Opposition to the Synagogue Mosque

Brandeis Professor Jonathan D. Sarna draws the same comparison that has been on my mind between the opposition to the Cordoba Center at 51 Park Place and the shameful history of synagogues being banned in our country despite the passage of the Bill of Rights in 1791.

Mayor Bloomberg likely had some of this history in mind when he asked “should government attempt to deny private citizens the right to build a house of worship on private property based on their particular religion?” In distancing himself from Peter Stuyvesant and the many others who have defined American religious liberty in narrowly restrictive terms, he reminds us that if today’s target is the mosque, yesterday’s was most assuredly the synagogue.

Even in the original 13 purportedly freedom-loving states, "religious freedom" was interpreted to apply only to Christian denominations, with Connecticut maintaining its ban on Jewish places of worship as late as 1856.

Why is the weekly Jewish Forward, a publication of relatively minor reach in this country, the only place I have noticed the parallel drawn?