The American Jewish Committee and the American Jewish Congress said today that they “reject” charges by the Unification Church of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon that the two organizations “used the powerful means which they control” to force cancellation of a “World Conference for Judeo-Christian Dialogue” which the Church planned to hold in Jerusalem next month.
Maynard Wishner, president of the AJCommittee, and Henry Siegman, executive director of the AJCongress said, in a joint statement:
“To the extent that this cancellation is due to action taken by our two organizations, as the Unification Church asserts, we can only be glad. We reject the Church’s charges … that we used our ‘power’ or acted in ways contrary to the tenets of free speech or tolerance in expressing our opposition. The only ‘power’ exercised was that of freedom of information, to make public to Jewish scholars our view of the Unification Church as we urged them to turn down invitations to any such conference.”
BACKGROUND OF THE ISSUE
On June 23, Bertram Gold, executive vice president of the AJCommittee and Siegman announced that they had sent letters to Jewish scholars and academicians charging that the writings of Moon “are distinctly anti-Semitic” and that “numerous Jewish homes have been thrown into turmoil and parents subjected to severe suffering” as a result of the widespread proselytizing activities of the Unification Church among Jewish and other youth.
They warned the scholars not to accept the all-expenses-paid invitation to the Jerusalem conference, noting that it and other conferences in various parts of the world were self-serving devices by the Unification Church to associate itself with the names of prominent and respected persons.
The Unification Church claimed that “The charges that the teachings of Rev. Moon are ‘distinctly anti-Semitic’ are absolutely false” and “we reject” these “slanderous charges.” It said the conference was to have been an “ecumenical dialogue” to promote “unity between diverse religious traditions …. we are opposed to all forms of racism and prejudice and believe that all men are equal in the sight of God.”
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