by Ben Rayman

Created on: October 09, 2010

Spiritual leader wants to ‘trump’ a deal

Faith, Hope, Charity, and Freedom are four of the top things I have come to know more about in my early 40s. I never gave them much ‘pro-active’ thought, merely because they were always there and integral in my actions, mostly because of what I was taught, saw and what was practiced in my dependency upon those who gave me life.

Over the last six months, I have been reading more books and expressing my two cents worth. One that I found to be ‘artful’ created a dialog between the author and me; in fact, my one word response of “Why” got the ‘hooker’ to holy woman silver screen suggestion rolling. Although Cantor Estherleon Schwartz’s so-far life travels cover a gambit of things, including those struggles between mother and daughter, as well as, the welfare role, marital separation; on the other hand, she not only has experienced the rags to riches, walked among them, but also the financial downfalls and the raging heart pains when biological loves go before their time.

Estherleon is what I classify as apolitical, but when it comes to Him, although she thoroughly believes as I do when it comes to the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no laws respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances”  - sometimes you have to step far outside the box and brace yourself as the “stones” are casted.  

Her vision for the near Ground Zero national controversy, an Islamic community center and Mosque, as I see it, runs parallel with its visionary, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, who said: “To hold high the lamp of freedom, hope and friendship is America’s greatest gift to the world.” I am sure Estherleon can feel his words because in 1948, a girl of seven aboard the Queen Mary and nearing the shores of New York City, made a direct connection or as she puts in her book, “…it seemed as if this beautiful woman with a wand, so tall and strong, was smiling at (me) and saying, ‘You are safe. You are in America.’”

Those who have more of a firsthand experience when it comes to the Holocaust such as, Ivan Gabor, who wrote “Echoes of My Footsteps” – I am sure they would agree Estherleon’s destiny was not decided when her mother went into early labor in a garbage-strewn back alley besides a trash can, or when in a father’s desperation to save his four-year old daughter, he tossed her over a Swiss fence; moreover, I empathically believe Estherleon’s life in the land of Freedom and the roadmap planned for her to follow, was chosen for her long before by the Higher Power.

Naturally from all my readings on Estherleon, I can easily tell she is one of God’s strongest advocate for peace and unity for all cultures and religions. Her vision for the Ground Zero site is one of that more is better: Individual Houses of all Faiths, standing shoulder to shoulder on one street called: Unity that serves in memory for all those ‘religions’ who passed on 9-11.”

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