie Armijo, a professor at Qatar University.

Young Hui women, seeing the need for education among their people, are choosing to travel far from home to teach, often in small villages, she said. While conducting doctoral research in China, “I was continually struck by these young women,” Ms. Armijo said.

“They know instinctively, and they say it: ‘To teach a man is to teach one person. To teach a woman is to teach everyone,”’ she said.

Slowly, awareness is spreading in China of how valuable this tradition might be.

During a recent meeting in Gansu Province of mostly female Muslim educators, researchers, writers and local Han Chinese officials — there were also some non-Chinese Muslims from Pakistan and Taiwan, according to online reports — “some people argued privately that China should ‘go out into the world’ with this good tradition,” spreading the word, said Ms. Shui, who was among the participants.

That, Ms. Armijo said, would resonate among women elsewhere in the Muslim world, who are increasingly gathering to study texts independently of men.

At the meeting, many people said they wanted the biennial event, happening for just the second time, to become a permanent research facility in Gansu. “We talked about turning it into an international meeting for all Muslim women,” said Ms. Shui. “Everyone was in favor of that.”

The quiet Muslim revolution in Europe

By Ari Varon ("Haaretz," October 10, 2012)

Extracted from http://wwrn.org/articles/38283/

Given the headlines in the past weeks surrounding the film “Innocence of Muslims” and the publication of caricatures of the Prophet of Islam in France, you might think that when, a few weeks ago in Paris, I presented my research on the various ways Muslims living in Europe are integrating European and Islamic principles within their identity, I would be issuing a warning about Europe’s demise by the hand of radical Islam. But I did not. In contrast to the stereotypes paraded by the mainstream media, I have found that Muslims throughout Europe are engaged in significant and sincere efforts to integrate into European society, while at the same time remaining faithful to Islam - and many are succeeding.

Throughout Europe there is an intense, dynamic and genuine intra-Islamic debate by Muslims on how to fully integrate into Europe. The debate covers different degrees of commitment to Islamic practice, from the most secular across the spectrum to the most religious. The core discussion focuses on how to retain a strong Muslim identity while remaining a loyal citizen of the state.

There are a variety of ways that Muslim intellectuals are balancing Islam-state relations in Europe. For example, the Swiss political scientist Tariq Ramadan suggests that Muslims embrace equally both the Islamic and secular national aspects of their identity. The German professor of international relations Bassam Tibi suggests a pluralistic interpretation of Islam, where all aspects of religious practice are relegated to the private not public sphere. The intra-Islamic debate between those two intellectuals, and other Muslim scholars, is intensifying both in their public exposure and impact on social issues as Muslims continue to mobilize socially and politically.

During the past few years, many governments in Europe have initiated processes to streamline the relationship between Muslim organizations and the state. Both religious and secular organizations participate in the dialogue of what it means to be Muslim in Europe. However, the organizations that tend be represented vis-à-vis government are usually religious institutions with organized constituencies; it is more challenging for secular Muslim organizations to mobilize significant constituencies, thus they suffer from under-representation and wield less influence in the dialogue with the state.

One of many examples of this trend is France. The French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM) was founded by the French government in 2003 as the representative body of mosques and religious organizations. CFCM is based on the model developed to organize Jewish, Catholic and Protestant constituencies in France and provides an institutional framework for the state to interact with Muslim organizations.

While this is a good start, there is still plenty of room for improvement. The head of the CFCM is the elected representative of the various organizations, but is not the direct representative of France’s Muslim population, consolidating more 'representative' power in his hands than the more horizontal leadership of other faith blocs. In addition, because of CFCM’s religious focus, a variety of non-religious Muslim organizations are forced to mobilize separately, outside of this framework. In order for their formulation of a non-religious Islamic identity in Europe to be heard, governments must work out how to incorporate these organizations into the official dialogue.

But we cannot ignore the extreme voices of Europe's Muslim communities. Radical Islam very definitely exists in Europe. It is a serious issue, and one that is worthy of the bulk of the public debate it consumes. Government institutions and relevant security apparatuses need to accelerate their efforts to eradicate this extremism not least through determined policing (see the latest French police operations in Strasbourg in the wake of the Sarcelles grenade attack), but also by limiting extremist opportunities to proselytize. The moderate Muslim community has a role as well to play in eradicating that interpretation of Islam. However, while organizations supporting a radical, political and violent interpretation of Islam dominate the headlines, a 2010 PEW report on Muslim networks in Europe concludes that relatively few Muslims officially subscribe to this fundamentalist message.

