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Without a doubt, the hot-button issue this week centered on plans to build a $100 million Islamic center and mosque near the site of the World Trade Center.
The debate over the center, known as the Cordoba House, has grown heated. Opposition has come from many quarters, including the Anti-Defamation League, which claimed building the center near the site of the 9/11 terror attacks would prove an unbearable affront to the families of the victims.
The ADL statement generated its own debate within the Jewish community. Countervailing Jewish voices chided the ADL for straying from its mission to fight religious bigotry, including anti-Muslim bigotry.
This is one of those disputes in which both sides put forth legitimate arguments.
Opponents urged those behind the project to consider the feelings of the 9/11 families. Fanatics committed the Sept. 11 attacks in the name of Islam, which may make a mosque two blocks from the site hard for some to stomach.
But we agree with the critics of the ADL, which has done so much over the years to combat bigotry. The ADL got this one wrong.
For one thing, it is wrong to lump all Muslims together with the monsters that toppled the World Trade Center, attacked the Pentagon and hijacked United 93. Muslims, too, died on that awful day.
There are those within Islam who work for peace, understanding and interfaith dialogue. The Muslims behind Cordoba House have shown they fit into that camp.
It makes sense that the Jewish community, indeed all Americans, including 9/11 families, would want to support moderate voices within Islam. If there is to be any hope for interfaith relations, those voices must drown out the shrill, hateful voices of radical Islam.
Equally important, just as Jews have thrived under the constitutionally guaranteed freedoms of America, so too must those freedoms be extended to all, including Muslim Americans.
As Rabbi Roberto Graetz of Lafayette’s Temple Isaiah says in our story on page 6a this week, “Either we promote freedom of religious expression or we don’t.”
As much as we sympathize with 9/11 families, the Americans behind Cordoba House have every right to acquire the property in lower Manhattan and build their center, which they say will become a beacon of tolerance.
To thwart these plans would amount to an unacceptable breach of the First Amendment.
The debate over Cordoba House is typical of a vigorous, sometimes contentious democracy. Fortunately, in this instance, democracy won and the center will be built.
I agree with i-care’s comment. It’s legal, it should be allowed. But the imam should be menshidik enough to realize the hurt and divisiveness this is causing, and offer to build the Cordoba Center elsewhere.
I wonder what the world reaction would be to a 13 story synagogue built next door to where Baruch Goldstein shot innocent Muslims at prayer?
Mayor Bloomberg gave an eloquent speech at the foot of the Statue of Liberty about the decision. Here’s an excerpt:
“New York City was built
by immigrants, and it is sustained by immigrants – by people from more
than a hundred different countries speaking more than two hundred
different languages and professing every faith. And whether your parents
were born here, or you came yesterday, you are a New Yorker.
“The World Trade Center Site will forever
hold a special place in our City, in our hearts. But we would be untrue
to the best part of ourselves – and who we are as New Yorkers and
Americans – if we said ‘no’ to a mosque in Lower Manhattan.
“On September 11, 2001, thousands of first responders heroically
rushed to the scene and saved tens of thousands of lives. More than 400
of those first responders did not make it out alive. In rushing into
those burning buildings, not one of them asked ‘What God do you pray
to?’ ‘What beliefs do you hold?’
Now read the whole speech and tell me you’re not proud: http://bit.ly/9i7ZwI
Login to reply to this comment or post your ownAll the issues that have been publicly raised about this seem to carefully avoid the real issue. The real issue is symbolism.
Putting a mosque near Ground Zero is a statement of Muslim triumph. It is a declaration that 9-11 was a victory for Islam over the infidels. In their terms the mosque is an extension of “Dar-el-Islam”, the Muslim world, into “Dar-el-Harb”, the infidel world.
It is converting the Hagia Sophia into a mosque, building the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount.
For Muslims the Cordoba mosque is a victory monument. And yet everyone in New York on both sides are pretending they don’t see that.
As to the supposedly “moderate” Muslims behind the mosque, and the show of being “insulted”, why have the sources of money for the 15-story building in downtown Manhattan been concealed?
If the money is from moderate Muslims, why conceal who they are? If there is nothing to hide, why is it being hidden?
Construction should not start until after there is full disclosure.
Login to reply to this comment or post your ownIf we don’t build the Cordoba House near Ground Zero, the terrorists win.
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08/05/2010 at 06:12 PM
There is no question about the fact that there is no legal basis to deny to right to build the Islamic Center/Mosque. However, building it next to the site of the World Trade Center shows an unbelievable degree of insensitivity and arrogance.
A man comes to the Rabbi with a question: “Rabbi, I had a pair od dirty socks hanging above the pot with the cholent and one of them fell in the pot. Is the cholent kosher? Can I eat it?” The Rabbi thinks and thinks and answers: “Yes. The Cholent is kosher, but it stinks.”
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