When Webb and DeGiorgio declare that our society is based on Judeo-Christian tradition, they really mean that our society is based upon Christian tradition, which appropriated Jewish sources and overlayed them with new, often alien, interpretations. Their citation of the "Old Testament" as a central Jewish text is a case in point. Give a Jewish book a Christian name and a Christian interpretation, and the result is--Christianity.

Judaism is different from Christianity, and a hyphen does not make that difference vanish. No one unschooled in Jewish tradition--not Judeo-Christian tradition--can be an authority on Jewish law. I have a guess as to how many years Webb and DeGiorgio have studied Jewish law, but it is in round numbers. Very round.

THE SECOND WAY to examine Jewish values is to observe Jews and see what their values are. To help formulate and determine Jewish values, according to this second method, means to be part of an ongoing conversation in which Jews discuss what ought to be important to them as a group.

E. Adam Webb is not a party to that conversation. Not AALARM, not PBH, not AAA, not even (gasp!) The Crimson staff can announce the values of the Jewish community. Perhaps no student organization is truly qualified to make such announcements. But if there is one, it is not AALARM. It is Hillel. To argue the opposite is to deny a community of people the right to decide for themselves who and what they will be.

Hillel's Coordinating Council made a decision for its community. It decided that Hillel will oppose attacks on gay and lesbian students. After an hour of discussion, the vote was 22 to 1. According to the four members of the Hillel Steering Committee, feedback from within Hillel has been overwhelmingly positive. If the values of the membership of Hillel can suggest Jewish values, Webb and DeGiorgio lose on method number two.

The Book of Ken and Adam--or should I say the Gospel according to Ken and Adam--has an answer to this argument. These leading experts on the Jewish community contend, "Hillel has been subverted by a radical faction."

This year is my third as a member of the Coordinating Council. I have no idea to whom AALARM might refer. I would be most interested to hear them identify these subversives on the far left. (Do they have a list?) I am waiting for a phone call.

THE "R" in AALARM stands for "Religion," but it does not mean religion in general. Each of us can think of many religions, of this century and others, whose resurgence on this campus AALARM would not support.

So when a non-Christian religious group breaks away from AALARM's vision of Christian morality, Webb and DeGiorgio try to appropriate what they dare not condemn--a different religion. The idea that AALARM can lecture members of a different religious tradition on their duty to AALARM's morality is positively revolting. It is oppressive. It is culturally imperialistic.

It is alarming.

Richard A. Primus '92, a Crimson editor, is a member of Hillel's Coordinating Council.