Agudas Yisroel of America took exception to a
widely publicized letter from the Anti-Defamation
League to Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, which urged
the vice presidential candidate to stop making
"overt expressions" of religious belief in his
campaign speeches.
Aguda's position was outlined in a letter to ADL
director Abraham Foxman, from David Zwiebel, Agudas
Yisroel's executive vice-president for government
and public affairs.
"At a time when perhaps the greatest crisis America
faces is a crisis of values, a candidate for
national office who speaks unashamedly of his own
religious faith and of the positive role religion
can play in strengthening our society is to be
commended, not condemned," Mr. Zweibel wrote.
Agudas Yisroel took issue with the ADL's charge
that Senator Lieberman's religious expression risks
alienating people and also runs "contrary to the
American ideal."
To the contrary, asserts Zwiebel, "most Americans
welcome and admire Senator Lieberman's public
expressions of faith."
"If alienating people be the concern," the Agudas
Yisroel leader wrote, "the greater source of
potential alienation is a public letter from a
prominent Jewish organization such as the ADL
suggesting that all of this religious talk must
stop."
"Abe Foxman is right that there are times when a
public official can cross the line of propriety in
speaking about religion, but this is not such a
time," Mr. Zweibel said. "The fact that all the
major candidates for national office are talking
about the importance of religious values in these
troubled times is actually a most welcome
development."
Democratic vice presidential candidate Joseph
Lieberman said that the Anti-Defamation League
misunderstood him earlier in the week when he
advocated a greater role for faith and religion in
American public life.
He also pointed out that the response to his
remarks at a black church in Detroit and an
interfaith breakfast in Chicago was "a bit of an
overreaction."
After those speeches, the ADL urged Lieberman, the
first Orthodox Jew on a national party ticket, to
tone down his references to religion.
"I respect the ADL, but I respectfully disagree,"
Lieberman said in an interview with The
Associated Press.
"I think they misunderstood part of it, part of
what I was trying to say. And the whole point of it
is that I think faith has a constructive role that
it can play in American life.
"It certainly plays a constructive role in the
lives of millions of Americans and can in the
community as well and that's what I was trying to
say," he added.
Lieberman also said that no one from the campaign
of Al Gore, the Democratic presidential nominee,
has asked him to tone down his religious message.