For the first time in Islamic history, Muslims are in the midst of developing a locally-based Islamic-European identity. This process will take years, if not generations. It is important to identify the participants in this debate in order to strengthen the moderate voices and sideline the extremists. Of course, the difficulty lies in correctly identifying to which tendency participants belong between those interpretations and in preventing the extremists from overshadowing the influence of moderates

The main focus of inter-Muslim debates and discussions in Europe focuses on how - not if - to integrate further in social and political terms into their country of citizenship. To promote the influence of moderate Islam, more time, funds and effort are needed by individuals, organizations and governments to advance the social and political integration of the Muslims within society. Moderate Islam’s social and political leaders agree they must play a larger role in the process of mediating extremism and integrating Islamic and European principles into their identity, and to a growing extent they are, at least at a local level – the head of the CFCM was broadcast widely on national television denouncing the violence of the anti-film protests.

Jews in particular should recognize the parallels between the religious-national identity integration of Muslims in contemporary Europe and the process of creating a Jewish identity in Europe that accommodated loyal citizenship that started in the 18th century – the Jewish 'enlightenment' movement, or Haskalah. It could be argued that Muslims in Europe are involved in an expedited process similar to the Jewish 'reformation' in European history.

European governments, and also the Jewish communities of Europe, can support the 'identity integration' of Muslims in Europe on several fronts: First, by recognizing that it is happening; second, differentiating between extreme and moderate interpretations of Islam; third, promoting the cooperation between Jewish and moderate and secular Muslim organizations; and fourth, explicit popular support – including the Jewish communities within each country - for government efforts to indentify and promote programs funding pro-integration sections of the Muslim community.

Muslims in Europe are only at the beginning of the process of forming a self-defined identity in Europe, but the process has started and it is us to us, amongst others, to show them our support.

Ari Varon researches the formation of a contemporary European Islamic identity. He is in a joint Ph.D. program between Tel Aviv University and Sciences Po, Paris.

Reform Rabbi Gilad Kariv on the privatization of Jewish identity and the tycoons of religion

By Ayelet Shani ("Haaretz," September 27, 2012)

Extracted from http://wwrn.org/articles/38194/

Talking to: Rabbi Gilad Kariv, 39, attorney and executive director of the Movement for Progressive Judaism. Married and father of three. Lives in Ramat Gan. When: Monday, 11 A.M. Where: In his office at Beit Daniel, Tel Aviv.

Yeshayahu Leibowitz had a harsh saying about you Reform Jews. He said: “It’s very nice and all, but it’s not religion.”

Leibowitz is my teacher and mentor, and I respect his views in many areas, but certainly not in the area of religion. In Leibowitz’s Judaism, God is in the center and then − and this is something he said explicitly − there is no question of moral judgment. The human being does something not because it is the right thing to do from a humane point of view, but because it is the right thing in terms of God’s will. Now Leibowitz can say what he likes, but the Torah is filled with commands to kill the other because of his otherness. That’s it. In every other sense, Leibowitz was a prophet for us all, and it’s a shame that, as is always the way with prophets, his prophecy remained a voice crying in the wilderness, certainly in regard to the occupation. There’s a marvelous essay by Ahad Ha’am called ‘Priest and Prophet.’ We are a society that produces priests, not prophets. We as a society move between falling in love and being heartbroken, between falling in love and betrayal. We crown kings and then pull the chair out from under them.

Kind of like a soap opera.

Yes. There’s a collapse of spirit, there aren’t enough prophets. To me, Judaism is not some magic solution. I believe in the importance of Reform Judaism, because in Israel there is a camp that is raping Judaism. And there’s no point in using the prettified language of reconciliation here. There is a direct connection between the book “Torah Hamelech” and the recent lynch in Jerusalem. To get a group of youths to carry out such an attack on an Arab youth, it takes a good few years of dehumanization of the Arab. We started the month of Elul with a Molotov cocktail that burned an Arab family in the territories, and with an Arab young man lying in intensive care as a result of a pogrom.

The threshold is going up. All the time.

And here there is a planned, orchestrated, ideological effort that relies entirely on the distorted structuring of relations between religion and state in Israel, which gives these rabbis immunity, and budgets, and public positions and status. There is a grand project of dehumanization of whoever is not a Jew.

And of the other in general.

