Your Letters 02/02-02/08/2001

Boy Scouts

Your editorial on the Boy Scouts’ policy banning gays was commendable (“Scout’s Honor,” Jan. 26). However, a very important part of the picture was missing: the affect of the bigoted policy upon the boys themselves. The policy further encourages hatred and violence against gay scouts at a time when physical and verbal attacks are endemic among teenagers. As a gay man (who was also a Boy Scout), I have spent a lifetime battling the reign of terror against my dignity and self-respect by heterosexism and homophobia, such as the Boy Scout policy, and have seen its devastation upon the lives of gays and lesbians.

A Boy Scout who knows that his scout leader happens to be gay immediately understands that his gayness is just one small part of the whole and will most likely learn he is just like any leader — skilled and respected.

Also, your use of “avowed homosexuals” in the very first sentence is insulting and counterproductive to your enlightened conclusion. Using Rabbi Rosove’s test, which you quote, how would we feel if the term “avowed Jews” were used instead of “Jews?”

Gerald A. Gerash, Santa Monica

Ehud Barak

Kudos to Rob Eshman for his courageous comments about the faltering peace process (“Men and Martyrs,” Jan. 12). Clearly, American Jews have no right to tell Israeli leaders what to do and how they should negotiate.

Middie and Richard Giesberg, Los Angeles

Arab Americans

Thank you for giving the deserved attention to our Arab brothers and sisters in L.A. (“Stepping Out,” Jan., 12).

Having worked or associated with Salam Al-Marayati, James Zogby and others over the years, I couldn’t be more proud of their leadership.

May the time not be distant when we will accept that we are of course of the very same, one community.

Andrew Kay Liberman, Los Angeles

Temple Mount

While I personally know David Myers and Rabbi Seidler-Feller and admire their commitment to Israel, I disagree with their stance that as part of an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement, Israel should relinquish sovereignty over the Temple Mount in Jerusalem (“Ceding Control,” Jan. 19). They state that because Muslims conquered Jerusalem centuries ago, Muslims should continue to control the Temple Mount as a religious site. By this logic, if Israel regained control of Jerusalem, then Israel should have sovereignty over the Temple Mount. Indeed, when Israel defeated the Muslim forces that attacked Jerusalem in 1967, it regained control of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount after 2,000 years. However, instead of reestablishing a Jewish religious presence on the Temple Mount, Israel graciously enabled the Muslims to continue their religious administration of the Temple Mount. Maybe being a “nice guy” was a mistake.

Paul Nisenbaum, Los Angeles

[Ahad] Ha-am conceptualized that the Temple Mount and Jerusalem were the life blood, the neshama, the spirit of the Jewish people and always would be. Even if the Temple Mount were only the symbolic center, this symbolism is understood by both the Muslims and the Jews. That is why the Muslims want to take it away from us so desperately — to break our spirit.

They want to marginalize us and treat us ignominiously. The Temple Mount is our heart. It sends out the waves of the greatness of Jewish history. The hallowed ground of the Temple Mount resounds with the great Jewish martyrs who have given their lives for Jewish continuity. As the blood from the heart beats throughout our body, so does the Temple Mount pulsate as an emblematic shrine that gives hope to world Jewry.

Someday we might build a Third Temple on the Temple Mount, so it is essential that we maintain our sovereignty there. If we don’t maintain control of this area, what is to become of the many centers of Jewish learning that exist in the Old City? We cannot give away our dreams and our future.

Manny Glaser, Pacific Palisades

A few weeks ago there was a rally in Jerusalem to affirm the Jewish people’s loyalty and allegiance to Jerusalem and the Temple Mount. It was nonpolitical and was attended by the largest crowd at any rally (about 350,000 people). Those attending were secular and religious, right wing and left wing, Israelis and Jews from all over the Diaspora. We believe they speak for the Jewish people, not Prof. Myers and Rabbi Seidler-Feller, sitting here in the security of the campus.

Josef and Becky Gellmann, Los Angeles

It is hard to understand why Prof. Myers and Rabbi Seidler-Feller believe that Israel saying that it will relinquish the Temple Mount will result in peace, given the implacable hostility that Arafat has shown to Barak’s unprecedented peace offers. Appeasement has failed, and the Israeli electorate appears on the verge of rejecting those who never stop insisting that more and more should be given up.

Mel Aranoff,Valley Glen

Myers and Seidler-Feller advocate relinquishing sovereignty over Har HaBayit in the interests of peace specifically to “fulfill the religious imperative of saving lives.” If Palestinians control this site, there will be nothing to stop Palestinian gunmen there from shooting at Jews praying down below and preventing Jewish access to the Western Wall. International law will be invoked to prevent Israel entering its most holy place in order to stop Moslems killing Jews in the name of Islam.

Bob Kirk, Los Angeles

David N. Myers and Chaim Seidler-Feller respond:

Few issues evoke as much passion as control over sacred space. We appreciate — and indeed share a sense of — the centrality of the Temple Mount in Jewish historical consciousness. But we believe that one of the reasons that Jews have survived for millennia is that they have been able to live with the tension between present-day realities and future dreams. This was the sound pragmatism of the rabbis in rebuilding Judaism after the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E. This was also the pragmatism of a more recent figure, Moshe Dayan, in a much different context. In 1967, at the height of Israel’s dizzying victory in the Six-Day War, Dayan granted functional control over the Temple Mount to Muslim authorities. Like the rabbis, Dayan understood that in order to live peaceably in the present, we must learn to grapple with the tension between the here and now and the end of days.

It is undeniable that the here and now is not so pleasant. The Palestinians are not ideal partners in peace. But they are the only partners Israel has. And calculated risks must be taken. We do not harbor the illusion, as Mel Aranoff suggests, that surrendering sovereignty of the Temple Mount will lead to peace. Rather, we argued that if peace negotiations do reach the point of culmination, the end game should not hinge on the question of sovereignty over the Temple Mount.

The reason, we reiterate, is that functional control of the Temple Mount has been for centuries — and remains today — in the hands of Muslims. In contrast to Mssrs. Nisenbaum and Glaser, our point is not to focus on the primacy of the Jews’ historical claim to this space relative to the Muslims. On that score, there can be little doubt. But what is the functional value of the Temple Mount for Jews today? As distinct from the Western Wall (which must remain under Israeli control under any future peace deal), the upper portion of the Temple Mount is the site of regular worship for Muslims, not Jews.

To speak of the Temple Mount as if it were a presence in the daily life of Jews is to misconstrue the past two millennia of Jewish history. Judaism survived and flourished following the destruction of the Bet Ha-Mikdash in 70 C.E. Even Zionism, for all its success in restoring the Jewish people to its homeland, did not overturn long-standing religious injunctions against rebuilding the Holy Temple, much less against Jews setting foot on the Temple Mount. This does not mean that we need to surrender our dream of a rebuilt Temple in the future. But the lessons of Jewish history instruct us to inhabit the present, seeking a secure existence for ourselves in harmony with our neighbors. Accordingly, we must be prepared to acknowledge Muslim sovereignty over the Temple Mount if a peace agreement depends upon it.

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