Saddam Hussein execution witnesses gather

The official witnesses to Saddam Hussein's impending execution gathered Friday in Baghdad's fortified Green Zone in final preparation for his hanging, as state television broadcast footage of his regime's atrocities.

With U.S. forces on high alert for a surge in violence, the Iraqi government readied all the necessary documents, including a "red card" — an execution order introduced during Saddam's dictatorship. As the hour of his death approached, Saddam received two of his half brothers in his cell on Thursday and was said to have given them his personal belongings and a copy of his will.

Najeeb al-Nueimi, a member of Saddam's legal team in Doha, Qatar, said he too requested a final meeting with the deposed Iraqi leader. "His daughter in Amman was crying, she said 'Take me with you,'" al-Nueimi said late Friday. But he said their request was rejected.

An adviser to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Saddam would be executed before 6 a.m. Saturday, or 10 p.m. Friday ET. Also to be hanged at that time were Saddam's half-brother Barzan Ibrahim and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, the former chief justice of the Revolutionary Court, the adviser said.

The time was agreed upon during a meeting Friday between U.S. and Iraqi officials, said the adviser, who declined to be named because he is not authorized to speak to the media.

"Saddam will be handed over shortly before the execution," the official said. The physical transfer of Saddam from U.S. to Iraqi authorities was believed to be one of the last steps before he was to be hanged. Saddam has been in U.S. custody since he was captured in December 2003.

Al-Nueimi said U.S. authorities were maintaining physical custody of Saddam to prevent him from being humiliated before his execution. He said the Americans also want to prevent the mutilation of his corpse, as has happened to other deposed Iraqi leaders.

"The Americans want him to be hanged respectfully," al-Nueimi said. If Saddam is humiliated publicly or his corpse ill-treated "that could cause an uprising and the Americans would be blamed," he said.

Munir Haddad, a judge on the appeals court that upheld Saddam's death sentence, said he was ready to attend the hanging and that all the paperwork was in order, including the red card.

"All the measures have been done," Haddad said. "There is no reason for delays."

As American and Iraqi officials met in Baghdad to set the hour of his death, Saddam's lawyers asked a U.S. judge for a stay of execution.

Saddam's lawyers issued a statement Friday calling on "everybody to do everything to stop this unfair execution." The statement also said the former president had been transferred from U.S. custody, though American and Iraqi officials later denied that.

Al-Maliki said opposing Saddam's execution was an insult to his victims. His office said he made the remarks in a meeting with families of people who died during Saddam's rule.

"Our respect for human rights requires us to execute him, and there will be no review or delay in carrying out the sentence," al-Maliki said.

State television ran footage of the Saddam era's atrocities, including images of uniformed men placing a bomb next to a youth's chest and blowing him up in what looked like a desert, and handcuffed men being thrown from a high building.

About 10 people registered to attend the hanging gathered in the Green Zone before they were to go to the execution site, the Iraqi official said.

Those cleared to attend the execution included a Muslim cleric, lawmakers, senior officials and relatives of victims of Saddam's brutal rule, the official said. He did not disclose the location of the gallows.

Raed Juhi, spokesman for the High Tribunal court that convicted Saddam, said documents related to the execution would be read to Saddam before the execution. The documents included the red card, al-Maliki's signed approval of the sentence and the appeal court's decision.

On Thursday, two half brothers visited Saddam in his cell, a member of the former dictator's defense team, Badee Izzat Aref, told The Associated Press by telephone from the United Arab Emirates. He said the former dictator handed them his personal belongings.

A senior official at the Iraqi defense ministry also confirmed the meeting and said Saddam gave his will to one of his half brothers. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Saddam's lawyers later issued a statement saying the Americans gave permission for his belongings to be retrieved.

An Iraqi appeals court upheld Saddam's death sentence Tuesday for the killing of 148 people who were detained after an attempt to assassinate him in the northern Iraqi city of Dujail in 1982. The court said the hanging should take place within 30 days.

There had been disagreements among Iraqi officials in recent days as to whether Iraqi law dictates the execution must take place within 30 days and whether President Jalal Talabani and his two deputies had to approve it.

In his Friday sermon, a mosque preacher in the Shiite holy city of Najaf called Saddam's execution "God's gift to Iraqis."

