Reform Rabbis Will Consider Return to Kosher Dietary Laws

Are Reform Jews ready to go kosher? The most liberal branch of Judaism has prided itself for a full century on not following Orthodox practices of dress, rituals and dietary laws as one way of providing Jews with a framework for their faith in harmony with modern culture.

However, Rabbi Richard N. Levy of Encino, president of the national body of Reform rabbis, is urging colleagues to see the rise of traditional spirituality in Reform synagogues as setting the stage for a new appreciation of kashrut, or dietary laws.

“We are going to have a consultation by the summer on Reform approaches to kashrut--the first time officially there has ever been such a gathering in the Reform movement,” said Levy at a recent meeting of the Southern California Board of Rabbis.

Levy acknowledged that tensions exist between tradition-leaning Reform rabbis such as himself and colleagues who regard the trend unhappily as “returning to Orthodoxy.”

Yet, Levy’s election in June as president of the 1,800-member Central Conference of American Rabbis gave him a chance over the next two years to urge new responses to spiritual yearnings by liberal Jews while retaining Reform Judaism’s social concerns and penchant for religious innovation.

Describing his goals as CCAR president in a Reform journal, Levy wrote that he hoped that “keeping kosher” by Reform Jews will not be limited to the traditional avoidance of pork, lobster and shellfish, or insisting on kosher methods of animal slaughter for meat.

“A Reform embrace of kashrut might ban veal” because veal comes from calves that “are cruelly penned in and fattened,” he said.

Already, Levy said in an interview, some Jewish vegetarians tie their practice to a biblical admonition against harming animals, and some other Reform Jews “don’t eat foods produced by people who work under oppressive conditions”--a step that was more pronounced during the table-grape and lettuce boycotts years ago to support the United Farm Workers Union.

“My hope is to bring together all ethical and ritual considerations in dietary laws and see if we can come up with recommendations for Reform Jews who want to experience the holy in eating and buying habits,” Levy said. He is suggesting a new appreciation for kashrut along with other Reform adaptations of Jewish law, he said.

There have always been some Reform Jews who personally choose to keep a kosher home, or refuse to drive on the Sabbath, or wear a yarmulke all day long, said Reform Rabbi Lawrence Goldmark, president of the Southern California Board of Rabbis. Thus, Levy’s recommendation that more Reform Jews embrace tradition “is not earthshaking,” Goldmark said.

Nevertheless, Goldmark, who is rabbi of Temple Beth Ohr in La Mirada, said that Levy has a good platform for his ideas.

Levy is executive director of the Los Angeles Hillel Council, which oversees college groups for Jewish students. In his 22 years in that post, Levy has become not only “a respected expert in liturgy,” admired for writing a series of student-oriented prayer books, but also is a distinctive choice to head Reform’s rabbinical body.

He is the first West Coast rabbi to be elected president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis. In a move that brought the leadership of two of the three main branches of Judaism to the Los Angeles area, Rabbi David Lieber, president emeritus of the University of Judaism in the Sepulveda Pass, currently serves as national president of Conservative Judaism’s Rabbinical Assembly.

Goldmark said that Levy is probably the first noncongregational rabbi in 75 years to hold the CCAR post. “Half of the rabbis in the CCAR are not in pulpits, but it is usually the senior rabbi of a big congregation who is elected president,” Goldmark said.

Levy joined the UCLA Hillel Council in 1968 and was its director until 1975, when he became the regional director for Hillel Councils.

Rabbi Jonathan Omer-Man, now a much-sought-after teacher of traditional Jewish meditation in Los Angeles, praised Levy as “a visionary leader” who first sponsored his work with young Jews in 1981 when concern was high over the lure of Eastern cults.

Levy, 50, is married to Carol Levy, a longtime worker in Jewish community organizations before becoming executive director of the American Jewish Congress’ Pacific Southwest Region last year.

“We do keep a kosher home, a decision we made in our marriage,” said Carol Levy.

“Not to speak for Richard, but I think there is a generation of young people to whom kashrut will resonate,” she said, citing the care some people take about their cholesterol and salt intake. “It can go beyond health to a spiritual dimension.”

Levy said the Reform wing of Judaism was founded in the 19th century when optimism was high for progress toward universal freedom in an advanced society, and Jews wished to change the insular Judaism of Europe to bring it into line with modern ways of life and with a greater emphasis on social goals.

But to many Jews, contemporary society is more threatening and pedestrian than uplifting, Levy said.

A minimal Judaism--one Friday night a month, two High Holy days and one Passover seder a year, and some religious classes--”will be powerless against the assault on the spirit and intellect mounted by so much of American culture at the end of the 20th century,” Levy wrote in the fall issue of the journal Reform Judaism.

“Our cause is no longer what it was a century ago--to reform Judaism,” he said. “It must now be, I believe, to reform Jews.”