Ajcongress Director Rejects Orthodox Call for His Ouster

The executive director of the American Jewish Congress rejected a call for his dismissal made by Orthodox groups and described their criticisms of his recent remarks as an attempt “to silence anyone who is critical of a position chanted” by Israel’s Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir.

Henry Siegman responded Wednesday to a statement released last week by the presidents of six major Orthodox Jewish organizations, which condemned remarks he made during a speech at the AJCongress biennial convention in March. The remarks were highlighted in a March 22 story in The Washington Post.

In the speech, Siegman reiterated his organization’s support of territorial compromise as a solution for peace in the Middle East. He also condemned “important elements in the coalition that supports” Shamir who “have publicly disparaged the importance they attached to democratic values and humanitarian considerations.”

Siegman told convention delegates that proposals to forcibly transfer Arabs outside Israel and the administered territories have moved from the “fringe,” led by Knesset member Meir Kahane of the extremist Kach party, to “more centrist elements in that coalition.”

It was the next few sentences, however, that incited the Orthodox groups’ ire: Israel’s religious parties, said Siegman, “openly affirm the supremacy of religious law over democratic values. Some even question publicly the principle of the sanctity of human life when applied to non-Jews.”

In their March 28 statement, the Orthodox presidents responded: “In employing such bigoted language, Siegman pits Jew against Jew-indeed, non-Jew against Jew-and goes beyond acceptable norms of debate.”

‘IRRESPONSIBLE DEMAGOGUERY’

“Siegman’s statement defies credulity and unjustly condemns the very religious tradition which gave birth to the Western world’s concept of the sanctity of all human life,” the statement also said.

It called on AJCongress and “the entire Jewish community” to condemn Siegman’s “irresponsible demagoguery.”

The signers of the statement were Beverly Segal of Emunah Women of America, Dr. Harold Jacobs of the National Council of Young Israel, Rabbi Fabian Schonfeld of Poalci Agudath Israel, Rabbi Milton Polin of the Rabbinical Council of America, Herman Merkin of Religious Zionists of America and Sidney Kwestel of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America.

In a statement Siegman read during a telephone interview Wednesday, the AJCongress leader said this about the paragraph of his speech in question:

“Nothing in that paragraph can conceivably be construed as attributing sentiment concerning the sanctity of human life to Jewish ‘religious tradition,’ which is what the presidents of the Orthodox organizations have accused me of having said.

“I clearly described this view as characterizing either some religious parties or some individuals within those parties, or within the larger coalition that supports Shamir’s views,” he said.

Siegman’s statement called on the Orthodox presidents to “criticize those who make public statements that in fact diminish and debase that tradition, not those who seek to defend it.”

In a telephone interview Tuesday, Rabbi Pinchas Stolper, executive vice president of the Orthodox Union, called Siegman’s statement concerning democratic values and the sanctity of human life “libelous” and “beyond the pale of that which is acceptable.”

“I can think of no respected authority who questions the sanctity of life of non-Jews. Even if he can find one meshugeneh (crazy person) who says that, how can Siegman repeat it?”

CITES PRAISE FOR JEWISH UNDERGROUND

But Siegman maintained Wednesday that “there are individuals in those religious parties that have in fact said this.”

He said that in the early 1980s, when an underground group of Orthodox Jewish men was convicted of carrying out a series of violent attacks against Arabs in Jerusalem and the administered territories, “some leading individuals in Israel, in the religious parties and secular right-wing national movements, said precisely that explicitly, clearly, publicly in the Israeli and English-language press.”

Siegman declined to cite specific individuals. But he said that if the signers of the Orthodox statement insist, “I would be glad to name names.”

The AJCongress official also said he believed there was more behind the presidents’ objections than what was contained in their statement.

“It’s any reference to territorial compromise that really bothered them. They are trying to silence anyone who is critical of a position chanted by Shamir” and his supporters.

Stolper said Tuesday that the Orthodox groups intend to carry their campaign to have Siegman dismissed “well beyond the issuance of a one-time press release.”

Asked whether he had any intention to resign as a result of the presidents’ statement, Siegman said, “You’ve got to be kidding.”

Robert Lifton, AJCongress national president, said that he supported Siegman’s statements and that the organization had no intention of taking any action called for by the presidents.