The Arab is number one, although now he has competition for that ranking − from the migrant worker. While we’re sitting here in this air-conditioned office, refugees and their little children are in tents in Ketziot.

Like the concentration camps Leibowitz prophesied.

Yes. There is also a detention facility where dozens of African youths have been sitting for many months because no framework was found for them. We’ve negated their humanity, we’ve removed them from the circle of human beings whom we must treat with dignity. And then this fellow − You know, I don’t want to use such words in talking about Eli Yishai ...

Feel free.

So this immoral man, on the day of the first expulsion flight to South Sudan, goes to Ben-Gurion Airport, takes the hands of refugees and waves them in a victory sign. And I said to myself − you know, there’s a custom at the Seder, that when you recite the 10 plagues you dip your finger in wine and take out some drops.

And Abrabanel, who personally experienced the expulsion from Spain, and went from the heights of being an advisor to the king to the low of being a refugee, said that we do this to show that the cup of happiness is not full. That your redemption came at the cost of their troubles. This is also why on the seventh day of Passover we don’t say the full Hallel prayer, because the Egyptians drowned in the sea on that day. And then this is what this representative of Judaism does.

Instead of sitting in sackcloth and fasting on the day of the expulsion and saying, “I think, as a leader, as a politician, that this is the right thing to do, but I also understand the moral cost and therefore I am fasting on this day.” And he’s fond of fast days, this minister is.

Maybe he doesn’t understand the moral cost.

We let him become Interior Minister and we cannot disavow all responsibility. How do you train your soul so that you do not become cruel? You have to understand that there is a price that you pay for this decision. Now the question is, what do you do with this price? Do you give it a place so that the next time you don’t act like an automaton? Within a few months, Israeli society, this society of refugees, whose entire DNA should be sensitive to this story, became uncaring and indifferent. A consequence of years of dehumanization of the other. Years of giving preference to every Jewish Israeli who speaks a chauvinistic and aggressive language, of “You ‏(God‏) chose us,” without anything about man having been created in God’s image. Where were Jerusalem’s Orthodox rabbis after the lynch? The ones that think we need to remain in the territories. They should be going out to Zion Square, sitting there on the ground and tearing their clothes.

The secular, too, fit the bill here as “the other.”

Of course. Look what Ovadia Yosef said, about how judges are evil and unfit to serve as witnesses. And on Sukkot, a parade of Israeli officials, including the president and the prime minister, will go to wish this man a happy holiday. And don’t let anyone tell me that it’s just a matter of political interests. This parade of groveling to Rabbi Ovadia Yosef is a deep cultural matter, and one result is the parade of tycoons to the X-ray Rabbi and to Rabbi Pinto and all of those. Anyone who thinks this is just a political dance before Shas’ 11 Knesset seats is mistaken.

So what it is about?

It’s about the self-negation of Israeli secularism, or Israeli liberalism, before what they perceive as something more authentic, something deeper. And in this sense a terrible process has occurred in the State of Israel.

Because of the identification of the state with religion? We feel guilty about our secularism?

Because we’ve privatized Jewish identity and put it in the hands of the tycoons of religion, such as Ovadia Yosef. There’s the famous story about the meeting between Ben-Gurion and the Chazon Ish, where the Chazon Ish said: ‘It is known that when there is a narrow bridge, and on one side there is a full wagon and on the other side an empty wagon, the empty wagon will let the full wagon pass.’ I’ve always thought that this was a somewhat problematic allegory, because chances are that if the bridge is going to collapse it will collapse with the full wagon on it. These visits to Ovadia Yosef reflect an adoption of the allegory of the full wagon and empty wagon by Israeli secularism, which deep down feels that it is an empty wagon. To me, any politician who makes a pilgrimage this Sukkot to Rabbi Ovadia Yosef is committing an act that disqualifies him from leading the public.

You think that Shimon Peres, say, doesn’t get this? And yet he goes.

There’s something deeper here. Because of this collapse of spirit in the democratic and liberal camp, with our almost built-in difficulty in producing prophets, in producing philosophers, in producing ideologues, I think that there is self-negation. Just look at the superlatives that were heaped upon Rabbi Elyashiv after his death. A person who throughout his leadership showed a fierce hatred and deep scorn for all that you represent. What was this unbelievable fawning all about, as if he represents some ancient truth, some great source of wisdom? A person who preached hatred his entire life.

I wonder how much the alienation of post-modern life plays a part in this.

