“BYU President Defends School’s Jerusalem Center,” Ensign, Oct. 1985, 73–74
BYU President Defends School’s Jerusalem Center
Brigham Young University President Jeffrey R. Holland visited Jerusalem in August to meet with Israeli government leaders, assuring them that the university’s study center under construction there will not be used as a base for proselyting.
The BYU Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies, scheduled for completion in 1987, has been the focus of recent protests by some who fear the center will be a missionary tool. A group staged a protest at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem in July, and others have demonstrated outside government offices, asking that BYU be forced to close down the project.
President Holland said the building is too far advanced and too much has been spent on it to move it now. The facility “was not designed to be missionary center,” he assured Israelis.
“We have been active here for seventeen years and have never conducted missionary work or proselyting.” He pointed out that in those years that BYU study programs have operated in Jerusalem, “we know of no Jew who has been converted to Mormonism through the activities of students or faculty.”
He pointed out that students, faculty, and staff who participate in BYU study programs in Jerusalem are required to sign a pledge not to engage in proselyting, on penalty of dismissal.
The BYU project received support from the United Jewish Council of Utah, which cabled top Israeli government leaders and Jerusalem Mayor Teddy Kollek, who supports the project himself. The council’s telegram said, in part:
“For over one hundred years, the Jewish and LDS communities have coexisted in the Salt Lake Valley in a spirit of true friendship and harmony. It has been our experience that when the leaders of the LDS Church make a commitment of policy, it is a commitment which can be relied upon. The stated commitment of Brigham Young University not to violate the laws of the state of Israel, or its own commitment regarding proselytizing in the state of Israel through the Jerusalem-based Brigham Young facility, is a commitment which we sincerely believe will be honored.”
The center will provide academic, housing, and dining facilities for nearly two hundred students, faculty, and staff.
BYU’s Division of Continuing Education and David M. Kennedy Center for International Studies offer educational programs in Jerusalem which include undergraduate and graduate study, faculty professional development, research, semester, and half-semester or short-term adult study programs.