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The cacophony of voices offering strong opinions on whether the ground zero mosque ought to be built — from New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg (who is in favor) to Sarah Palin and Abraham Foxman (who are opposed) — fails to include the most important voices of all, that of the victims’ families. Ultimately, theirs is the opinion that really matters.

More than being a shrine to the greatest terror attack against the United States in history, ground zero is a burial ground.

Thousands of bodies that were incinerated in jet fuel–fired heat and were never recovered are part of the very ground and air of the place, and it is utterly inappropriate to build anything on that cemetery without the consent of the families. The very first thing the mayor of New York and the Islamic organizers of the $100 million project ought to do is canvass the families.

But having established that my opinion, as well as every other non-family commentator, is secondary, I have to say how absurd the debate on the mosque has become.

Should a 13-story Islamic mosque and cultural center be built two blocks from ground zero, part of the hallowed ground where nearly 3,000 people were killed by Islamic extremists? (Editor’s note: a New York City commission this week voted 9-0 to not grant historic protection to the building currently at that location, on Park Place near the corner of West Broadway, clearing the way for the mosque to be built.)

Yes, but only if one of its principal focuses is a museum dedicated to the atrocity that took place on 9/11 with a heavy educational emphasis on a repudiation of Islamic extremism.

Such a museum, built by Muslims, would incorporate a modern history of those who have abused Islam for hate-filled purposes — including the hijackers themselves — and museum-style educational exhibitions highlighting how both the Koran and Islam utterly dismiss such hate-filled interpretations of the Islamic faith.

If the mosque organizers were to place a museum of this nature in the middle of the cultural center, it would, I assume, be welcomed by the families of the victims and the residents of New York.

And in truth I am astonished that the mosque organizers haven’t thought of this themselves. After all, the modern-design cultural center is set to incorporate a swimming pool and a 500-seat auditorium. Could the organizers be so insensitive as to ignore the elephant in the room and not address the murders that took place in the name of Islam just two blocks away?

Imagine if BP, in an effort to bolster its PR, decided to build a BP information center on a beach in Louisiana that focused on its global operations, research into cleaner energy, safety procedures and even global philanthropy — without a mention of the BP oil spill or the 11 oil rig workers who were killed 50 miles offshore. Would the effort produce anything but anger? Would it serve to advance the interests of BP, or to reinforce the public’s impressions of a global behemoth that puts profits before people?

The mosque organizers at ground zero risk reinforcing a growing international impression of Islamic insensitivity if they proceed with an Islamic center that refuses, as its primary goal, to hallow the memories of the 3,000 innocent people who were martyred on 9/11.

In the Jewish religion we raise our children with the awareness that wearing a yarmulke on their heads automatically anoints them as ambassadors of the faith. How they behave both in public and in private will reflect either positively or negatively on their tradition.

If you claim to be a religious Jew but are not honest in business — even if you keep all the Jewish rituals like Sabbath observance and eating kosher — you have brought the religion into disrepute. It is a sensitivity that I urge my Muslim brothers and sisters to embrace.

There can be no higher honor for a religious man or woman than to add luster to their faith through their humane and sensitive dealings with all whom they encounter. Conversely, there can be no greater insult to the religion than to behave inhumanely while claiming to live by a higher spiritual and moral code.

The mosque organizers have an opportunity to reverse a growing mainstream impression: that Islam knows how to take offense to perceived slights, but at the same time is unaware that what it’s dishing out is being perceived as bullying behavior.

Americans are a good-natured, tolerant and loving people. Religion flourishes in the U.S. as in no other nation on earth. The idea of women being banned from wearing a burqa or the hijab in the United States, as is the growing trend in Western Europe and especially in France, is inconceivable here. Why alienate such a fair-minded people by unilaterally deciding that a mosque be built in a place of profound U.S. tragedy and pain?

I am a religious Jew who has deep respect and affection for my Muslim brothers and sisters. I decry all forms of religious bigotry and intolerance, and on my radio show in New York, whenever a caller defames Islam as an evil religion, I respond forcefully with the history of Islam as a faith that for many centuries was progressive and tolerant, with a strong emphasis on education and even women’s rights when these things were largely unknown in medieval Christian Europe.

But there can be little question that in our time the public face of Islam is becoming one of intolerance and hate. And it is a tragedy for the hundreds of millions of decent, peace-loving and God-fearing Muslims who are being unfairly grouped together with hate-filled extremists.

How can Islam be rescued from that growing darkness? By having Muslims serve as public ambassadors of a faith that, rather than imposing itself on families who are still mourning relatives killed in the most brutal manner, works with them to perpetuate the memory of those they lost.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach is the founder of This World: the Values Network. This column first appeared on www.shmuley.com.