"Oh, God, you know what Saddam has done! He killed millions of Iraqis in prisons, in wars with neighboring countries and he is responsible for mass graves," said Sheik Sadralddin al-Qubanji, a member of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, known as SCIRI, a dominant party in al-Maliki's coalition. "Oh God, we ask you to take revenge on Saddam." 

Hillary Disavows Her Iraq War Vote

Sen. Hillary Clinton has for the first time said she would not have voted to authorize the 2002 attack on Iraq if she had known then what she knows now.

Previously the likely presidential candidate in 2008 has said that if the Senate had all the information it has today — about Iraq’s weapons program and the current difficulties in pacifying the nation, for example — there would never have been a vote on the Senate floor.

During a Dec. 18 appearance on NBC’s “Today” show, Clinton repeated that refrain. But this time she added: “And I certainly wouldn’t have voted that way.”

Clinton’s change of heart regarding the war comes as she is facing an increasing threat from Sen. Barack Obama, who as a state official in Illinois, spoke out against the Iraqi invasion as Clinton was voting for it.

Two of her other potential presidential rivals, Sens. John Kerry and John Edwards, also voted to authorize the invasion, but then publicly declared they had made a mistake and called for troops withdrawals.

As recently as September, when Clinton was asked on ABC’s “Nightline” about supporters who wanted her to say she was sorry for voting for the war, Hillary stated: “I don’t think that’s responsible.”

And in June, Clinton was actually booed during a Washington appearance when she said it was wrong to set a strict timetable for a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. 

Hillary Hires Evangelical Consultant

Hillary Clinton has hired an "evangelical consultant” to help woo Christian conservatives in her likely 2008 presidential campaign.

The move comes after a similar political operative successfully aided Democratic candidates in several states in the midterm elections.

More than one-quarter of the nation’s voters identify themselves as evangelical — a voter bloc that has long been courted by Republicans.

Clinton’s new hire is Burns Strider, an evangelical Christian who directs religious outreach for House Democrats and is the lead staffer for the Democrats’ Faith Working Group, headed by incoming Majority Whip James Clyburn of South Carolina.

Incoming Speaker Nancy Pelosi created the group last year when Democratic strategists observed that the party lost ground in the previous election in part because candidates failed to reach centrist and conservative voters in rural areas, who tend to be churchgoers concerned with moral issues, according to the Washington, D.C.-based publication The Hill.

Strider was an aide to Pelosi when the group was formed and joined Clyburn’s staff as policy director of the Democratic Caucus earlier this year, the paper reported.

"Observers of Clinton’s expressions of faith say religion has always been important to her, that she attended prayer group meetings while first lady, and that she joined a Senate prayer group shortly after winning election in 2000,” The Hill reports.

"Reporters anticipating Clinton’s ’08 presidential run wrongly discount her expressions of faith as cynical political maneuvering," the observers add.

Clinton is not the only potential Democratic candidate for the White House to launch efforts to appeal to religious voters.

Josh Dubois, an aide in Barack Obama’s Senate office, is heading his religious outreach. Sen. John Kerry gave a speech on "service and faith” in September at conservative Pepperdine University, and has brought in Shaun Casey, an associate professor of Christian Ethics at Wesley Theological Seminary, as a consultant on religious outreach.

Kerry also traveled recently to California for a meeting with Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church and author of the best-seller "The Purpose-Driven Life.”

Clinton’s evangelical point man, Strider, will take his cue from Mara Vanderslice, whose consulting firm Common Good Strategies helped Democratic candidates make inroads among evangelical and churchgoing Roman Catholic voters in Kansas, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.

Exit polls showed that Vanderslice’s candidates did about 10 percentage points better than Democrats nationally among those voters, The New York Times reports.

In Michigan, Democrat Gov. Jennifer Granholm cut significantly into the white evangelical vote that normally goes Republican. Similarly, in Ohio, Democrat Gov.-elect Ted Strickland took nearly half of the white evangelical vote. And in Pennsylvania, Sen.-elect Bob Casey won nearly a third of white evangelicals.

In all three states, Democrats began conducting well-organized outreach efforts to appeal to religious voters long before election day, according to The Hill.

Vanderslice and her business partner, Eric Sapp, urged Democrats to speak in detail about the religious basis of their policies and to buy commercials on Christian radio. In Ohio and Michigan, they even enlisted nuns to staff phone banks and call Catholic and pro-life voters to urge support for Democratic candidates.

