The KIT Newsletter, an Activity of the KIT InformationService, a Project of The Peregrine Foundation
P.O. Box 460141 / San Francisco, CA 94146-0141 / telephone: (415) 821-2090 / fax(415) 282-2369KIT Staff U.S.: Ramon Sender, Charles Lamar, Christina Bernard, Vince Lagano,Dave Ostrom;U.K. : Joy Johnson MacDonald, Susan Johnson Suleski, Carol Beels Beck, BenCavanna, Leonard Pavitt, Joanie Pavitt Taylor, Brother Witless (in an advisorycapacity); Europe: Elizabeth Bohlken-Zumpe.The KIT Newsletter is an open forum for fact and opinion. It encourages theexpression of all views, both from within and from outside the Bruderhof. Theopinions expressed in the letters we publish are those of the correspondents and do notnecessarily reflects those of KIT editors or staff.
April 1996 Volume VIII #4-------------- "Keep In Touch" --------------
A not Very Merry April Fool to those of you who have been pining away for the GoodOld Days of April Foolishness! The problem currently is that the truth is funnier thanany silliness we could print, of our own or others. And what with the press of newsfrom the Bruderhof's appearance in Philadelphia, it's hard to allow room for other nonsense. However, for added fun in this issue, we are including an 'irregular' item:the first five readers who can correctly identify the 'not serious' item will receive a prize: one KIT annual or one Carrier Pigeon Press book of their choice. Write downthe title of the item that you think is 'not real' on a postcard and mail it to the addresson the letterhead. To give the overseas folks an even chance, we will add the days before you receive KIT as a 'handicap' to the domestic and Canadian replies. The samewith Internet subscribers. Our judges' decisions are final! And thanks to all those whosubmitted April Fool's items!The 3rd Annual Rocky Gap Reunion for ex-Bruderhofers will be held Friday, May17through Sunday, May 19 (weekend before Memorial Day). family and friends, justeast of Cumberland, Maryland. No program, no agenda, just time well spent with good people! Camp out Friday-Saturday, picnic at noon Sunday. Come for all 3 days, anyday or just the big Sunday picnic! Hiking, singing, swimming, fishing, good food, oldfriends and new. Let's make it our biggest ever (58 nice people last year -- and 2 oldgrumps). Call 800-672-9089 for details!
-----The Whole KIT and Kaboodle-----
-------- Table of Contents --------Item on Philadelphia Hearings
The Philadelphia Daily News
3/26/96
The Philadelphia Inquirer
3/27/96
Page 1 of 43KIT Newsletter April 1996 Volume VIII #428/10/2007http://www.perefound.org/KIT4_96.html
The Philadelphia Inquirer
3/28/96Hans Joerg MeierBette Bohlken-ZumpeLiz Maas PetersChristrose Johnson SumnerMike CaineAlfred De LeoDon Rene BernardTobias Dreher by Evi Dreher PleilItem re sexual abuse lawsuit from InternetJudy Tsukroff - Gossip'"Hope" a poem by Belinda Manley
Norah Allain - Life Story PartDom Giordano's talk show on WWDB FM
Hilarion BraunITEM:
The Bruderhof has formed a new organization called The NationalCommission on Capital Punishment, sponsored by The Bruderhof Foundation and TheRalph E. Chaney Foundation. Here are some excerpts from their brochure:The time has come for a public review which examines the human cost of the practiceof Capital Punishment in the United States. The National Commission will do thisthrough regional hearings, beginning in Philadelphia, PA, on March 25-27. Testimonywill be given by a wide spectrum of people involved in the death penalty.Contributions are requested, with the checks made payable to "The Bruderhof Foundation, Inc., a 501(C)(3) non-profit organization.There has been considerable news about it in the Philadelphia newspapers. Eight of the City Councilors protested the Bruderhof's scheduled use of the Council Chambersin City Hall for the hearings, claiming that the National Commission "lackedlegitimacy." Protests also came from the president of The Fraternal Order of Police,Rich Costello, who was quoted as saying "It's such a farce. That's like a seminar ondrug addiction sponsored by the Colombia drug lords... A genuine debate on themerits of the death penalty is legitimate and it would be proper to hold them, but thisis not a legitimate group." Costello's remarks were rebutted the following day by aletter to the editor from Dean Vincent A. McCarthy of St. Joseph's University inPhiladelphia. "Such cavalier ignorance cannot go unremarked or unchallenged," hewrote. He claimed that the Bruderhof were "Hutterites" dating back to earlyReformation times, and thus only as illegitimate as the Sermon on the Mount and onlyas dangerous as the Quakers. The following articles are excerpted from the
Philadelphia Inquirer
and
Daily News.
click here to return to Table of Contents
The Philadelphia Daily News,
3/26/96:
Page 2 of 43KIT Newsletter April 1996 Volume VIII #428/10/2007http://www.perefound.org/KIT4_96.html
Co-sponsor of Hearing is a Cult by Dave Davies, Daily News Staff Writer They were quiet yesterday. But today, the Fraternal Order of Police will charge that areligious group co-sponsoring death penalty hearings in City Council chambers thisweek is a totalitarian cult whose leader once packed a .44-caliber gun. The Bruderhof,a religious group whose isolated communities and plain clothes evoke images of theAmish, have been the target of increasingly harsh criticism in recent years from agroup of ex-members.Ramon Sender, who left the Bruderhof as a young man in the late '50s, said he began producing an ex-members newsletter after learning in 1988 that his daughter had diedof cancer several months before. Sender said the Bruderhof's strict control over itsmembers prevented him from keeping in touch with his daughter, Xaverie, who livedat a Bruderhof community near Rifkin [sic], N.Y."The average rank and file Bruderhof member is a very idealistic person, verycommitted,'' Sender said yesterday in a telephone interview. "They're very dear people. The problem is the leadership. They're very patriarchal, very controlling, verycult-like. They demand total obedience. There's no tolerance for another point of view.''"A cult?'' Bruderhof member Joe Kieterling [sic] said yesterday. "That's ludicrous.We're anything but.''Kieterling said Ramon Sender had problems within his family because he chose alifestyle his daughter and ex-wife couldn't accept. He said the community does attemptto mediate such problems, but that a small group of angry ex-followers have workedto try to discredit the group. An example of its distortions, he said, is the revelation bya Boston TV station last year that Bruderhof elder Christoph Arnold had bought a .44magnum handgun."That was three years ago. We had a scare of rabid animals near our community,''Kieterling said. "Christoph had someone purchase the firearm. When he saw the sizeof it, he asked him to sell it. It was here for maybe two months.''The Bruderhof began in Germany in the 1920's and has had an association at timeswith the Hutterians, another pacifist strain of Christianity. Unlike the Amish, theBruderhof does not reject modern technology.
click here to return to Table of Contents
The Philadelphia Inquirer,
3/27/96:FOP calls group holding forum on death penalty a devious cult. The Bruderhof is into"mind control,'' said the police union. Meanwhile, a day of testimony was heard.
Page 3 of 43KIT Newsletter April 1996 Volume VIII #428/10/2007http://www.perefound.org/KIT4_96.html
Search History:
Result 00 of 00
00 results for result for
p.
Kit April 1996, Vol Viii #4 New 4-8-96
A not Very Merry April Fool to those of you who have been pining away for the Good Old Days of April Foolishness! The problem currently is that the truth is funnier than any silliness we could print, of our own or others.
126
Reads
0
Readcasts
0
Embed Views
More From This User
Notes
Load more
