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February 27, 2004/Adar 5 5764, Vol. 56, No. 23
Taking Mormons to court?
Controversy surrounds proxy baptism
BARRY COHEN
Editor
After learning that his parents had been posthumously "baptized" by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a Holocaust survivor is considering taking the church to court.
With posthumous, or proxy baptism, Mormons say they are giving deceased souls the opportunity to reunite with their loved ones in heaven, said Ernest Michel, chairman of the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors.
The Mormon Church has broken an agreement they made to stop performing the ritual of proxy baptism of Jews, Michel stated.
The church signed the agreement on May 3, 1995, with the approval of the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors, the World Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and the New York Holocaust Memorial Commission.
In the agreement, the church agreed, in part: "to issue a directive to all officials and members of the Church to discontinue any future baptisms of deceased Jews, including all lists of Jewish Holocaust victims who are known Jews," and "to remove from the International Genealogical Index in the future the names of all deceased Jews who are so identified if they are known to be improperly included counter to Church policy."
"The church has not kept their word," said Michel, a New York resident who lives part-time in Scottsdale. "The (posthumous) baptism has not abated."
Michel said he obtained proof of Jews who were proxy baptized after 1995 from Helen Radkey, a Salt Lake City-based independent investigative genealogical religious researcher.
Through her research, she discovered that Anne Frank and her immediate family were baptized on Dec. 18, 1999.
Additionally, David Ben Gurion, the first prime minister of Israel, was baptized in 1998 as his birth name, David Green, explained Radkey in a telephone interview.
Proxy baptism has "gotten out of control," she said. "It is a much bigger problem than the Mormons will ever admit to."
She said she has obtained evidence that thousands have been baptized since the agreement was signed, including death camp victims and even lists of deceased Jews who lived in Manhattan.
The church "created the agreement to set the im-pression that they will discontinue proxy baptisms," said Radkey. "It is a completely false impression."
Michel said he is preparing legal action to stop the proxy baptisms and to order the church to remove the names of all people posthumously baptized after the May 3, 1995, agreement.
He said he has contacted Alan Dershowitz and Sen. Hillary Clinton (D - N.Y.) about the controversy.
An aspect of Mormon belief - addressed in the 1995 agreement - is the need to get permission from an immediate family member to conduct the ritual of proxy baptism, said Michel.
According to Michel, he discovered Mormons were not upholding this practice when he learned that his closest relatives had been baptized.
"I certainly wasn't asked whether my father or my mother or my grandmother should be posthumously baptized," said Michel.
Heightening the controversy is the prospect that church members, through proxy baptism, attempt to bring the deceased into the Mormon Church.
"They believe that a person's soul can decide whether or not (he or she) wants to become a Mormon," explained Michel.
According to Don Evans, the Arizona spokesman for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, "in the next life, there is no such thing as Mormon." "Mormon" refers to the name of the earthly church, he noted.
The ritual of posthumous baptism is an earthly or-dinance, "a proscribed cere-mony from God."
"Baptism is the key to get into heaven," said Evans. "Millions of people never have the opportunity. We believe that the ordinance must be done on their behalf on the earth."
Whether or not the spirits of the deceased accept "the gospel" is up to them, he added.
"It is pure speculation" whether or not proxy baptisms have occurred since 1995, Evans stressed.
"If so, they happened accidentally," he said.
An "accidental" baptism could occur if Mormons obtained names of the deceased from microfilm and baptized all of them before checking beforehand if there were any Jewish names on the list, he explained.
The church does not want to harm the good relationship it has with the Jewish com-munity, added Evans. "Our intent is to honor the request" to remove the names of Jews baptized since 1995.
Evans agreed that per-mission should be obtained from an immediate family member before conducting the ritual, "but ordinarily, we have not asked for permission."
According to Rabbi David Rebibo of Beth Joseph Congregation in Phoenix, the Jewish community is "wasting our time" with the proxy baptism controversy.
"We are seeking radical change in their theological position," he said. Because church members will not voluntarily uphold an agreement they make to discontinue these baptisms, Rebibo said, it is up to the Jewish community to convince them to discontinue the "improper practice."
"I am really saddened that the practice is continuing," said Cathy Wolf, director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Jewish Federation of Greater Phoenix. "I was under the impression it had been stopped."
She said she hoped that religious groups would learn to respect one another's unique practices.
In opposing proxy baptism, Michel looks far to the future. Centuries from now, when there is no one left who remembers his family, people could look to the church's genealogical records and see that members of his family were baptized, he said.
His family "would be listed ... in some way, as possible members of the Mormon Church," and no one would be alive to contradict their claim, said Michel.
He wants to stop proxy baptism and remove the names of those baptized since the 1995 agreement in order to preserve their historical Jewish memory.
Michel said he would prefer to remove the name of every Jew who the church has baptized posthumously, but the numbers are too large - reaching into millions.
"It would be next to impossible to remove that many names," he said.
The issue of posthumously baptizing Jews murdered in the Holocaust affects how the Holocaust will be viewed historically, said Ken Jacobson, Anti-Defamation League associate national director.
One of the "unintended consequences" of proxy baptism is the legitimization of fascists and Nazis.
"The reason that both are unacceptable today is not because of their political philosophies, but rather the Holocaust," he said.
Proxy baptisms help to whitewash the Holocaust by removing the Jewish identities of those who were murdered, he explained.
To the degree the magnitude of the Holocaust is diminished, fascism and Nazism become legitimized, said Jacobson.
Anything that can undermine the painful lessons of history - including the Mormon Church's breaking its agreement and conducting posthumous baptisms - should be taken very seriously, he added.
Contact the writer at barry_cohen@jewishaz.com.
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