Vanderslice has criticized Democrats’ usual reluctance to involve religion in their campaigns. She disclosed in an interview that she told candidates not to use the phrase "separation of church and state,” which does not appear in the Constitution’s language barring the establishment of religion.

Vanderslice herself didn’t become an evangelical Christian until she attended Earlham College, a Quaker school in Indiana known for its adherence to pacifism. She acknowledges that she still struggles with common evangelical ideas about abortion, homosexuality, and the literal reading of Scripture, according to the Times.

After college, Vanderslice spoke at rallies held by the AIDS activist group Act Up, which disrupted Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in 1989 by spitting the Eucharist on the floor. In 2000, she practiced civil disobedience when she took to the streets of Seattle in a protest against the World Trade Organization.

During the 2004 presidential campaign, when Vanderslice directed religious outreach for John Kerry’s campaign, Catholic League President William Donahue denounced her as an "ultra-leftist who consorts with anti-Catholic bigots.”

Her advice was largely ignored by the Kerry campaign. But in the recent elections, the Times reports, she and partner Sapp were heeded when they "told Democratic candidates not to try to fake it, advising those of non-Christian faiths or no faith at all to talk about the origins of their sense of ethics.”

ACLU Sues Texas Town for Not Renting to Illegals

Two civil rights groups filed a lawsuit Tuesday challenging a suburb's new law that outlaws renting to illegal immigrants, alleging the ordinance violates federal law and forces landlords to act as immigration officers.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund filed the suit on behalf of Farmers Branch residents and landlords.

The law, along with a measure that made English the official language of the city, was passed in November and is scheduled to go into effect Jan. 12.

The lawsuit claims the ordinance is so poorly drafted that it excludes even legal immigrants from renting in the city just north of Dallas.

"Immigration enforcement must be left to the federal government, not each local municipality," said Lisa Graybill, legal director of the ACLU of Texas. "Otherwise Texas will end up with a patchwork system that is impractical and unenforceable."

Farmers Branch spokesman Tom Bryson said the city will not comment on pending litigation. City leaders had expected legal challenges like the one filed Tuesday, which is the third brought against the city since the ordinance passed.

"I don't know if there is any real expectation of what would be coming down the pipe and what wouldn't," Bryson said.

On Friday, three apartment complexes filed a lawsuit asking a federal court to halt the renter law from going into effect, saying it should be declared unconstitutional.

In November, City Council members unanimously approved having property managers or owners verify the immigration or citizenship status of apartment renters. Council members also approved resolutions making English the city's official language and allowing local authorities to become part of a federal program so they can enforce immigration laws.

In another lawsuit filed this month, a Farmers Branch resident alleged that the city's mayor repeatedly violated the state's open meetings laws to deliberate the ordinances.

Opponents of the ordinances have also submitted a petition that they hope will force a vote on the measures. If at the city verifies at least 726 of the signatures, a public vote is expected in May. 

Since 1970, Farmers Branch has changed from a small, predominantly white bedroom community with a declining population to a city of almost 28,000 people, about 37 percent of them Hispanic, according to the census. It also is home to more than 80 corporate headquarters and more than 2,600 small and mid-size firms, many of them minority-owned.

More than 50 municipalities nationwide have considered, passed or rejected similar laws, but until now that trend hasn't been matched in the Lone Star State.

Robert Redford's Watergate Sightings

The way Robert Redford sees it, Watergate "is happening every day."

In a recent interview with the Associated Press, Redford predictably pointed out similarities between Nixon's cover-up and the so-called secretive nature of the Bush administration.

"It's pretty transparent; it's not something you have to reach for or exaggerate," Redford opines. "You can go right down the list . . . of things like Watergate happening almost on a regular basis with this particular administration."

Redford played the character of Bob Woodward in the movie "All the President's Men" some 30 years ago. Ever since then "old media" reporters have sought his supposed wisdom on the subject.

The Left Coast Report suggests that seeking out Redford for his expertise on Watergate is like seeking out Heath Ledger for his expertise on pup tents. 

Sean Penn's Ann Coulter Dolly

 Sean Penn apparently has a new plaything.