It certainly plays a part. Israeli secularism gazes with admiration upon this human stream of 100,000 people marching after the coffin of Rabbi Elyashiv. But this is 100,000 men. They won’t follow a woman’s coffin this way. So remember that this option is an oppressive option.

How did we get to the point where our wagon is empty?

The wagon is empty because it threw things off, not because it is empty by its very nature. The non-Orthodox side of the Zionist enterprise was a wagon filled with pioneering and with Jewish creativity and sharp Hebrew, and a full wagon in terms of vision and a sense of mission to establish a model society here.

So what is the process? Is the dilution and weakening because of divisiveness, or did it happen on its own?

If you’re an Orthodox believer, then what sustains this framework is the obligation that you follow. But if you live in a democratic, liberal world whose motto is: “Make choices and manage your choices according to what is good for you,” then there is a built-in tension between that which connects and that which divides. Between the material and the intellectual or ethical. Materialism is not a dirty word, but in this tension between the individual and the material on the one hand, and the communal and the ethical on the other, we are at the end of an age in which the material and the individual are triumphing.

Over everything.

The tragedy of Israeli Judaism is the Orthodox monopoly. But it can’t be blamed for everything. The sacrifice of a deep bond with Jewish culture is one that we make. And this causes two very serious things, in my view. One is that it makes our wagon less full. I am the first to think that it’s better to drive a wagon that has in it values of wisdom, critical thinking, equality. Our wagon is filled first of all with 52 percent of the Israeli public, which sits in the front seats and not in the back. Why are there mehadrin bus lines? Because 50 percent of ultra-Orthodox women go out to work. And so the ultra-Orthodox establishment tells them − okay, go to work, because someone has to earn a living, but on the way we’ll remind you where you really stand. Because, God forbid, as a result of your contact with secular people, the hierarchy that’s been imprinted in you might be upset. So there’s an attempt here to prevent a reaction. We non-Orthodox Israelis have to invest in loading up our wagon. Not only with Judaism but with other things. Look at our schools. What does the graduate of the state education system look like? Is this a renaissance man? Someone who has broad cultural knowledge?

Of course not.

So in the state-education system and the ultra-Orthodox education system, I don’t like what they fill the bookbag with, but the focus on values there is much more dramatic. If we don’t wake up, we’ll lose the battle.

You don’t think we’ve lost it already?

No.

You really are an optimistic Jew.

Yes. Yes, because I truly believe that wisdom and critical thinking and education and freedom of choice and self-fulfillment − that these are stronger forces in the end. I once talked about this with Amos Oz. The ultra-Orthodox world’s success is the secret of its collapse. The demographic growth, the political standing − these are what will make it impossible for the old ultra-Orthodox world to survive.

That’s the opposite of what is generally thought. Can you explain what you mean?

This thing is too big for the ultra-Orthodox control mechanisms, which kept the ultra-Orthodox behind the walls of the ghetto, to succeed.

Because too many mines have already been buried there.

Yes. The larger the population gets, the stronger and more sophisticated the control mechanisms need to be, even if they’re not governmental, even if they’re just psychological. This story is steadily crumbling. Much of the extremism that we’re seeing is a reaction, just as has always happened. No argument is as untrue and easy to refute than the one that says that until the modern age Judaism was monolithic and maintained a united front. Contrary to the Orthodox myth, it wasn’t Judaism’s stagnation that preserved it. Just the opposite − Judaism survived because this people had the ability to preserve a deep and vital and authentic connection to what we inherited from previous generations. In prayers, language, customs, lifestyle, beliefs, folklore, and at the same time to always be in a process of movement, of renewal, of change.

The wandering Jew.

Yes. The wandering Jew isn’t just someone who wandered from one land to another, but someone who knew how to move. Rabbi Yehuda Halevi wrote the Kuzari in Arabic. Maimonides wrote the Guide to the Perplexed in Arabic. [Martin] Buber, Rosenzweig − the most important books in Jewish philosophy in the modern age were not written only in Hebrew. Also Herzl’s “State of the Jews” and “Altneueland.” So this whole idea that something there is more authentic, more worthy, is our disaster, because we don’t see that our wagon is not filling up. The loss of prayer, for example, is a very sad thing. Leah Goldberg prayed, Yehuda Amichai prayed. I’m not blaming the secular parents − when the kid comes and says, they taught us about the siddur in school, then all the antennae that are on guard against missionaries and religious coercion suddenly shoot up. And rightly so, because this is what is happening in Israel. There is religious coercion, there is corruption of the religion.

