American Jewish Congress

The American Jewish Congress says a Louisiana high school principal was right to require a graduating senior to delete all religious references from her valedictory speech in May, 1987. The agency made this contention in a brief asking the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans to uphold a lower court's ruling issued last February in a case involving Angela Kaye Guidry. When she was named valedictorian at Sam Houston High School in Moss Bluff, La.

One does not usually think of the conventions of the major U.S. political parties as having any particular impact on Jewish history. But 68 years ago, the Republican National Convention adopted a plank that would shape the future of U.S.-Israel relations and redefine the role of Jewish voters in American politics. This surprising turn of events was the result of efforts by an unlikely trio: a former president, a maverick journalist-turned-congresswoman and the father of Israel's current prime minister.

The Chabad of California will light a Hanukkah menorah next to a lit Christmas tree in a Beverly Hills city park this evening, after winning a federal court decision that pitted two Jewish organizations against one another. The American Jewish Congress, representing four Jewish residents of the city opposed to any religious symbols in public parks, announced Thursday that it would appeal the decision. U.S. District Judge Terry J. Hatter Jr. ruled on Dec.

Also, an article in Section A on Wednesday about the Madoff scandal misidentified the American Jewish Congress as the United Jewish Congress. The article also misspelled the last name of Reed Kathrein, an investor's attorney, as Kathrien.

The American Jewish Congress and four Jewish residents of Beverly Hills have filed a federal civil rights suit against the city of Beverly Hills in an effort to force the removal of a 28-foot Hanukkah menorah from a municipal park bordering Santa Monica Boulevard. The large candelabra was installed by Chabad, a Brooklyn-based movement of Hasidic Jews, which has sought for years to obtain the same prominence in public places for the Hanukkah symbol as is given to Christmas trees.

Also, an article in Section A on Wednesday about the Madoff scandal misidentified the American Jewish Congress as the United Jewish Congress. The article also misspelled the last name of Reed Kathrein, an investor's attorney, as Kathrien.

In an inexplicably vitriolic letter (Times, Jan. 3), David Tamir accuses the American Jewish Congress of undertaking a campaign against the display of only Jewish religious symbols on public property. Mr. Tamir is flatly wrong. The American Jewish Congress, like the rest of America's mainstream Jewish community, has long opposed the display of all religious symbols on public property. Acting on this belief, the American Jewish Congress argued against the display of Nativity scenes in the only two U.S. Supreme Court cases that have addressed this issue.

Cal Thomas's column (Editorial Pages, Jan. 19), "Can Oral Roberts Top Death Threat From God?" decries the pomposity of media ministers who invoke God's name in their fund-raising. Why, then, take a gratuitous potshot at the American Jewish Congress' "exaggerated claims" in asking for money to combat the promotion of religious intolerance? Are not Thomas' column and AJC's appeal both directed against demagoguery and its inevitable divisive consequences? I received AJC's solicitation for funds in the mail and did not respond, but Thomas' questionable motives have prompted my very first contribution to the American Jewish Congress.

The American Jewish Congress is a nationwide membership organization of American Jews dedicated to the protecting of the religious, civil and political rights of Jews and to the promotion of American constitutional and democratic principles. Acting principally through its Commission on Law and Social Action, the American Jewish Congress is especially active in lobbying and litigating in the delicate and extremely important field of the separation of state and religion. The American Jewish Congress has supported and continues to support efforts to preserve the memory of the Holocaust and to assure that its lessons are not forgotten.

Your profile of Rabbi Hier incorrectly stated that no leaders of the Jewish community publicly opposed the California Legislature's $5-million appropriation to the center's Museum of Tolerance in 1985. In fact, the American Jewish Congress testified in Sacramento against this grant. AJC believed that such a gift of public funds violated the constitutional principles of church / state separation and, equally important, represented bad public policy. We also found this legislative request hypocritical, since the Wiesenthal Center had previously assured potential donors that it had never and would never seek government money.

Rabbi Shmuel Berenbaum, 87, a Talmudic scholar who led a yeshiva in Brooklyn for more than 50 years after fleeing Nazi-occupied Poland and briefly taking refuge in Shanghai, died Sunday of cancer, said Rabbi Pinchos Hecht, executive director of the 1,200-member Mir Yeshiva. Another branch of the yeshiva is in Jerusalem, with an estimated 4,000 students. Tens of thousands of mourners attended a funeral Monday in Brooklyn, Hecht said, citing police estimates. Berenbaum's body was to be flown to Israel today for burial in Jerusalem.

Who is a moderate Muslim? Is it Maher Hathout, the Los Angeles Muslim leader who has promoted interfaith relations and women's equality but denounced Israel as a brutal apartheid regime? Is it Tashbih Sayyed, a journalist based in Alta Loma, Calif., who praises Israel's behavior toward Palestinians as tolerant and criticizes Muslims for corrupting Islam?

NEW YORK--Neil Goldstein, director of national affairs for the American Jewish Congress, has been named executive director, replacing Phil Baum, who is retiring. Goldstein, a former community organizer, helped raise $11 million for the U.S. Holocaust museum. Baum worked 30 years with the group, which advocates strict separation of church and state, and opposes such policies as private school vouchers

The abrupt dismissal of the Anti-Defamation League's regional director here has illuminated the growing power struggles between East and West Coast Jewry, as the fulcrum of influence over American Jewish life shifts from its historical center in New York. David Lehrer, the regional director who helped knit together Los Angeles' disparate communities during 27 years of wide-ranging human relations work, was dismissed from his post Dec. 21 by National Director Abraham Foxman in New York.

Howard M. Squadron, 75, an influential New York attorney and former chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations who for many years was a leading national spokesman for American Jews, died of melanoma Wednesday at his home in New York City. The Bronx-born son of a delicatessen counterman, Squadron graduated from Columbia Law School in 1947 at age 21. He was the senior partner in the Manhattan law firm of Squadron, Ellenoff Plesent & Sheinfeld.

NEW YORK--Neil Goldstein, director of national affairs for the American Jewish Congress, has been named executive director, replacing Phil Baum, who is retiring. Goldstein, a former community organizer, helped raise $11 million for the U.S. Holocaust museum. Baum worked 30 years with the group, which advocates strict separation of church and state, and opposes such policies as private school vouchers

An American Jewish Congress delegation has been invited to meet with Jordan's King Hussein next week, the first such visit by a major American Jewish organization, one of the 25 delegates said. The group will meet Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak today in Cairo and travel to Amman, Jordan, on Monday. The delegation member, speaking anonymously, said the group is going to "listen and learn" about Hussein's views and will not try to negotiate on Israel's behalf.

In a show of solidarity with Muslims, moderate Jewish and Christian leaders on Friday decried an about-face by House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt in withdrawing his controversial appointment of a Los Angeles Muslim to the National Commission on Terrorism. Their reaction came a day after Gephardt stunned Muslim leaders across the country by announcing that he was rescinding his appointment of Salam Al-Marayati, executive director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council in Los Angeles.

HEALING SERVICES: A service for those needing physical, emotional or spiritual healing will be held at 5:30 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. Sunday at Christ the King Lutheran Church, 17400 Vanowen St., Van Nuys. Free. Information: (818) 342-0302. MEMORIAL TRIBUTE: The Rev. James Bodman and the Onion Players will present a program portraying people from Studs Terkel's book, "The Good War," in honor of Memorial Day at 10:45 a.m. Sunday at Sepulveda Unitarian-Universalist Society, 9550 Haskell Ave.