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10/09/2008: "Ex president of the World Jewish Congress encourages acceptance of outmarriage"
Edgar Bronfman, 79, still best known in the financial world as the owner for many years of Seagram's Whiskey and until a few years ago as president of the World Jewish Congress, recently published a book, "Hope, Not Fear." Over its 222 pages, Bronfman preaches for comprehensive reform of the content of Jewish life, and calls for changes in the conduct of its religious streams - particularly in the relationships between them.
In an interview with Haaretz Tuesday, Bronfman said: "Judaism must open up and fully accept families where one of the parents is not Jewish. If a revolutionary change is not made in the present rejectionist attitude toward mixed couples, the Jewish community in America will shrink and lose its influence, and American support for Israel will be in danger."
In the midst of the financial crisis, Bronfman, who is considered a symbol of capitalism, says he is more worried about the future of Judaism and what the Jewish community may have to face because of what he defines as "narrow-mindedness and clinging to archaic Jewish values that are not in keeping with the needs and goals of the community in the 21st century."
[ Since Bronfman also says, according to the same article, that Jews need not believe in a biblical God, it is hard to see how Judaism can maintain itself as either a religion or as an ethnicity. What is a secular Jew if not a member of an ethnicity - and where is an ethnicity after generations of frequent outmarriage? Bronfman says Judaism will grow by accepting outmarriage. He is one clever Jew - that's one concept I just can't get my head around! The message from the LNSGP: Jews must go to Israel to maintain their ethnicity and culture. ]
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1027412.html