Jewish Leader Condemns ADL's Anti-Religious Liberal Agenda
by Chad Groening
July 5, 2005
(AgapePress) - A conservative Jewish activist says he is appalled by the recent demand of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) that the U.S. Naval Academy stop holding prayers before lunch for the midshipmen.According to a recent report in the Washington Post, ADL national director Abraham Foxman sent a letter to the Naval Academy's superintendent, calling the mealtime prayers unlawful under the U.S. Constitution and claiming they are not only insensitive but coercive.
But disagreeing with Foxman's assessment is Don Feder, president of Jews Against Anti-Christian Defamation. "There is nothing unconstitutional, there is nothing insensitive, there is nothing coercive about a voluntary prayer saying grace or having a chaplain say grace before the midshipmen have lunch," he says. "No one is forced to say the prayer."
Moreover, Feder contends, "If you took a survey of the Midshipmen at the Academy, you'd probably find that 99.9 percent think it's a good thing." He says the ADL's opposition to the practice of mealtime prayer is the result of the liberal group's agenda -- to pursue its obsession with purging even the mildest manifestations of religion from American public life.
According to the pro-Christian Jewish group's spokesman, the ADL is a liberal organization that truly believes religion is a threat to democracy rather than the foundation of a free Republic. But he disagrees with the leader of the ADL in his assessment of the Naval Academy's tradition of having voluntary prayer before meals.
"Foxman claims this is coercive, it's unconstitutional, it's insensitive -- you name it," Feder says. "I find the ADL's position appalling, quite frankly. These [Midshipmen] are going to be the future defenders of America. I think it's in our interests that they have the right values, and in my mind those are religious values."
In the past, Feder has described the Anti-Defamation League as virtually indistinguishable from the American Civil Liberties Union. And in a recent column, the conservative Jewish spokesman stated that the ADL "has betrayed its original mission" and has become just another leftist organization with a leftist agenda.
