Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, September 6, 1994 TAG: 9409080024
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE: WASHINGTON NOTE: BELOW LENGTH: Medium
The letter, sent to almost every active rabbi in the nation - 4,000 in all - asks them to take time in their High Holiday sermons for Rosh Hashana and next week's Yom Kippur to praise the Israeli government's attempts to make peace with the Palestinians.
Sept. 13 marks one year since Rabin's historic handshake on the south lawn of the White House with Yasser Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Since then, Jews in the American Diaspora have greeted the watershed events in Israel with a cautious optimism muted by fear and reservations.
The small camp most hostile to the peace accords has shouted the loudest. But many Jews say they have struggled in the past year to make the psychic leap necessary to accept their sworn enemy as a partner in peace.
``Virtually all of us are in a place we never expected to be a year ago this time,'' said Rabbi Jack Moline of Agudas Achim Congregation in Alexandria, Va., one of 11 rabbis who signed a letter to fellow rabbis that was sent along with Rabin's letter.
``We have as a people developed this siege mentality, and believed for good cause that our existence would need to be constantly justified and defended in the most basic ways. And now we have to adjust to an entirely new mentality, which is that there is indeed a possibility that an accommodation will be reached that will enable us to live in the peace we have been working for all along.''
``Part of the American Jewish community is still in semi-shock,'' said Mark Rosenblum, founder and political director of Americans for Peace Now. ``They had a series of nevers: Never talk to the PLO; never withdraw from the Golan Heights. And all these nevers are falling by the wayside.''
Ever since the handshake, senior members of Rabin's Labor Party-led government have felt that American Jewish leaders have been less than fully supportive of the process. The letter is the opening move in a campaign to overcome these qualms. It is accompanied by a ``Resource Guide for the High Holidays'' - complete with sample sermons, Biblical references and a lecture concluding that ceding territory is consistent with Jewish law if it saves lives.
A survey conducted in May found that 88 percent of American Jews polled generally support the peace process, while 5 percent oppose it and 7 percent had no opinion. The poll also found that 78 percent support the agreement that recently gave Palestinians autonomy in the Gaza Strip and Jericho, while 9 percent were opposed and 13 percent had no opinion. The poll of 500 American Jews was sponsored by the Israel Policy Forum, which backs the government, and conducted by the polling company of Mellman-Lazarus-Lake.
by CNB