A Cabinet committee formed last December to consider the Mormon-sponsored Brigham Young University center under construction next to the Hebrew University campus on Mt. Scopus, convened Monday for what was to have been its final meeting. But the meeting adjourned without decision.
The committee deferred its vote for another week to allow Justice Minister Yitzhak Modai more time to consider the legality of the building license and the activities planned for the six acre campus.
The project was authorized several years ago, during the Likud administration headed by Premier Menachem Begin. All permits and licenses were approved by the government and the Jerusalem municipality. But the Orthodox religious establishment adamantly opposed the Mormon center on grounds that it would be used for missionary activities.
Modai sought to appease the opponents by proposing a law that would forbid any form of missionary activity. Proselytizing as such is not illegal in Israel but offering financial or other inducements to conversion is banned.
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