It seems that the actor-activist and sometimes journalist has a doll to keep him occupied. Or should I say voodoo doll?

Never far from his Spicoli likeness, Penn admits to The New Yorker that he possesses a small Barbie-style dolly that for him represents conservative belle of the Beltway Ann Coulter.

The really weird thing about the tale is the confession by Penn that he enjoys torturing the Coulter doll.

"There are cigarette burns in some funny places," Penn admits. "She's a pure snake-oil salesman. She doesn't believe a word she says."

The Left Coast Report thinks someone should send Sean a new doll to play with — the Bride of Chucky.

Patrick Kennedy Wore Black-Face, Imitated Michael Jackson

Long before he was ramming his car into barricades and taking up residence at the Mayo Clinic, Congressman Patrick Kennedy was doing his best to impersonate Michael Jackson. So reports the National Enquirer.

Pictures of the then-22-year-old Rhode Island legislator have surfaced, which show him in a Jacko costume at a party held at the Virginia home of his father, Massachusetts Senator-for-Life Teddy Kennedy.

The image of a Democrat in an outfit complete with black-face, Jheri Curls and a white glove is enough to spur his political advisors to seek out his dad's wet bar.

The young Kennedy was apparently so proud of his ability to imitate Jackson that he wanted to show it off outside the confines of his father's house.

"The party wasn't crazy enough for Patrick — and he went to Georgetown in Washington to carry on drinking," a source told the National Enquirer. 

Hollywood Relieved Over New Use of Botox

According to the American Journal of Gastroenterology, Tinseltown’s Botox indulgers may have a new kick in their step thanks to a side benefit of the wrinkle-eliminating toxin.

Dr. Guiseppe Brisinda and his colleagues at University Hospital of Rome, Italy, have discovered that Botox injections relieve, of all things, constipation.

Brisinda told Reuters that “traditional approaches, for example, fiber, laxatives, enemas, biofeedback training and surgery, have shown often conflicting or even disappointing results.”

However, through use of ultrasound-guided local injections of Botox, 19 out of 24 sufferers experience constipation relief.

The Left Coast Report points out that although the facial expressions of folks in Hollywood may not be normal, at least their regularity will be. 

Matt Damon Wants Bush Twins to Join the Military

He hasn’t been part of the usual contingent of Hollywood geopolitical experts like Sean Penn, Barbra Streisand, or George Clooney.

But now, apparently buoyed by the midterm election success of the Democrats, Matt Damon has decided to throw some punches of his own at the beleaguered Bush administration.

On an edition of “Hardball,” in a pre-taped segment, Damon urged President Bush to send his two daughters to Iraq.

Following in the wobbly footsteps of senator and former presidential candidate John Kerry, Damon also said that in America “we have a fighting class in our country” where people join the military “for financial reasons.”

The Left Coast Report suggests that Damon send out a Hollywood "hooah" to the “fighting class” who help keep his “Bourne Identity” checks rolling in. 

Madonna’s PETA Pelting

Madonna used to be a supporter of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).

But now the material girl is in PETA’s face. She recently went out in public in a full-length fur coat.

The $70,000 garment reportedly used the pelts of 40 chinchillas.

PETA called on Madonna to show the kind of empathy for animals that she showed for African children.

“We hope that Madonna's recent acts of kindness in Africa move her to extend her compassion to animals,” PETA said through a spokesperson.

The Left Coast Report says there’s no word yet on whether Madonna has taken any steps to adopt a chinchilla. 

Sen. Hillary Clinton: I’m Going for It

Sen. Hillary Clinton has come closer than ever to officially throwing her hat into the presidential ring, revealing her White House plans in conversations with several political insiders.

"She said to me, ‘I’m really going to go for this. I’m going to make this effort,’” a New York lawmaker told the New York Post.

"She never said she was running for the presidency of the United States or if she was going to announce – or anything like that. It wasn’t a question that needed to be asked. It was an obvious conversation.”

Another Empire State lawmaker who spoke with Hillary during a blitz of Clinton phone calls on Monday said she "revealed she felt pressure to formally jump into the 2008 White House race sooner rather than later because other candidates are becoming increasingly active,” the Post reported.

Rep. Joe Crowley, a Democrat from Queens, spoke with Clinton on Monday and was convinced she’s going to be in the race.

