Jews help Muslims fight county council
By Tim Townsend
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Monday, Jul. 16 2007
When Rick Isserman found out last month that St. Louis County
wouldn't allow a
group of Muslims to build a new mosque in south St. Louis County,
the story
sounded too familiar.
Forty-eight years earlier, Isserman's grandfather, Rabbi Ferdinand
Isserman,
fought to move his congregation, Temple Israel, from the city to
the county,
where the Jewish population had been relocating for some years. The
city of
Creve Coeur cited zoning problems and tried to block the move, but
the rabbi
and his flock took the case to the Missouri Supreme Court and
prevailed.
The case, Congregation Temple Israel v. City of Creve Coeur,
produced what is
considered a landmark religious-freedom decision that says
Missouri
municipalities can invoke only health or safety issues in denying a
religious
group the zoning required to build houses of worship.
In the spring, the St. Louis County Council refused the Islamic
Community
Center's request to rezone a 4.7-acre parcel it bought a year
before for $1.25
million. The Muslims mostly Bosnian immigrants planned to build
a second
mosque and community center in addition to the current mosque and
center off
South Kingshighway in St. Louis.
When Khalid Shah, a member of the mosque and a friend of
Isserman's, told him
about the council's decision, the 53-year-old Department of
Agriculture
employee began making the connection to his family's legal
legacy.
"I'm fighting the same battle as my grandfather 50 years ago,"
Isserman said.
"It's a different community and a different place, but it's the
same issue."
A county attorney brushed off notions that the dispute is rooted in
dramatic
constitutional questions of religious freedom. Robert Grant said
the council
took up a more mundane question of municipal pragmatism in choosing
to reject
the county planning commission's unanimous support.
"They didn't think it was appropriate zoning," he said.
But for many in the Bosnian community at 50,000 strong and
thought to be the
country's largest the council's 4-3 vote represents an effort to
hinder the
traditional American immigrant march toward assimilation. Imam
Muhamed Hasic,
the spiritual leader and president of the Islamic Community Center,
also called
Madina Masjid, said about half of St. Louis's Bosnian population
has moved from
the city to south St. Louis County.
"That's where the Bosnians are moving," Isserman said. "It's only
natural to
make a religious institution accessible to its congregants."
BIAS OR NOT?
After prayers at Madina Masjid, Omer Durakoiec, 44, said the
council's vote was
unfair to Muslims.
"Freedom of religion, if it's for a church or for a mosque, is the
same thing,"
he said.
But the charge of discrimination is contentious, even among
Bosnians.
"In my opinion this was not religious discrimination," said Sukrija
Dzidzovic,
publisher and editor of Sabah, a Bosnian-American weekly newspaper
based in St.
Louis. "This was a mistake on Imam Hasic's part. He should not have
bought land
that was zoned for commercial use, hoping that he could change the
zoning."
An existing south St. Louis County mosque, the Bosnian Islamic
Center of St.
Louis, bought a building on Lemay Ferry Road just a couple of miles
from the
site in question. Imam Enver Kunic, the spiritual leader of the
Bosnian Islamic
Center of St. Louis, said that he has no problems with the County
Council and
that services at the building-turned-mosque will begin in the
fall.
County Councilman John Campisi, who represents the area where the
mosque and
community center would be built, opposes the rezoning. He said the
council's
vote did not reflect religious discrimination.
"There's one just like it in Lemay, so it's not like the county is
against
these going in," he said. "But there were so many people calling in
who were
against it."
Campisi said his office received about 60 phone calls from
constituents
complaining of potential traffic issues.
"This was going to be a day-care center, a youth center it was
going to be
around the clock," he said.
high legal bar
The case exemplifies the frustrations of many new immigrants,
especially
Muslims, who come to the United States with high expectations for
religious
freedom and then run into the realities of local politics and what
many
perceive as the prejudices of their new neighbors.
Charles Haynes, a senior scholar at the First Amendment Center,
said local
governments that take on religious groups in court are often
surprised by how
much protection those groups are afforded.
"A lot of government officials don't believe it's as tough as it
is, then they
go to court and find out," he said. "It doesn't sound like the
county has much
of a chance prevailing here."
A 2000 federal law, the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized
Persons Act,
has given religious groups more legal power, Haynes said.
"It forces governments to work harder before they say no," he said.
"Many local
governments don't realize there's a higher bar when a religious
group is
involved."
