c. 2006 Religion News Service

Israeli Supreme Court Approves Overseas Gay Marriages

(RNS) An Israeli Supreme Court ruling requiring the government to recognize gay marriages performed abroad has many American Jews rejoicing.

“It’s a great day for marriage. It’s a great day for Israel. And it’s a great day for Jews,” said Alan Dershowitz, the prominent civil rights expert and Harvard Law School professor, saying it reflects Israel’s “liberal and progressive approaches to social problems.”

The 6-1 ruling on Tuesday (Nov. 21), which would give gay couples tax breaks and the right to adopt children, was made in response to petitions filed by five gay Israeli couples who married in Canada and wanted their marriage registered at home.

Marriage in Israel is run by the Orthodox rabbinate, a point of contention for many secular and non-Orthodox Jews, while civil marriages performed abroad are recognized in the Jewish state.

The decision comes only weeks after ultra-Orthodox protests forced organizers of a Jerusalem gay pride parade to plan a more secure stadium rally. The recent ruling has reignited debate in Israel across its religious-secular divide.

In the U.S., the three major Jewish movements are reacting to the ruling somewhat predictably. “We strongly object and strongly criticize the court’s decision,” said Nathan Diament, director of public policy for the Orthodox Union, whose movement rejects gay marriage.

Rabbi Jerome Epstein, whose Conservative movement is debating whether to approve same-sex commitment ceremonies and gay ordination, stressed the distinction between the civil and religious aspects of gay marriage.

“I personally applaud the ruling of the Supreme Court, which seems to reinforce the fact that wherever it’s possible to provide for civil recognition is appropriate,” said Epstein, executive vice president of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism.

The Reform movement, which endorses same-sex commitment ceremonies or weddings, welcomed the decision. “It reflects our view that gay and lesbian couples, no less than heterosexual couples, can be strong families,” said Mark Pelavin, associate director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism.

_ Rachel Pomerance

American Baptists to Put Headquarters Building on the Market

(RNS) Leaders of the American Baptist Churches USA have decided to put their headquarters building in Valley Forge, Pa., on the market, the denomination announced.

The Mission Center property, built in 1962, currently houses Baptist offices in less than half of its space.

“Much energy and resources go into keeping the building leased and lessees satisfied,” the Rev. A. Roy Medley, the denomination’s general secretary, told the General Board. “We are not in the rental business, but the business of mission.”

The board voted Nov. 14 nearly unanimously _ 72 in favor and one abstaining _ on the action. It would be dependent on a buyer permitting American Baptist officials and their tenants to have three to five years to find new office space.

The three-story circular building has unique architecture that earned it the nickname “Baptist bagel” within the 1.5 million-member denomination.

The General Board Executive Committee had recommended placing the building on the market after extensive study. Board President Arlee Griffin Jr. noted that the vote marks a step solely to market the headquarters, with further action needed to actually sell it.

“In this time of transition for all denominations in our culture, to let go of this symbol is a dramatic sign of our opening ourselves to the new thing God is doing in our midst,” Medley said.

_ Adelle M. Banks

McChesney Says Accused Priests Need Work

(RNS) Priests accused of sexual abuse should be given meaningful work while the outcome of their case is decided, according to the U.S. Catholic bishops’ former head of child safety.

Kathleen McChesney, the FBI’s former No. 3 official before serving as executive director of the bishops’ Office of Child and Youth Protection, said church and civil trials can take months or years to resolve.

While removing priests accused of sexual abuse “is prudent and necessary,it is also essential to provide them with meaningful and time-consuming work,” McChesney wrote in the Jesuit magazine America. Dioceses should also ensure accused clergy have adequate means to support themselves and can afford any legal and psychological help they may need, she wrote.

More than 500 U.S. priests have been accused of sexual abuse and temporarily or permanently removed from ministry since 2002, according to McChesney, who now works on security matters for the Walt Disney Company.

She noted that false reporting of sexual abuse by children is very rare, with one study indicating that only 1.5 percent of all investigated cases were found to be false accusations.

Still, “It is possible, though difficult, to assign” men accused of abuse “to work that contributes to the church’s mission … without placing the offender in a position of unsupervised contact with minors or vulnerable adults,” McChesney wrote.

Without work, “offenders have the time to seek out new victims, making the possibility of future offenses greater,” McChesney wrote.

David Clohessy, national director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, called McChesney’s suggestions “the latest variation on an old, failed scheme.”

“The crux of the problem is that often you have compromised clergy allegedly monitoring criminal clergy,” Clohessy said. “If that doesn’t change it doesn’t matter whether the priest is working in the basement stuffing envelopes or in the sacristy saying prayers. It remains a very risky situation.”

_ Daniel Burke

Updated Encyclopaedia Judaica Returns After 30 Years

(RNS) The editors of the Encyclopaedia Judaica’s new edition, the first in more than 30 years, had their work cut out for them.

After all, when the last edition came out in 1972, the Soviet Union still existed, Golda Meir was prime minister of Israel and comedian Jerry Seinfeld wasn’t a household name.

“The startling conclusion is how dramatically Jewish life has changed over this period, and how significantly things have changed in our understanding of Jews and Judaism,” said Michael Berenbaum, executive editor of the new edition.

The 22-volume encyclopedia, which goes on sale Dec. 8, reflects those changes with 2,600 new entries, including one on Seinfeld, plus updates on topics ranging from Jewish art and literature to dietary laws. The new edition, the encyclopedia’s second, also covers popes and presidents who’ve affected the Jewish community.

It also acknowledges the contributions of women, said Berenbaum. For example, the first edition included requirements for the mikveh, or ritual bath, but didn’t include the experiences of those who used it: women. The historical entries were updated as well.

“The first edition spoke of German Jewry in the past tense,” said Berenbaum, a Holocaust scholar who helped create the Holocaust museum. “The German Jewish community is now expanding dramatically.”

The Holocaust entry has also changed significantly, he said.

“We’ve had a whole generation of scholarship that’s taken place since then, and we have access to so many more documents,” he said.

The encyclopedia began in Germany in 1928, but work stopped after the Nazis came to power. The project resumed in 1966 in Israel, and the 1972 edition was the English language version of that effort.

“It should be of interest to everybody’s who’s interested in Jewish history, to students of the Bible, early Christianity and Islam,” Berenbaum said. “It’s a deeply authoritative source with which to get the best scholarship and the broadest range of understanding of Jewish participation in world culture. That’s what it tries to do.”

_ Ansley Roan

Quote of the Day: Leadership Managing Editor Eric Reed

(RNS) “We’re losing Thanksgiving. I don’t mean to sound like Chicken Little (or Turkey Lurkey?), but the one day set aside to contemplate our blessings and their divine origin has, in one generation, been reduced to a football orgy and now, for football widows, a jump-start on the biggest shopping day of the year as more stores open on the sacred Thursday.”

_ Eric Reed, managing editor of Leadership journal, a publication of Christianity Today International, writing in an online column about Thanksgiving.

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