Assimilation is greatest threat to U.S. Jews

[Gość: Weiss]

Right-wing Orthodox Rabbi Avi Weiss is best known for jumping the fence at
Auschwitz and insisting nuns leave the convent there, for calling Nation of
Islam leader Louis Farrakhan an "anti-Semitic racist bigot" and for serving
as Jonathan Pollard's spiritual advisor.

But neither the Vatican, black anti-Semitism nor supporters of keeping the
Israeli spy in prison for life are the biggest threats to U.S. Jewry, Weiss
said.

Freedom is.

"Anti-Semitism isn't our greatest challenge. When there is anti-Semitism,
there is no intermarriage. In America, we are so loved, we're being married
in droves," Weiss said Monday, during a lecture to a Jewish studies class at
San Francisco State University.

"We're so free, we're assimilating. The bodies of Jews are OK; the souls
aren't."

Weiss' visit, sponsored by the department of Jewish studies at SFSU, the
Israel Project, SFSU Hillel and the Zionist Action Committee, was open to the
public. The class of 23 moved to a larger hall on campus to accommodate "drop-
ins." Every seat was filled. Some sat on the floor.

"I prefer this to getting into yelling matches about borders" in Israel, said
Weiss, 52, the founder of AMCHA