The ones you say are corrupting religion would say that you are the one doing that.

True. But you know what we have to our credit? That we do not try to impose our way on others by force of law. We don’t claim that we have the truth and that others are sinners. We are ready to subject ourselves to critical thinking and to self-examination. Despite everything, I am optimistic because I think that what’s happening on the other side cannot endure.

I’d never thought about it that way.

Now the question is what do we do with this? Do we let the reactionary forces lead? There’s a lack of action. Gideon Sa’ar is considered to be a reasonably good Education Minister, right? But consider how throughout his whole tenure nothing has genuinely been done about the matter of the core curriculum. Last Sunday, 50,000 ultra-Orthodox pupils entered exempted schools that receive half their funding from the state and yet do not teach the core subjects at all. And because they receive half a budget, they sit in dilapidated and dangerous buildings, in conditions that none of us would want to see our children studying in. What have we done? We’ve put them in a trap of ignorance and poverty. And because there is no state-Haredi education today, the state-religious education system is becoming more extreme. Why aren’t the exempted schools being shut down? In the past three years, we’ve nearly doubled our number of communities. We’re not a large movement, but more and more Israelis are realizing that if we don’t become proactive, if we don’t retake command − in our egalitarian, open and critical-thinking way, then our wagon will not be full enough and the wagon coming from the opposite direction will just run us off the road.

How did a boy from north Tel Aviv grow up to be a rabbi?

I grew up in a secular family that voted Labor. My first political phase was sort of rightist, Orthodox. As a 12th-grader I used to correspond with Yosef Burg. There was a debate over who would be the right’s candidate for president. And I wrote to the Mafdal leader telling him to run for president.

Where did that come from?

Hard to say. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been very attracted to the traditional thing. For me, to go see my great-grandmother, who was ultra-Orthodox, in Jerusalem, was incredible. My grandfather and grandmother lived in Tzahala and we were with them every weekend. They were secular. I started going to synagogue alone, as early as second grade. I was the kid of the Orthodox synagogue in Tzahala, and I was happy there. Intellectually, emotionally, as part of the community.

Did you have social problems?

No, not at all. I did the whole popular thing − head of student council in elementary school and high school, young coordinator in the Scouts and head of the leadership council.

It’s like a mutant gene.

Yes. I grew up in a super-secular environment, a home that was never anti-religious, but where there was bread every Passover. My parents − until I started going − had never set foot in a synagogue. I started going to synagogue on my own, I started studying intensively. I remember going with my mother when I was in fourth grade and picking out Jewish books and then sitting and studying alone at home. I started eating kosher.

A double life.

Yes, that’s one of the arguments, that Reform Judaism is a Judaism of convenience. And I don’t understand where this bizarre idea comes from that religion has to equal suffering. What in our education about religion makes us think that religion has to be filled with agony and suffering?

That’s not exactly the question. The question is what is the essence of religion. What are we here for? Are we here to serve some lofty purpose, or is the lofty purpose supposed to serve us? Is this a kind of buffet Judaism where I can just pick and choose what pleases me?

I’m through apologizing. Whoever wants to call it buffet Judaism, be my guest. So yes, I do continually make a choice as to what I take on my plate. I dearly hope that my choice to be a member of a community, to be a man of faith; someone who studies and observes mitzvoth is not related only to what’s pleasant for me and serves needs that are very focused on the here and now, but to what I should do. To what the society around me should do.

Where does faith fit in to the story?

At the synagogue here upstairs, one of the walls is decorated with the verse from Micha − “Do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with your Lord” ... In other words, the most meaningful outward expression of our Jewish life should be in

doing justice and acts of kindness. In these challenging times we live in, faith is something that is personal and intimate, and also something that involves questioning. I have a very hard time with people whose faith is followed by an exclamation mark. For me, faith is first of all the foundation upon which rests the recognition of man’s free will, of his obligation to be a moral person, to see the other.

How far does it go? Does God exist?

I’m a believing person. I believe that behind the word God there is something real. I can’t give you a whole neat two-hour lecture here about what God is. It is truly beyond my comprehension. But I feel God’s presence in the imperative for morality, for justice, for seeing the other, for acknowledging the equal value of every person.

Are you ready to acknowledge the possibility that God may not exist? What if I said to you − I want to join your community but I want you to know that I don’t think God exists. Would you be ready to accept me?

