Highlighting the tensions between Jewish movements over the question of homosexuality, the Orthodox Agudath Israel of America and the Union for Reform Judaism are trading barbs over a lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender mission to Jerusalem sponsored by the United Jewish Communities, a New York-based fund-raising organization.

That group’s Web site says: “Hundreds of members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities in North America will travel to Israel this summer on the United Jewish Communities Pride in Israel Mission, August 14 to 21, one of the first-ever missions of its kind and scope.” Participants are to visit Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

The prospect of expressing gay pride in Judaism’s holy city has sparked outrage at the Agudah, where homosexuality is considered a flagrant violation of Talmudic law and thousands of years of Jewish tradition. To celebrate the contravening of God’s law in so sacred a location, the organization said in a press release, “will cause deep sorrow and pain to large segments of Jerusalem’s populace.”

“It’s outrageous,” the director of public affairs at the Agudah, Rabbi Avi Shafran, told The New York Sun. “It should not be allowed to happen without vehement protest.”

Rabbi Shafran said he thought the event’s organizers and the gay community had selected Jerusalem as a venue intentionally to provoke outrage among Orthodox Jews there. “It’s something that’s essentially thumbing their nose, spitting on the native population,” he said.

Rabbi Shafran and the Agudah are also upset by the support the trip has garnered from other movements within Judaism, reserving their most pointed criticism for the Union of Reform Judaism, which has endorsed the UJC Pride Mission.

To Rabbi Shafran, the Union of Reform Judaism and its allies supporting WorldPride have formed an “unholy alliance” and are “taking a profoundly un-Jewish position, while doing it in the name of Judaism.”

The Reform group, for its part, has labeled Orthodox opposition to the WorldPride event “fear, hatred, and homophobia,” saying the Torah teaches acceptance for all people, including homosexuals.

The president of the Union of Reform Judaism, Rabbi Eric Yoffie, said opposition from the Agudath Israel of America and other Orthodox leaders should not be allowed to deprive gay and lesbian Jews of their “fundamental rights” to demonstrate in Jerusalem. The argument put forth by Rabbi Shafran – that it was insensitive to Orthodox Jews and members of other faiths that oppose homosexuality and consider Jerusalem a holy city – was “not an argument one can take seriously,” Rabbi Yoffie said.