"She just let me know that what I’d been hearing is true and that she wanted my support and help in any way that I possibly could,” Crowley said.

Clinton also spoke with the Rev. Al Sharpton, Westchester County Democrat Nita Lowey and supermarket mogul John Catsimatidis, a major donor, the Post reported.

Said Catsimatidis: "She wants to get together before the holidays.” 

Conservative Jewish Group OKs Gay Rabbis

Leaders of the Conservative Jewish movement opened the door Wednesday to the ordination of gay rabbis and the recognition of gay marriage, but made it clear the more orthodox in the faith may go on opposing such liberalization.

"We as a movement see the advocacy of pluralism and we know that people come to different conclusions," said Rabbi Kassel Abelson, speaking for the 25-member Rabbinical Assembly Committee on Jewish Law and Standards which issued a series of advisory reports.

"These . . . are accepted as guides so that the gays and lesbians can be welcomed into our congregation and communities and made to feel accepted," he added.

The statements issued by the committee are not binding on congregations or seminaries. One said openly gay people should be allowed as rabbis and that "committed gay relationships" can be recognized but not blessed. That statement also retained the prohibition in the Torah (the Five Books of Moses) against male homosexual intercourse.

In a separate vote the group also upheld a 1992 statement that advises against gay ordinations and the recognition of same-sex marriages. The result is a mixed approach that will allow both liberals and the more orthodox in the movement to pursue whichever policies they prefer.

With so much left to the institutions' and congregations' discretion, the issue was likely to go on stirring controversy in the movement.

Four members of the committee resigned after the statements were issued, saying they opposed the methods used to reach the conclusions in the paper liberalizing gay rabbis.

There are perhaps 6 million Jews in the United States, only about a third of them affiliated with a congregation. Of those who do attend synagogue 38 percent are Reform, 33 percent Conservative and 22 percent Orthodox, according to one survey.

The Conservative movement holds the middle ground between liberalism and orthodoxy and the gay issue is a matter of division within it, as is the case with many other faiths.

Rabbi Jerome Epstein of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism in New York, asked what backing the two differing views might have, said: "Based on the e-mails and phone calls we have been receiving my guess is that it's very close to an even split at the moment."

Rabbi Elliot Dorff of the University of Judaism in Los Angeles said each of the rabbinical schools would hold their own discussions on the papers accepted by the council.

"I imagine each of the seminaries will handle it differently," he said. ""My guess is that within the next several weeks we will be announcing that our rabbinical school will be open to gays and lesbians because we have already had this discussion"

Rabbi Joel Meyers, executive vice president of the Rabbinical Assembly, said rabbis who so desire could start performing commitment ceremonies recognizing gay relationships immediately. 

Bloomberg Blasts Bolton Opposition

 New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg called the move to block the Senate confirmation of John Bolton as America’s ambassador to the U.N. a "cheap political stunt on the part of a handful of people."

Bloomberg also declared that the holdup of Bolton's confirmation, which led him to resign Monday, was a "disgrace" and "an outrage," and said "countries like America and Israel will suffer because they won't have John Bolton there."

Bloomberg told reporters on Tuesday: "John Bolton was a guy that was standing up and trying to change the United Nations in ways that would make it a lot more responsible.

"Hopefully the president can find someone else with the same skills that will get through the Congress.”

The Bolton nomination had been stalled in committee since March 2005. President Bush bypassed the Senate and temporarily installed Bolton in August 2005.

Bloomberg was not the only potential 2008 presidential candidate to voice an opinion about Bolton’s resignation, the New York Sun reported.

Senator John McCain of Arizona called the resignation a "deep disappointment."

He said: "His resignation is less a commentary on Mr. Bolton than on the state of affairs in the U.S. Senate.”

McCain added that by blocking a vote on Bolton on the Senate floor, Democrats on the Foreign Relations Committee "have deprived America of the right man at the right time at the U.N."

Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s communications director, Eric Fehrnstrom, said the governor also was "deeply disappointed."

On the Democratic side, Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts said Bolton's resignation "offers a chance to turn the page at a critical period,” stating on his Web site: "We need a United Nations ambassador who has the full support of Congress."

Sen. Hillary Clinton’s office did not return calls for comment from the Sun on Tuesday.

