Head of Conservative Rabbis Asks Help of Orthodox in Combating Secular Tide

In an unprecedented appearance, the leader of the nation’s Conservative rabbis told a convention of Orthodox rabbis this week that they must work together to stem the tide of Jewish assimilation into an increasingly secularized culture.

“Despite our differences in ideology, and for the sake of the Jewish people, we must work more closely together,” said Rabbi Alexander M. Shapiro, president of the Rabbinical Assembly, the international body of Conservative rabbis.

He appeared before the Rabbinical Council of America, the leading Orthodox rabbinical organization. It was the first time a Conservative leader has officially delivered a major talk at an Orthodox rabbinic meeting.

Rabbinical Meeting

Shapiro’s remarks were made at the Rabbinical Council’s convention in Spring Glen, N.Y. A text of his remarks was made available in Washington.

The Conservative leader told the Orthodox that “for the survival of Judaism in our time” a common approach must be made to those who are “turned off to religious Judaism” by the theological bickering among its three major branches.

“What becomes profoundly disturbing is the degree to which over the course of the ages there has existed among us quarrelsomeness and divisiveness that brings only tragedy to the Jewish people,” Shapiro said.

“In the long run, in order for Judaism to survive in America, there must be an outreach to all of the disaffected and the alienated, to all those thirsty for the word of God, even if we interpret that word in a different way,” he said. “For we know well that the secularists outnumber us both by far.”

Issue of Identity

Shapiro stressed that working together does not mean Orthodox “approval of any doctrines practiced by either Conservative or Reform Judaism.”

However, it is precisely on the issue of outreach and Jewish identity that much of the current and often bitter division between the three groups--the Reform as well as the Conservative and Orthodox--takes place.

Rabbi Louis Bernstein, president of the Orthodox group, has defined the differences between Orthodox and non-Orthodox Judaism as centering on those Jewish laws governing marriage, divorce and conversion.

The Orthodox are especially upset at Reform Judaism’s practice of determining Jewish identity in a mixed marriage on the basis of “patrilineal descent”--the faith of a person’s father. Orthodox Jews use the mother’s faith as the determining factor.

Conservative Definition

On the identity issue, Shapiro noted that the Conservative rabbinate overwhelmingly supports the traditional concept that Jewish identity stems only from the mother.

But he said Orthodox threats to totally cut off relations with the Reform movement over the issue will not resolve the differences.

“The way to prevail upon our Reform brothers and sisters to take another look at patrilinealism . . . is not by calling down upon them the wrath of God,” he said. “The way to make your case is not to withdraw from boards of rabbis or the Synagogue Council of America. You cannot do so and still have a viable religious community, which we need desperately.”