'Mideast conflict is a theological one'

[Phx_Dem]

"People who think they know me assume I will eventually run for political office," says Marc Schneier, indirectly referring to his long-standing reputation for activism, which has gained him much celebrity on the talk-show and lecture circuit. And, oh, he also happens to be the outgoing chairman of Kadima USA. "People who really know me, however, grasp that my true passion is being a rabbi - one who takes pride in being completely accessible to my congregants."

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Indeed, much of what the 49-year-old president of the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding (FFEU) does focuses on reaching out to populations who have been less-than-friendly to Jews, and - he would assert - toward whom the Jews haven't been too tolerant, either.

The celebrity rabbi and author of Shared Dreams - Martin Luther King, Jr. & the Jewish Community clearly comes by his hunger for this kind of endeavor honestly. His father is Arthur Schneier, the rabbi of New York City's Park East Synagogue, whose most recent claim to fame was the historic visit to his shul by the pope.

Schneier the son, however, has carved out his own "cooperation" niche, which originally involved setting his mind to mending "downward-spiralling" black-Jewish relations, and which now has him turning his attention to Muslim anti-Semitism and Jewish Islamophobia.

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