by Chris Bodenner
Leon Wieseltier stands beside Imam Rauf:
In a time when an alarming number of Muslims wish to imitate Osama bin Laden, here is a Muslim who wishes to imitate Mordecai Kaplan. Turn away, from him? But he may be replaced at his center by less moderate clerics, it is said. To which I would reply with a list of synagogues whose establishment should be regretted because of the fanatical views of their current leaders.
Andrew Sprung sits "in awe of [Leon's] moral clarity":
Wieseltier notes in this piece that Imam Rauf has recited the Shema, and he alludes to his proclamation at a memorial service for Daniel Pearl, "I am a Jew" (which, as Jeffrey Goldberg has pointed out, could get him killed). Here Wieseltier returns the favor, placing Jewish crime [e.g., the Baruch Goldstein massacre at Hebron] beside Muslim crime, and Muslim rights beside Jewish rights. This gesture lends him the authority of someone immersed in his own tradition but not besotted by it.
The Dish 