The Union for Reform Judaism and its President Eric Yoffie yesterday faxed the White House with demands for and  instructions on how to end the war in Iraq. Yoffie and his Reform movement counterpart Rabbi David Saperstein, are proving each week that they are basically hard left political hacks masquerading as religious leaders. 

The day before the Yoffie letter was sent to the White House, Saperstein was one of ten American "religious leaders" who signed a letter to Governor Arnold Schwarzennegger demanding that Tookie Williams not be executed.  Sharing the list of signers with Saperstein was none other than that close friend of Jewish America and Israel, Minister Louis Farrakhan.

When a list of signers is only ten names, you know who the others are before you sign. Here is part of the letter Sapersein signed, and the list of signers:

"For those who believe that the State killing of Stanley Williams today  would in anyway be fulfilling justice would mean the forever denying of  forgiveness, or the recognition of human beings to grow, learn and  change."

The letter was signed by Dr. Major L. Jemison, President,  Progressive National Baptist Convention Inc.; Reverend Stephen J. Thurston,  President, The National Baptist Convention of America, Inc.; Dr. Melvin von  Wade, President, National Missionary Baptist Convention of America; Senior  Bishop Marshall Gilmore, Christian Methodist Episcopal Church; Bishop Philip  Robert Cousin, Senior Bishop, African Methodist Episcopal Church Fourth  Episcopal District; Bishop George W. C. Walker, Senior Bishop, African  Methodist Episcopal Zion Church; Bishop Floyd E. Perry, Board Member, Church  of God In Christ; the Honorable Minister Louis  Farrakhan, The Nation of Islam; and Rabbi David N. Saperstein, Vice Chairman  Religious Action Committee of Reform Judaism Director and  Council.

In many cases of joint signatures, you work with the other signers to draft the exact language of a statement. For Saperstein to sign a letter with Farrakhan suggests his ability to distinguish between friend and foe is zero. In other words, he is a moral idiot.

While Yoffie is making demands of the President for timetables for troop withdrawals, (next may come specific battle instructions), and Saperstein and his ally Farrakhan are beating up on the California Governor, Iran's President is also on a roll, denying the Holocaust, calling for Israel to be wiped off the map ,and demanding that Israel's Jews be resettled in Austria or Germany or face extermination in Israel . Funny thing, but the biennial conference of the Reform movement found time to pass a resolution on statehood for the District of Columbia but remained silent about the Iranian threats against Israel, or their nearly completed nuclear program.

But I guess I see the point: why would the possible mass murder of more than five million Israeli Jews at the hands of a nuclear Iran be troubling for the Reform movement, when Tookie Williams' fate is in the balance, and DC is still not a state?

And after all, now that Saperstein has joined hands with Minister Farrakhan, maybe he can use that relationship to network with Iran's President, and establish a meaningful dialogue with him.  Maybe the Iranian President can "grow, learn and change", like Tookie Williams. There was a time when Jewish Americans worked in the civil rights movement with men such as Martin Luther King. Now the Reform movement partners with Minister Farrakhan.

The leaders of the Reform movement have chosen politics over spirituality for a long time. But now they have gone over the edge. Rabbi Yoffie admitted that he does not speak for all Jews in his letter to the President, as he previously stated in a moment of megalomania and extreme vanity at the Reform convention. 

Now he says he only speaks for a substantial majority of Jewish Americans. I don't know who their pollster was (John Zogby?), but he missed calling me.

The Reform movement has become little more than a mouthpiece for the politics of Michael Lerner and Michael Moore and moveon.org.  The movement's priorities are shameful. When Iran's threat to Israel's survival does not rate a mention at the biennial convention, it is hard to see what Judaism has to do with the movement any more.  Torah, God and Israel are supposed to matter to Jews. For the Reform movement, Bush bashing has become the top priority.

And while they are at it, could they, in the words heard at a Reform Bar Mitzvah luncheon, please bring more shrimp balls over to Table six?

Richard Baehr  12 14 05