Jerry Springer Ends Liberal Radio Show

Jerry Springer has ended his syndicated radio show after nearly two years, saying he's too busy with other projects that developed after his stint on ABC's "Dancing With the Stars."

Springer made no mention in the opening minutes Tuesday that the show would be his last, instead launching into a critique of what he called President Bush's "runaway presidency that has so destabilized the Middle East while at the same time endangering America."

Later, he joked with his "Team Springer" sidekicks, saying he hoped they found jobs, and told one caller he might consider running for office someday.

Although it was the last of his live shows, reruns will be aired the rest of the week while he gets ready for his daughter's wedding Saturday, Springer said.

Springer said it was the wedding that led him to go on "Dancing With the Stars," so he could learn to waltz with Katie. He became an audience favorite, and that led to many other business opportunities, he said.

"These things are not going to come around again, particularly at my age, so I might as well take advantage of them," Springer, 62, said.

Springer said he is filming a Bud Light commercial next week, has been asked to play a recurring character on the ABC sitcom "George Lopez" and in February will play a rabbi in the movie "God Only Knows."

"Radio is a full-time job, and I honestly don't devote the time that I should to radio," he said. "I can't do the job if I'm not going to do it seriously."

Springer, a former mayor and news anchor in Cincinnati, began TV's "Jerry Springer Show" in Cincinnati in 1991, later moving production to Chicago. He started the daily radio show in Cincinnati in January 2005, saying he would bring unabashed liberal views to talk radio.

Syndication peaked at 53 stations, and remained at about two dozen in its final week. 

Aide: Jimmy Carter 'Invented Segments' for Book

A longtime aide to Jimmy Carter has resigned from the Carter Center think tank, calling the former president's new book on Israel and the Arabs one-sided and filled with errors.

Kenneth Stein, the Carter Center's first executive director and founder of its Middle East program, sent a letter that bluntly criticized the book to Carter and others.

Stein wrote that the book, "Palestine: Peace, Not Apartheid," was replete with factual errors, material copied from other sources and "simply invented segments," according to an excerpt of the letter published by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Deanna Congileo, Carter's spokeswoman, said the former president stands by the book.

Stein, who is also director of the Institute for the Study of Modern Israel at Emory University, did not immediately return a call Wednesday.

Carter issued a brief statement saying that Stein had not been actively involved with the center for more than 12 years and was not involved with the new book. Carter did not directly address Stein's allegations.

It is not the first time Carter and Stein have disagreed over Middle East policy, said Douglas Brinkley, a professor of history at Tulane University and the author of the 1988 Carter biography, "The Unfinished Presidency."

"They've never been on the same page in the Middle East. They've been in an almost constant state of disagreement," Brinkley said. Stein "doesn't trust the Palestinians as much as Carter."

Brinkley said he has read Carter's new book but would not address Stein's accusations. 

Rabbis Reconsider Gay Sex

A panel of 25 Conservative rabbis is meeting next week in New York to discuss whether homosexual sex is permitted under Jewish law.

The discussion will center around five proposed teshuvot, or answers, to questions regarding homosexuality.

Two answers reportedly uphold the traditional position from the Bible: "Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; it is an abomination” – which prohibits homosexuality between men and, by extension, between women.

But the other three answers argue for a reinterpretation of that prohibition, and "on a practical level, they could open the way for Conservative rabbis to perform same-sex commitment ceremonies and for Conservative seminaries to ordain openly gay rabbis,” the Washington Post reports.

The Conservative movement has about 2 million members worldwide, and occupies a position between Orthodox and Reform Judaism. Advance word is that the panel – the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards – will approve conflicting answers. That’s possible because the votes of just 6 of the 25 panel members are required to declare an answer valid.

In any case, whatever decision the panel reaches will be only advisory, according to the Post. In the Conservative movement, each rabbi can decide which point of view to follow in his or her synagogue.

But the panel’s decision will be important for the future of the Conservative movement, which has seen its numbers dwindle in the U.S. in recent decades.

Jonathan Sarna, a professor of American Jewish history at Brandeis University, told the Post that the "movement as a while will be able to say that it is in the center and, more important, that there is more than one way to be a Jew . . .

"The Democratic Party did pretty well with that big-tent strategy in this past election, and my sense is there is a lesson there for a centrist movement that is struggling to appeal to younger people.”