Synagogue cuts ties with Boy Scouts due to new policy

NEW ORLEANS — For nearly a decade, hundreds of local Boy Scouts have learned the virtues of the Ten Commandments on an annual Thanksgiving holiday hike to churches, synagogues and mosques, where clergy and scholars explained their faiths’ take on the ancient code.

But this year, Touro Synagogue, a major Reform Jewish congregation and a longtime partner, has told the organization it is no longer willing to take part because the Scouts deny membership to gay troop leaders and gay Scouts.

For Rabbi Alexis Berk, who used to host the Scouts at Touro, it is a clear justice issue that mirrors the civil rights struggle of a generation ago. She sees public dissent to Scouting’s membership policy as a moral duty.

Elsewhere around the country, Jewish organizations are similarly pushing back against Scouting’s membership policy, especially since July, when Scouting reaffirmed it after a two-year study.

“This position has taxed Scouting’s relationship with the Jewish community,” said A.J. Kreimer, chairman of the National Jewish Committee on Scouting. 

“Our committee’s motto since 1926 has been ‘Scouting Serves the Jewish Community’ — and that relationship has been strained.”