THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, June 25, 1994 TAG: 9406250254
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY CHARLISE LYLES, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: 940625 LENGTH: NORFOLK
Answer: Yes, but not about Louis Farrakhan.
{REST} That became clear Friday as 11 African-American and 14 Jewish leaders met, hoping to unite their communities.
Farrakhan, leader of a black Muslim separatist sect, has disturbed many Jews with denunciations of Judaism as ``a gutter religion.'' Some Jews were angered by the NAACP's invitation to Farrakhan to attend its recent leadership conference in Baltimore.
``In every family, there's one issue that we can't bring up - my mother-in-law,'' for example, said Dr. Robert M. Rubin, an orthodontist. ``I'm calling on a mature judgment to recognize that if we continue to focus on Farrakhan, we risk the success of our working together and building trust. Let's put Farrakhan on the back burner and then maybe in six months or so come back to him.''
Rubin's remarks capped a dialogue that began more than a year ago when the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater invited area black leaders to renew an old alliance.
No anti-Semitic threats, rabbi-bashing or Crown Heights riot has happened here. No signs of tension between African-Americans and Jews have surfaced.
But there is a disquieting sense that more and more blacks are tuning in to Farrakhan's anti-Semitic rhetoric. He typically draws crowds in the thousands.
``Unfortunately the things that Farrakhan is saying are so similar to what Hitler was saying that it hurts,'' said Dr. Bernard Einhorn, a federation member in charge of the dialogues.
So far, the group has discussed a wide range of topics: Norfolk's proposed Martin Luther King Jr. monument, community projects, summer jobs for minority youths, Abraham, Adam, the O.J. Simpson case and historic civil rights alliances between blacks and Jews. All in hopes of understanding one another.
Participants are mainly community and civic leaders, businesspeople, newspaper publishers, teachers and professors, but it's open to all. They have gathered about six times around a U-shaped table at the Jewish Community Center of Tidewater.
The group aims to get beyond stereotypes and media perceptions and to set an agenda for community action.
But on Friday, each time the group tried to move ahead, the Farrakhan factor interfered. The room grew stuffy. Annoyed, some shifted in their seats. Exchanges became blunt.
``Every time we get together, I think this is going to come up. This is a critical issue in your community, in the African-American community,'' said Brenda Andrews, publisher of The New Journal and Guide, a weekly black newspaper. ``I would prefer for this group to accept the fact that we are of differing opinions, and that we are not going to come to a consensus on Louis Farrakhan in this room.''
The small meeting room grew tense after someone said Farrakhan might speak next month at Norfolk Scope as part of the Inner City Coalition program.
``When I heard that Farrakhan may be coming here, I felt something in my guts,'' said Rabbi Israel Zoberman of Beth Chaverim in Virginia Beach.
Andrew Sacks, a lawyer and chairman of the Tidewater Anti-defamation League, said, ``I think to bury our head in the sands and ignore it . . . it wasn't long ago that someone named Adolf Hitler started saying these things. Jews are very sensitive to people who are hatemongering.''
``We have to look at the causes that are creating a Farrakhan,'' said Charles M. Reynolds Jr., a black businessman. ``We aren't dealing with those issues of survival, jobs - those are the things he'll talk about to stir people up. Rather than demonstrate against him, we need to demonstrate on the issues that are making a Farrakhan.''
That was just the opening that Muslim A.L. Aswad, who had remained silent, had been looking for. He had summer jobs for black teenagers on his mind.
After clarifying that his faith was in no way affiliated with Farrakhan, Aswad asked the group to match a city grant of $1,761 to his Children of the Sun athletic foundation. And he asked businesspeople to use their offices to help youths gain work experience. In less than eight minutes, members of the had group pledged about a third of the funds needed.
Alonzo Brandon, publisher of InSyte Magazine, a local black-interest publication, wanted to acquire fund-raising expertise to take back to other blacks.
``I've been interested in how the Jewish community organizes to raise money and put it back into your community,'' Brandon said. ``I think that's something that the black community hasn't mastered yet.''
Leonard Ruchelman, an Old Dominion University professor, had health care and welfare reform on his mind.
``Let's keep talking, just coming together like this, learning, and understanding one another,'' he said. ``Then we can decide what we can do together.''
by CNB