After a failed attempt at mediation in May, the Islamic Community
Center sued
the council. Because of pending litigation, Campisi said he would
not answer
questions about his reasons for rejecting the rezoning
request.
When Campisi voted against the rezoning on April 24, he persuaded
his two
Republican colleagues on the council to join him. Council Chairman
Mark O'Mara,
a Democrat who voted with the three Republicans, provided the swing
vote to
defeat the rezoning. O'Mara did not return several phone
calls.
Gregory Quinn, another councilman who voted against the rezoning,
also cited
the litigation and declined to comment. Colleen Wasinger, the third
Republican
on the council, did not return phone calls seeking comment.
The three Democrats on the council said there was little discussion
about the
issue before the vote and said they were surprised by the final
outcome. The
minutes of the meeting indicate there was no public debate before
the vote.
Temple Israel's rabbi, Mark Shook, who has worked with Hasic to try
and get the
council to reverse its decision, said Campisi might be wary of
rezoning a piece
of property that had guaranteed tax income.
"When someone takes a piece of commercial property out of the tax
rolls, he is
striking at the county's bottom line," he said. "But the underlying
philosophy
in giving tax breaks to religious institutions is that they better
the
community. That's the price you pay."
For the Bosnian Muslim community, the issue began in February with
a victory.
That's when the county's planning commission voted 8-0 to approve
rezoning of
the land that would be used for the 25,000-square-foot mosque and
community
center. The parcel is directly across from Lemay Plaza, a
160,000-square-foot
strip mall anchored by a 70,000-square-foot Dierbergs grocery. To
the west, the
land abuts a residential neighborhood of single-family homes.
The Muslims' property had been approved for a 60,000-square-foot
motorcycle
dealership and a 5,000-square-foot fast-food restaurant. The owners
of the
dealership sold the land to the Muslim group last year.
In its report, the county's planning commission said rezoning the
property from
commercial to residential to accommodate the mosque made sense for
the area.
"The proposed community center will also be less intense, and
therefore more
compatible with the adjacent single-family residences, than the
uses currently
authorized on this site," the report says.
Three weeks earlier, a public hearing drew seven neighbors; only
one objected
to the plans.
"You can understand when there are objections to a plot of land
going from
residential to commercial," Shook said. "But when someone wants to
upgrade the
zoning from commercial to residential and the council objects to
that, people
start wrinkling their noses."
Grant said the vote against the mosque simply reflects a
disagreement.
"The planning commission made (its) recommendation, and the County
Council
didn't follow it," he said.
Gail Choate, the county manager for planning, said it's rare for
the council to
disregard the recommendations of the planning commission. The
commission has
issued an average of about 100 zoning petitions a year since 2005,
and the
council followed all but a couple of recommendations each
year.
JOINT EFFORT
Shah and Isserman spoke in June about the case at a monthly study
group they
started, in which about a dozen area Muslims and a dozen members of
Temple
Israel read and discuss the Quran and the Torah. Isserman enlisted
Shook's
help, as well as congregation president David Weinstein's, and the
three men
began mobilizing support for the Bosnian Islamic Community
Center.
Hasic said he was moved when he heard that Temple Israel was going
to bat for
the mosque.
"They kept asking what they could do to help," he said. "They wrote
letters,
they met with the council, they said we needed to stick
together."
Shook, a former chairman of the Interfaith Partnership, sent a
letter to County
Council members asking them to reconsider the mosque's rezoning
request and
citing the Missouri Supreme Court ruling that bears his
congregation's name.
In May 1954, Temple Israel bought 24 acres in Creve Coeur, but two
months
later, the city amended its zoning to make it impossible for the
synagogue to
secure the necessary permits to build. Temple Israel, led by Rabbi
Ferdinand
Isserman, sued the city, and five years later the state Supreme
Court said
Creve Coeur's zoning amendment was unconstitutional.
Haynes, the scholar at the First Amendment Center, said the
mosque's fight is
similar to many around the country.
"It's usually masked as something else a zoning issue or
parking," he said.
"No one wants to come out and say they don't want people of a
particular faith
in their neighborhood."
But on Banister Road, immediately adjacent to the Bosnians' land,
only one of a
dozen homeowners expressed any concern at the prospect of Muslim
neighbors.
"It wouldn't bother me," said Mamie King, who had a statue of the
Virgin Mary
in her front yard.
Grace Green, a Pentecostal who described herself as "a holy
roller," said she
would like to know more about the group, "but you have to love your
neighbors."