c. 2003 Religion News Service

Muslim Summer Camp Gets Army Corps Approval

WASHINGTON (RNS) A proposal for the nation’s first Muslim summer camp was given the go-ahead by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers June 30 on the condition it cut the size of the proposed Iowa camp in half.

The Muslim Youth Camps of America proposed leasing the 100 acres of land in Coralville Lake in east-central Iowa for its youth camp four years ago.

Col. William Bayles, the corps’ district engineer, decided on the need for cutbacks. He said it seemed the best way to strike a balance between the Muslim Youth Camps of America and some of the neighbors to the site who have voiced concerns about the size of the project and its impact on their rural area.

“Deep in my heart I think this was the right thing to do,” Bayles told the Associated Press in an interview. “It offers the developers the opportunity to build a camp to suit their objectives, and it gives the surrounding community and town something they can be proud of, too, that will not impact them.”

The Muslim group has to turn in a new plan that cuts the scope of its project by about 50 percent.

The developers’ original plan would have transformed the more than 100-acre former Girl Scouts campsite into a Muslim summer youth camp.

It would have included a 17,500-square-foot lodge for year-round meetings, weddings and conferences. The camp also would have had 10 cabins to house more than 130 summer campers, a beach and parking.

But local officials as well as neighbors didn’t want such a large facility, which would have included new water and sewer systems and removed more than 400 trees, to harm their local environment and clog traffic.

A minority also objected to the proposal in light of the Iraqi war and the Sept. 11 attacks.

Bayles’ compromise suggested that the trimmed-down camp have a summer capacity for about 60 individuals and be accessible year-round for recreation and education.

“I have felt all along that this was a large commercial development,” said Lynn Kinney, a neighbor who didn’t want the camp. “But if they are not going to have that (conference center), not have the numbers and operate it more like the Girl Scout camp, I can live a little better with that.”

Manzoor Ali, chairman of the board for the MYCA, said his group was satisfied with Bayles’ decision.

“We will look at what they’re proposing and get together as a team and see what we can do with our plan,” he said.

_ Emily Dagostino

Update: New French Commission to Debate Headscarf Controversy

PARIS (RNS) Amid ongoing debate in France over whether to ban Muslim girls from wearing headscarves in public school, French President Jacques Chirac is appointing a group of experts to study the larger issue of secularity in France.

Chirac formally announced the commission Thursday (July 3). But his choice of a former French minister, Bernard Stasi, to head the 15-to-20-member group of philosophers, teachers and lawmakers has been widely reported in the French media.

The secularity commission is expected to deliver its report by the year’s end _ before a major parliamentary debate on reforming the French education system, slated for early 2004. Its contents are expected to touch on a range of politically charged religious issues beyond headscarves.

The new commission is Chirac’s first official reaction to the volatile headscarf debate, which has polarized French politicians and academicians, not to mention the country’s estimated 5 million Muslims. Although the issue roared back into the spotlight a few weeks ago, it has been simmering on the sidelines of French politics for more than a decade.

That Chirac is taking the matter seriously is evident from his nomination of Stasi, an old and close adviser who currently holds the title of “mediator” of the French Republic.

Stasi is reputedly an impartial arbitrator and a fierce champion of immigration to France, a concept that has not always sat well with the French right.

Ministers from Chirac’s own ruling party have declared their personal opposition to allowing headscarves in schools, but remain cautious about whether to introduce legislation on the matter.

Such a step may well involve amending France’s 1905 law separating church and state. It would also ban students from wearing other religious trappings such as crosses and skullcaps to public schools.

The headscarf debate has divided France’s new representative Muslim council. More conservative council members, including those from the powerful Union of Islamic Organizations of France, are adamantly opposed to a law banning headscarves in schools.

But the council’s moderate leader, Dalil Boubakeur, says Muslims _ like any other French citizens _ should abide by the country’s fiercely secular mores. The Muslim council has decided to gather theologians to study the matter this fall.

_ Elizabeth Bryant

Did Meteorite Prompt Constantine’s Conversion?

LONDON (RNS) Could the impact of a meteorite hitting the Italian Apennines have been the sign in the sky _ believed to be in the shape of a cross _ that encouraged the Emperor Constantine to invoke the Christian God in his decisive battle in 312 when he defeated his fellow Emperor Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge?

The victory paved the way for the recognition of Christianity by the Roman Empire and the union of church and state that lasted for nearly 1,500 years.

The possibility is raised by a report in the current issue of New Scientist of the discovery of a meteorite impact crater dating from the fourth or fifth century A.D. in the Apennines.

