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January 4, 2002/20 Tevet 5762, Vol. 54, No. 16
Controversial rabbi to head international Jewish group
JULIE WIENER
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
NEW YORK - Two months after drawing fire for an article in which he was quoted - inaccurately, as it turned out - comparing fervently Orthodox Jews to Islamic terrorists, Rabbi Uri Regev is gearing up for new skirmishes with the Orthodox.
The founder of the Israel Religious Action Center, Regev will assume the helm of the World Union for Progressive Judaism in January.
The World Union is the umbrella agency for Reform, Progressive, Liberal and Reconstructionist organizations in 40 countries. In promoting liberal Judaism, it often has clashed with local Orthodox leaders and - in countries where the government funds religious institutions - has faced obstacles obtaining funding for its synagogues and institutions.
Coverage of Regev's High Holiday sermons at a Reform temple in suburban Cleveland this fall spurred Am Echad, an Orthodox group, to demand Regev's resignation from the center.
The Cleveland Jewish News article initially quoted Regev saying fervently Orthodox Jews "have distorted Torah" teachings and "interpreted them as giving license to get rid of infidels."
Those quotes were reprinted in the Am Echad ads, below photos of fervently Orthodox Jews helping in rescue efforts after terror attacks in Israel and New York.
The ads accused Regev of "vicious slander" and of exploiting the Sept. 11 tragedy to advance his own agenda.
But then Ellen Harris, the author of the Cleveland Jewish News articles, printed an article saying she manufactured some quotes and failed to clarify that Regev's statements were made over a series of interviews, not in one single speech.
That prompted Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Reform movement's Religious Action Center in Washington, to demand apologies from Am Echad. The group has refused.
While the quotes may have been fabricated, Avi Shafran, spokesperson for Am Echad and the fervently Orthodox group Agudath Israel of America said, there's "no question that the essential problem we had with what he said remains." Am Echad refused to apologize for the ads.
"He clearly made a comparison, subtly but very clearly, a few days after Sept. 11, between murderous terrorists who kill in the name of Islam and people he considers to be similar people in the haredi community," Shafran said.
Regev insists that Am Echad took advantage of the "fabricated quotes" to advance its own agenda.
"You don't find organizations regularly taking out full-page, paid ads in order to attack an individual," Regev said in an interview at the Reform movement's recent biennial in Boston. "They seized it as an opportunity to try to discredit me, because I represent a certain view which they're out to discredit."
Regev's speeches addressed Islamic fundamentalist rhetoric as well as fervently Orthodox rhetoric that targets liberal Judaism.
In his new post, he hopes to bring Reform Judaism to far more Jews, who he says are yearning for a religious alternative to Orthodoxy.
He wants to continue efforts to build an "indigenous Reform movement in Israel and an indigenous Reform/Progressive/Liberal movement in the former Soviet Union."
He also hopes to increase the World Union's activism at the United Nations and on international social justice issues.
"The message of liberal Judaism should be heard as an alternative to the growing fundamentalist rhetoric being voiced all over the world," he said.
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