Bunco discussion

For those who were present for this discussion last night here is the posting I described. Some of the links no longer work, but I thought you might like to see what a trouble maker I am. I think it was the very last sentence which invoked a death threat. Several people, including Mr. Mokotoff, had posted messages on the discussion list that the Mormons were continuing to actively add Jewish names for temple ordinances. When I pointed out that Mr. Mokotoff had written in an article that he saw no evidence that new names were being added, contradicting something he had posted earlier in the day about Mormons actively adding Jewish names, I was deluged with hate mail for revealing that the emporer wore no clothes.

Date: Fri, 02 Jul 2004 10:59:49 +0000
posted by Kathy at rootsweb

My deep interest in this issues lies in the fact that I was born and raised in Utah as a Mormon. In church I was taught to hold the highest regard for Jewish people. My best friend is an Israeli Jew. Beyond that I am very interested in the ethics of the situation, on both sides.

For those interested in this issue I have pulled a few quotes from websites that highlight both sides of this issue. I wanted to know the origin of the 1995 agreement and this is a sample of what I found.

http://www.avotaynu.com/mormon.htm
unlike the Dutch extraction [Lijst van Nederlandee jooden die gestorven zijn gedurende de tweede wereld oorlog (List of Dutch Jews, prisoners and missing people that have died in concentration camps during World War II)] which was Church sanctioned, the German extraction [128,000 names from the Gedenkbuch] was the act of individuals--five families in the Salt Lake City area.

{My note} For those concerned about the loss of genealogical data by removing the names, Gary Mokotoff writes:

I commented that, at least in the case of the Gedenkbuch extraction, the entries had negative genealogical value because of inaccuracies. The people doing the work erroneously assumed that the place of last residence was the place of birth, and, therefore, tens of thousands of IGI entries from the Gedenkbuch had the wrong place of birth.

The January [6, 1995] meeting was attended by Senator Hatch, Elder [Monte] Brough, [Ernest] Michel and Herbert Kronish, a lawyer active in UJA-Federation affairs. The meeting was very cordial, not adversarial but more in the spirit of two friends trying to resolve a mutual problem. Elder Brough explained to Michel what had happened, why it happened and that the Church was upset it had offended people, which was not the intent. Michel indicated that the Mormon Church had always shown friendship to the Jewish people, was a supporter of Israel and was sympathetic to the impact on Jews of the Holocaust tragedy. Brough presented a number of alternatives which Michel said he would bring back to the members of the American Gathering board of directors. When the board met, it was unanimously decided that the names should be removed from the IGI and provisions made to be certain that any future submissions would be expunged.

On May 3, 1995, in New York, the LDS Church and representatives of the Jewish community signed the agreement described at the beginning of this article.

http://www.rickross.com/reference/mormon/mormon153.html
Under the 1995 agreement, the church directed its members not to include the names of unrelated persons, celebrities and certain groups, such as Jewish Holocaust victims, for its "baptisms for the dead," according to documents provided by the LDS church.

The church also assumes that the closest living relative of the deceased being offered for proxy baptism has consented.

"It did not guarantee that no future vicarious baptisms for deceased Jews would occur," church papers say of the agreement.

In a Nov. 14, 2003, letter from church Elder D. Todd Christofferson to [Ernest] Michel, a copy of which was sent to [Senator Orrin] Hatch, Christofferson said the church did not agree to find and remove the names of all deceased Jews in its database.

"That would be an impossible undertaking," Christofferson wrote. However, 400,000 names of Holocaust victims were removed, and the church continues to delete names when asked.

http://www.ourjerusalem.com/opinion/story/opinion20040104.html
For years, Jewish officials have blasted the conversions as an insulting desecration, but the controversy is flaring anew this week amid charges that the Mormons have broken a 1995 promise not to add Jewish Holocaust victims to their International Genealogical Index.

Church officials insist they've kept to the agreement. And even among Jewish critics of the policy, there is some dispute over just what the Mormon church originally agreed to, and what it has done wrong.

D. Todd Christofferson, a church official involved in the talks, said the church removed Holocaust victims listed before 1995 and has since followed the pact by instructing members not to add more.

"When the church is made aware of documented concerns, action is taken in compliance with the agreement," he told The New York Times.

Christofferson told the Times that the church cannot monitor the situation completely and that some members might themselves add names.

[Gary] Mokotoff, who publishes Avotaynu, the International Review of Jewish Genealogy, and who began finding Jewish names in the Mormon archives before the 1995 conflict, said he sees no evidence the church has added new names to its rolls.