Jewish Leaders Defend Giving Degree to Shamir

Leaders of Judaism’s Reform movement said Thursday that Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir deserves to be honored with an honorary degree in Los Angeles this weekend despite protests from a group of Southern California rabbis.

Thirty-two Reform rabbis have said the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion was dishonoring itself because Shamir has proven incapable of making “even modest proposals” for Middle East peace.

In response, Rabbi Alexander M. Schindler, president of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, said the protest was hard to understand in light of Shamir’s role at the Madrid peace conference last month. “The holding of direct, face-to-face talks with all of its Arab neighbors--an event for which Israel and the Jewish people have been waiting for more than 40 years--is surely an achievement for which Mr. Shamir must be given considerable credit,” said Schindler.