The crater is a seasonal lake, roughly circular with a diameter of between 115 and 140 meters, which has a pronounced raised rim and no inlet or outlet and is fed solely by rainfall. There are a dozen much smaller craters nearby, such as would be created when a meteorite with a diameter of some 10 meters shattered during entry into the atmosphere.

A team led by the Swedish geologist Jens Ormo believes the crater was caused by a meteorite landing with a one-kiloton impact _ equivalent to a very small nuclear blast _ and producing shock waves, earthquakes and a mushroom cloud.

Samples from the crater’s rim have been dated to the year 312 plus or minus 40 years, but small amounts of contamination with recent material could account for a date significantly later than 312.

However, from the written historical record it is uncertain whether Constantine’s vision of the cross was a dream just before the decisive battle or, as Eusebius stated in his life of the emperor, a sign he saw in the heavens.

_ Robert Nowell

Cable Channel to Air Documentary on American Jews’ Role in Humor

LOS ANGELES (RNS) The cable channel Comedy Central is running a six-part series “Heroes of Jewish Comedy,” an affectionate documentary look at American Jews’ role in humor.

With narration by actor Judd Hirsch, “Heroes” examines where Jewish comics are now, focusing on such working comics as Richard Belzer, Lewis Black and Susie Essman. Though the series bypasses the well-known stories of Jewish humor legends like Woody Allen and Jerry Seinfeld, archival footage shows a young Joan Rivers telling jokes on TV in 1970.

The six half-hour documentaries, which will begin airing Monday (July 7), cover Jewish insult humor, Jewish comediennes like Rivers and Sandra Bernhard, the comic’s life on the road, romance, angst and young, new Jewish comics such as Sarah Silverman.

The series also traces Jewish “insult humor” _ notably the bawdy celebrity roasts at The Friars Club _ back to 11th century Eastern Europe when Jewish rhyming minstrels entertained wedding parties.

“(He) knew everyone at the wedding _ the mayor, the postman, the baker, the girl who’s getting married and the husband,” Belzer explained on camera. “And he would get up on a table and in Yiddish and in rhyme _ this predates rap by 900 years _ in Yiddish rhyme he would go on for 40 minutes, an hour, two hours depending on how big the wedding and would eviscerate everyone there.”

Rabbi Elliott Dorff, a philosophy professor at the University of Judaism in Los Angeles, told RNS that Jews embrace comedy because “part of this comes out of the Jewish experience in that in order to deal with difficult circumstances, a very healthy way is to step back and laugh at them.”

Dorff pointed out that the Old Testament’s Book of Esther was written around the Maccabean period when Jews were oppressed by Greeks; “They couldn’t write a satire of the Greeks, so they wrote a satire of the Persians who lived 200 years before and who were not going to object.”

_ David Finnigan

American Academy of Religion Announces Journalistic Honors

(RNS) The American Academy of Religion 2002 journalistic honors have been awarded to writers at The Dallas Morning News, The Greenville (S.C.) News and Beliefnet.

Susan Hogan/Albach of the Dallas newspaper won the award for Best In-Depth Reporting on Religion at a news outlet with a circulation of more than 100,000. Sharon Boase of the Hamilton Spectator in Canada and G. Jeffrey MacDonald of Religion News Service tied for second in that category.

Deb Richardson-Moore of the Greenville newspaper won in the category for news outlets with a circulation of less than 100,000. Maya Kremen of the Herald News in West Patterson, N.J., and Julie Marshall of the Daily Camera in Boulder, Colo., came in second and third, respectively.

Deborah Caldwell of the Web site Beliefnet won in the opinion writing category. Kenneth Woodward of Newsweek came in second and Bill Tammeus of The Kansas City Star came in third.

The American Academy of Religion, an association of scholars of religion, gives the award to recognize “well-researched newswriting that enhances the public understanding of religion,” said Barbara DeConcini, the association’s executive director, in a Thursday (July 3) announcement.

_ Adelle M. Banks

Quote of the Day: Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams

(RNS) “In the global economy it is not enough for the prosperous world and its trading systems to say, `We want to bring you into the market; we want to make life better for you.’ There has to be some way of saying, `We are hungry and thirsty for your welfare; we are not ourselves, not fully human without you.”’

_ Archbishop Rowan Williams speaking at the July 2 concluding session of the 12th assembly of the Conference of European Churches in Tronheim, Norway. He was quoted by Ecumenical News International, the Geneva-based religious news agency.

DEA END RNS