Yes. Absolutely. I have no problem praying in a community in which there are people who believe and people who don’t. People who believe with an exclamation point scare me more than people who say in a gentle way − I don’t believe.

Is there any red line for acceptance into this community?

The conditions for entry into this club is first of all the desire or the commitment to the Jewish people and to the future of Judaism. But there are other conditions, too. A racist person has no place in our community. You won’t find a Reform community that will decide to restore the mehitza ‏(divider‏) between men and women, or prohibit women from being called up to the Torah. It’s not that everything is permitted, just come on in.

Perhaps you’re an imaginary community, in certain ways?

No. We just believe in a communal life that, by choice, is less stringent than the traditional models. I’m telling you just the opposite − I want to be in a community where one person drives on Shabbat and another doesn’t. I think strength based on homogeneity is rotten to the core. Either it collapses in on itself or it constantly needs to swallow up more victims in order to justify itself.

How liberal are you? Would it be fine with you to officiate at your daughter’s wedding to another woman?

Yes. I marry same-sex couples.

Your daughter.

My daughter?

Yes.

Yes, yes.

Totally fine with it?

If I think it’s good for her, then yes. Strange as it may sound, the more challenging question as far as I’m concerned is what would happen if my daughter came to me and said that her true love was a non-Jew. That would be a more challenging question in terms of my liberalism.

And what would you do?

First of all, I would respect her choice. It would make me sad, because I am very dedicated to the continuity of the Jewish people, but I would do everything to see that, despite her choice, Judaism would play a very significant role in her life and in the lives of my grandchildren. But yes, it would be hard for me.

This may be a little simplistic, but try to explain to me a particular choice. For example, why do you drive on Shabbat?

Because driving on Shabbat helps me very much to fulfill and achieve things that, without them, Shabbat wouldn’t be Shabbat for me. For example − to get to the Shabbat meal with my family, or to our synagogue. I could walk to the Orthodox synagogue near my house, but there’s nothing for me there with my daughters and my wife. These are essential layers of my religious Shabbat. For me, not driving on Shabbat doesn’t add anything to the holiness of the day. My approach is to ask what are the values, what are the ideas, what are the reasons for keeping this thing called Shabbat, and what is the right way to do it. And I go to the tradition.

And what do you conclude?

I am humbled by 4,000 years of Jewish creativity. I think that despite major mishaps along the way, humanity is progressing morally. The whole Orthodox theory is the opposite. A famous Haredi saying is “If our forefathers were angels, then we are as human beings. And if they were as human beings, then we are as donkeys. And if they were as donkeys, we are as grasshoppers.” A theory of decline over the generations. And we say − if despite the experience that our forefathers bequeathed to us, and the ability of one generation to learn from another, we are still declining, then something in this whole story of human civilization isn’t working. I think that even though technology today gives man much more extreme tools for wreaking destruction, from a moral perspective, humanity is progressing. Too slowly, very slowly, but progressing. Look, I am willing to attest to many big challenges for Reform Judaism. For example, the question of boundaries. If everyone chooses, then what is the boundary? The question of commitment. Let’s be honest, too many of our people don’t take commitment, and knowledgeable choice, to the fullest.

It’s just very easy to board this wagon, and for all the wrong reasons. You take a lot and give a little.

It’s easy to be a free-rider, I admit. But this exists in Orthodoxy too.

In Orthodoxy the price is higher. Even if it’s just for show.

There’s always a trade-off. As the head of the Reform Movement, my greatest concern is the attempt to make the Reform community in Israel more meaningful, deeper, more involved in society − for a Reform rabbi to be able to preside over weddings in Israel, for our conversions to be accepted, and for the ultra-Orthodox to learn a core curriculum. You’re asking me if I prefer the existing reality, with all its drawbacks, or to choose between these two extremes of all or nothing. My problem with the Orthodox Shabbat is not that it’s forbidden to squeeze out a rag. It’s something else entirely. It’s the fact that the halakha says that you [violate Shabbat] to save a Jew’s life, but not a non-Jew’s life. The thought that I’m a Reform Jew rather than an Orthodox Jew because I find some of the mitzvoth inconvenient is bullshit. I’m not willing to accept that a woman cannot be a rabbi, I’m not willing to accept the concept of “You chose us” in its Orthodox sense. Anyone who thinks that there aren’t plenty of sources in Judaism that say God commanded us to hate the non-Jew is mistaken. In Judaism there are peaks of humanity and abysses of hate. The question is what you choose.