| ||||||||||||||
OPEN LETTER TO SENATOR ARLEN SPECTER:21 Rabbis Take a Stand on Alberto Gonzales NominationEDITOR'S NOTE: Eight rabbis (brought together by the Philadelphia-based Shalom Center) met with Senator Arlen Specter on Monday, December 27, bearing the following letter signed by 21 rabbis from the Philadelphia area. The letter is published here with permission.
December 26, 2004 To: Hon. Arlen Specter, United States Senate From: 21 Concerned Philadelphia Rabbis
Some of us are meeting with you to discuss two important questions; the rest, who could not arrange to do so at this time, thank you as well for your time and attention. We also join in blessing you with refuah shleymah, the fullest of healing. We come to discuss:
That memo was not merely theoretical: It had a major effect on the chain of command and the behavior of American forces and agents in Guantanamo and at Abu Ghraib, and at other prisons in various places where the United States has either itself used methods named as torture by the Geneva Conventions or has "rendered" its prisoners to foreign governments known to use extremely brutal methods of torture. In our view, Mr. Gonzales' advice that the President was legally entitled to authorize such behavior casts great doubt on his worthiness to become Attorney General. We believe that the only way for him to assuage that doubt is for him to unequivocally affirm before the Judiciary Committee that:
From the standpoint of Torah, all human beings are created in the Image of God. Torture shatters and defiles that Image. In every shriek of those in unbearable pain, in every crazed nightmare of those who are denied sleep for days and weeks at a time, in every muffled moan of those plunged under water for minutes at a time, trying not to breathe lest they drown, God is broken. God is defiled. And the very Geneva Conventions that Mr. Gonzales said were obsolete were adopted by the nations of the world very shortly after, and because of, World War II. They are one of the most sacred legacies of the dead of the Nazi Holocaust, bequeathed from their suffering to the human race as a whole. We know that some have argued that the President is entitled to have almost anyone he wishes in his Cabinet. But the power to reject such appointments was placed by the Constitution in the hands of the Senate precisely to check and balance the likelihood that Presidents might appoint officials who might then assist the President to puff up his power beyond Constitutional limits, and to break the law. Our Founders knew perfectly well of British kings who had used torture or otherwise broken the bounds of legitimate law. They intended to make that impossible in our republic. We urge you therefore to use wisely the authority that the Founders so wisely put in your hands. If Mr. Gonzales fails or refuses to make these commitments that we have outlined, we urge you to vote against confirming his nomination and against sending it to the floor, and we urge you to use the full power of Senators to oppose his confirmation. We believe you share our deep concern for moral values and for those aspects of our tradition that are universally relevant. And we believe that you stand also for an overarching vision of the Constitution; that you will not be, in the words of one writer, "victimized by the age in which [you] live." So we will look forward to your decision on this question.
Rabbi Sue Levi Elwell*, director, Pennsylvania region, Union for Reform Judaism Two other rabbis who hoped to meet with Sen. Specter, and had expressed general agreement with the views in this letter, were in Israel: Rabbi Leonard Gordon, Germantown Jewish Centre; and Rabbi David Straus, Main Line Reform Temple. The institutions noted above with rabbis' names are for identification only. Asterisks denote those rabbis who met with Senator Specter.
For more information, visit shalomctr.org. Copyright © 2004 The Baltimore Chronicle.
All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Baltimore Chronicle content is expressly prohibited without their prior written consent. This story was published on December 29, 2004. |
Local News & Opinion
Ref. : Local Newsbriefs Travel
Letters
Ref. : Letters to the editor Open Letters:
03.05 Open Letter to Congressman Bart Stupak Health & Environment
Video National Health Care Systems In Other Countries 03.18 Pressure Drop: Brave Sir Dennis Ran Away 03.12 Slick Barry and the $100-Billion Medicaid/Medicare Fraud Claim 03.09 Kill Bill: Death to Obamacare! 03.09 Obama’s Rhetoric May Be “Fiery,” But His Health Care Reform Is Still Lukewarm Media Watching
03.17 CNN Scrapes Bottom of Right-Wing Barrel With Erickson Hire 03.16 WPost Blames Obama First, on Israel 03.16 Letter to the New York Times' Editor: Stovepiping To Persia 03.12 Cud and Complicity: Burying the Alternatives to Empire's Dominion 03.11 NYT and the ACORN Hoax 03.05 Sorry, Rove, Bush Did Lie About Iraq 03.03 It's Snow News 03.03 The Woeful Washington Post Ref. : The Daily Howler Legal Matters
02.26 America's Supremes: Court Over Constitution US Politics, Policy & Culture
03.11 Power Rangers: Policing the System With the "Fightin' Progressives" 03.09 Thinking About Countings 03.07 Unnatural Acts: Breaking the Fever of Militarism 02.25 Future Shock: A Better World Beyond the Imperium High Crimes?
03.18 The Lawfare Project's Anti-Democratic Agenda 03.16 America's Secret Prisons 03.13 Palestinian Dispossession in East Jerusalem 03.12 Israeli Settlement Expansions Continue 03.11 Brutalizing Palestinian Children 03.08 The Russell Tribunal on Palestine: Barcelona Session 03.05 Targeting Israeli Apartheid 03.01 America's Permanent War Agenda 02.25 Global Sweatshop Wage Slavery Economics & Business Non/Mis/Malfeasance
03.14 The Crisis in America's Telecommunications Network 03.09 The Business of Water: Privatizing An Essential Resource 03.05 Is the Recovery Real? 03.04 IMF-Style Austerity Measures come to America: What “Fiscal Responsibility” Means To You 03.04 Barry C. Lynn's "Cornered: The New Monopoly Capitalism and Economics of Destruction" 03.01 Thinking About Fees International
03.15 Peace Process Hypocrisy: Stillborn from Inception 03.03 Muslim Disunity 03.02 Funding Israeli Militarism, Belligerence and Occupation 02.26 Iran Captures a 'Good' Terrorist We are a non-profit Internet-only newspaper publication founded in 1973. Your donation is essential to our survival.
|
| ||||||||||||