Mormons Condemn “Conversion” of Anne Frank
The Mormon Church has condemned the recent posthumous baptism of Anne Frank, the Jewish girl whose diary of hiding from the Nazis has provided generations with a first-hand account of life during the Holocaust.
Frank is the third Holocaust victim to have received a “baptism for the dead” in recent weeks. The baptism is a violation of a pact the LDS Church made in 1995 to no longer proxy baptize Holocaust victims. The LDS Church confirmed it happened over the weekend at the faith’s temple in the Dominican Republic.
The LDS Church has since condemned the proxy baptism, calling is a violation of their policy and believe it took a great deal of “deception” for it to happen. The following statement was released by the church Tuesday:
“The Church keeps its word and is absolutely firm in its commitment to not accept the names of Holocaust victims for proxy baptism. It takes a good deal of deception and manipulation to get an improper submission through the safeguards we have put in place,” the statement read.
“While no system is foolproof in preventing the handful of individuals who are determined to falsify submissions we are committed to taking action against individual abusers by suspending the submitter’s access privileges. We will also consider whether other Church disciplinary action should be taken. It is distressing when an individual willfully violates the Church’s policy and something that should be understood to be an offering based on love and respect becomes a source of contention.”
Most recently, relatives of Holocaust survivor and Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel, and the parents of renowned Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal were discovered to have undergone proxy baptisms. It was also revealed that Jan Karski, a Catholic who survived captivity and torture to warn of the emerging Holocaust in Poland in 1942.
Karski’s posthumous baptism angered his biographer, E. Thomas Wood, who wrote a letter to LDS Church leaders:
“Karski was an outspoken proponent of interfaith dialogue. Attempting to convert him to another religion after death strikes me as precisely the type of intolerant act he stood up to oppose throughout his life,” Wood wrote. “I call upon the LDS Church to mitigate the pain it has already caused by removing his name from the FamilySearch database of deceased persons who have undergone Church rites.”
Outraged, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations, said “such actions make a mockery of the many meetings with the top leadership of the Mormon Church.”
Rabbi Benny Zippel of the Chabad Lubavitch of Utah says he is not personally offended and that Anne Frank will still remain Jewish. Zippel says according to Jewish faith, Anne Frank could not possibly have been converted from from Judaism to Mormonism.
“If it’s posthumous it can’t be a conversion and if it’s a true conversion it cannot possibly be posthumous,” says Zippel.
Zippel, who has lived in Utah for nearly 20 years has his suspicions on how and why the proxy baptisms keep happening. He attributes the actions of the few who “like to stir the pot and like to make this a bigger deal that it is.” He says he does not see what the issue is.
“I’ve had some of them come over to me and ask me to release statements and write letters to the LDS Church leadership as to how offended I am and I protest it and I condemn it and this and that. And I just didn’t do any of that, simply because I don’t see what the issue is whatsoever,” said Zippel.
None
These ridiculous actions by religious nuts never cease to amaze me. Zippel ia 100% right. There is no issue whatsoever.
I never cease to be amazed
I had never even heard about this. Trying to convert Jews even after they’ve tragically passed…what an amazing revelation of evil.
Ariella Sternberg
All religions have their extremists, who are filled with righteous fervor over their point of view. We are not exempt from this situation ourselves. Although it is never comfortable watching Jewish icons and heros be subsumed by other religions (think our Patriarch Avraham), we know the essential Jewish neshama is a gift from Hashem that cannot be taken or altered by man. Let’s focus on real problems with living people, and remember this attention is a by-product of our work on Earth, being lamps to the rest of mankind.
to 2
i like how you put it “an amazing revelation of evil”
surely Moshiach is coming!!
i don’t understand why they want to do this though? they see she was an amazing unique soul so they “want her” in their “circle”..? seriously confused
CHT
NULL AND VOID. They naturally think their religion is the absolute truth and cannot understand how righteous are not one of them. Especially, how can she (or he) be from the “devils” nation.
this is the norm in mormanism! wake up!
this is not an extreme act of religion. mormons have been doing these “conversions” for YEARS!!! its part of their religion, its a MITZVAH for them!!!
PS. mitt romney who is running for the republican presidential nomination is a mormon, rachmanaletzlan he gets elected! pur tumhe!!!
Laaniyas Dayti
These naive nebs believe they are redeeming souls of the deceased and gaining them entry visas to heaven. That is the reason that the have the largest genealogy database in the world.
It is probably a zchuss for a (non-observant) neshama to be ‘handled’ posthumously by them. Much as a vaccine is the injection of the sickness and thus builds up the immunity. With this act they strengthen the ‘teflon’ shield surrounding the neshama.
to#5
are you sure? your comment sounds familier! what religion are you?
Milhouse
I don’t see why anyone objects to this. Naturally they think their bizarre religion is the correct one, just as we think ours, which seems bizarre to them, is in fact the only true one. We believe neshomos in the Olam Ho’emes know the truth, and regret anything they did wrong during their lives, and therefore we ignore any request someone may have made to be cremated, or not to have kaddish said for them, etc. They believe the same thing, and therefore that the dead wish they had been baptised while they were alive; therefore they do this favour for the dead, and baptise them now, thus enabling them to do “teshuvah” and become Mormons in the Next World. Of course this is nonsense, but at least they mean to do good, and in fact they do no harm, so we should thank them, not be angry at them.
argh
so disgusting
comment
I don’t know if its evil, it just shows how faulty and cheap their religion is. who would do that, really, its just immoral and disgusting
Ess past far Purim
Posthumous baptism or conversion is nonsence in itself.
They may as well walk through all the cemetries in the world and posthumously baptise evey single person buried there.
The whole concept is redicluous as it sounds.
Can they perform a posthumous marriage between two single people?
Total narishkeit.
The hierachy of the Mormon movement should make loud and clear public statements decrying this practice in their name and weed out these pests.
Milhouse
#12, you may think it’s “nonsence”, but how is it different from our belief that saying kaddish and learning mishnayos for a niftar helps him in the Next World? We believe in giving a tikkun for neshomos, even if in their life they didn’t believe in it; why shouldn’t the Mormons do the same? And if they would perform a marriage between two (or twenty) neshomos, why would that disturb you?
Why should they decry the practice, when it’s an inherent part of their beliefs? The only concession they’ve made to the pressure is that a person is only allowed to baptise their own dead relatives, not just anyone they happened to have heard of. So it was against the rules to baptise Anne Frank, unless the person doing it was from her family. But this is just a rule they recently adopted to mollify stupid critics; they still believe that whoever did this was doing Frank a favor, and helping her neshomo, just as we believe giving tzedokoh or learning mishnayos in her name would help her neshomo.