Missouri names 'Heschel Highway'

The Missouri Legislature adjourned last Friday without passing a resolution that would have led to a statewide vote to amend the Constitution to provide a "right to pray" in public places.(See related story and editorial, published by The Chronicle May 8)

However, the legislators did pass a bill meant to tweak the Springfield chapter of the neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement. According to a report in Sunday's Springfield News-Leader, Rep. Sara Lampe (D-Springfield) got an amendment added to a transportation bill designating a portion of West Bypass from Farm Road 142 to West Sunshine as the "Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel Memorial Highway."

That was the portion of roadway the NSM'ers "adopted" last fall by pledging to regularly pick up litter there. Signs marking such "adoptions" are then erected by the state Department of Transportation. The DOT didn't think it could turn down the NSM request without infringing on the group's First Amendment rights.

So Lampe introduced her bill after seeking input from local Jewish groups as to a Jewish civil rights figure to honor. Rabbi Heschel marched with Martin Luther King Jr. in the famous Selma, Ala., demonstration in 1965.

The Jewish Community Relations Bureau/American Jewish Committee suggested Rabbi Heschel and has agreed to pay for the new signage.

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