Leader of U.S. Reform Jews Assails Netanyahu

In an open challenge to the Israeli government, the president of the largest wing of Judaism in the United States assailed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Los Angeles on Friday, accusing him of a failure of leadership that has led to growing tensions in the Middle East.

Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie, president of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations--the synagogue arm of the 1.5-million-member Reform Jewish movement--also complained that Netanyahu has failed to stand up to “utterly fanatic” ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel who, Yoffie charged, have brought Judaism into contempt at a time when religious commitment is needed to counter “relentless and aggressive secularism.”

Yoffie’s biting criticisms--in remarks prepared for delivery before the annual meeting of the union’s national board of trustees--marked the first time that so prominent an American Jewish leader has publicly challenged the six-month-old Netanyahu administration on such a broad front.

Although leaders in the Reform movement have generally leaned toward the opposition Labor Party’s peace policies, they remained discreetly silent during--and after--last year’s hotly contested Israeli elections that saw Netanyahu narrowly defeat Labor candidate Shimon Peres.

But Yoffie said in an interview before his Los Angeles speech that it was time to end the Netanyahu administration’s honeymoon because the prime minister’s policies threatened the peace process.

“What Israel’s government has given us is inflammatory statements by the prime minister and expansion of [Jewish] settlements; it has also given us uncertain relations with the United States and growing tension with the most moderate elements in the Arab world, including King Hussein [of Jordan], a traditional Netanyahu ally,” Yoffie said in the remarks prepared for delivery at Wilshire Boulevard Temple.

Earlier this month, Netanyahu approved construction of hundreds of homes in the occupied Jordan Valley in the West Bank only days after Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak warned that expansion of Jewish settlements threatened to “destroy” relations between Israel and its Arab neighbors.

Netanyahu has also said his government will expand Israeli communities in the Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria during the 1967 Six-Day War.

Yoffie said in his speech that Netanyahu’s decisions are especially “troubling” because it is a critical time in the peace process, with military planners expecting nuclear weapons to proliferate in the Middle East within 10 years. Israel is believed to have such weapons already.

“Yes, the Palestinian national movement is one of the ugliest and stupidest national movements in all of modern history,” Yoffie said. But with the Palestinians having lost their major sponsor with the collapse of the Soviet Union, he said, the major military threat to Israel--and moderate Arab states--now comes from Iran and Iraq.

“This means that Israel needs to renew and strengthen her peace with Jordan and Egypt, and to extend peaceful relations to an increasing circle of Middle Eastern countries,” Yoffie said.

Yoffie said he did not know if Netanyahu would be “astute enough” to change course. Though Israeli officials pay close attention to the mood of American Jewish leaders--who help raise funds for the Jewish state and lobby the U.S. government to provide military and other aid--the Reform leader complained that Netanyahu has not adequately consulted his wing.

Yoffie said his Los Angeles speech was intended to “sound the alarm” over other issues as well, including the secularization of Israel.

Yoffie said the Jewish community in North America has long tended to concentrate on issues of security and politics. But “there is a greater religious crisis out there and Israel is part of that crisis,” he said.

He accused Netanyahu of a “failure of leadership” by not standing up to the twin threats that Yoffie says are posed by ultra-Orthodox Jews and rampant secularism.

“Most of Israel seems to be in the grip of a relentless and aggressive secularism,” he said, awash in the “less attractive elements of American culture” such as soap operas, video arcades and pop music.

“When you walk past the Tel Aviv McDonald’s on Friday night [the Jewish Sabbath], and observe throngs of Israeli teens, you cannot help but wonder if this is Israel’s future,” Yoffie said.

He said an Israel that forgets its religious heritage--by embracing a “Torah-free Judaism”--has no staying power.

But Yoffie said “utterly fanatic” Orthodoxy is not the answer.

He complained that more than 100,000 Russian immigrants who are Israeli citizens are unable to marry because their Judaism is not recognized by the ultra-Orthodox rabbinate. Tens of thousands of Russian Jews would like to convert, he said, but the Orthodox rabbinate permits barely 400 conversions per year. And almost 10,000 women who want divorces cannot get them because divorce is also controlled by the rabbinate and women in Israel cannot divorce without the consent of their husbands.

Yoffie charged that Netanyahu, who he said is not personally religious, has done nothing to stem the ultra-Orthodox rabbinate’s legal monopoly on religious affairs.

“Even if he could do nothing practical for us, an enlightened voice from Israel’s highest-ranking elected official would have set the tone for tolerance and the possibility of change,” Yoffie said.

“The greatest tragedy of all is that the ultra-Orthodox have caused an entire generation of Israelis to view Judaism with contempt. They have abused Torah for their own selfish purposes, and brought it into disrepute.

“Let us be clear,” Yoffie said, “religious coercion distorts the essence of Judaism; it insults our history; it mocks the ideals of freedom and liberty for which a Jewish society must stand. Above all, it sullies the banner of Torah, and compromises Israel’s appeal to the idealism of young Jews everywhere.”