Dispute Among Jews a Threat to Premier’s Visit

As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepares for a visit to the United States next month, a simmering controversy over the role of non-Orthodox Jews is again threatening to erupt here that could set off a new crisis with American Jews.

Leaders of the Reform and Conservative movements, who represent a tiny minority in Israel but are the majority among American Jews, reacted with alarm this week to reports that Netanyahu will back legislation that strengthens Orthodox control over religious affairs in Israel. The legislation would also keep the liberal branches of Judaism from gaining official recognition.

As a result, they said they will probably revive court challenges to the Orthodox monopoly.

“Netanyahu is facing a moment of truth,” said Rabbi Uri Regev, a leader of the Reform movement in Israel. “If he goes forward with this legislation, it will be seen by American Jews as de-legitimizing their movements and their Jewish identity, and we will go back to court.”

But Orthodox Jewish lawmakers, whose 23 votes in the Israeli parliament are enough to topple Netanyahu’s government, say he must honor an earlier promise to formalize Orthodox control over conversions to Judaism, unless an acceptable compromise can be found.

That is considered unlikely.

The latest trouble began this week when Orthodox rabbis rejected a reported compromise under which the liberal movements would gain a limited role in controlling religious affairs here. The rejection, along with Netanyahu’s subsequent pledges to Orthodox legislators, appeared to set the stage for a showdown in Israel and abroad.

In a meeting Tuesday with six Orthodox legislators, Netanyahu agreed that the government will introduce a law to prevent Reform and Conservative representatives from sitting on local religious councils. The councils oversee such religious services as the operation of synagogues and the certification of kosher food.

He also pledged to push for passage of a law that would institutionalize the practice in Israel of giving Orthodox rabbis the exclusive right to perform conversions to Judaism. The monopoly allows Orthodox leaders to define who is a Jew and determine which converts qualify for Israeli citizenship.

The proposal would not affect conversions abroad, which are recognized by the state of Israel but not by its Orthodox rabbinate. Nevertheless, it has enraged American Jews, many of whom believe that it relegates them to the status of “second-class Jews.”

In the U.S., opinions were predictably divided. Orthodox Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein of the Rabbinical Council of California said the issue has never been who is a Jew. “The issue is who is a rabbi, an issue magnified out of proportion by the [Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist] rabbinate here who wish to establish a foothold for their kind of Judaism in a country that doesn’t want too much of it.”

Reform Rabbi Harvey J. Fields of Wilshire Boulevard Temple said the legislation “threatens in a most serious way the unity of the Jewish people.”

In June 1996, Netanyahu enticed several small religious parties to join his coalition, in part by promising to pass the conversion bill. But this summer he put the legislation on hold, averting a crisis with Jews worldwide by appointing a committee, headed by Finance Minister Yaacov Neeman, an Orthodox Jew, to search for a compromise.

Parts of the committee’s proposed solution, leaked this week, were immediately rejected by the Orthodox. The committee reportedly suggested setting up an institute, which would include Reform and Conservative representatives, to prepare candidates for conversion. According to committee members, it also proposed allowing Conservative and Reform rabbis to perform weddings, as long as the ceremonies were supervised by Orthodox rabbis.

Rabbi Avraham Ravitz, an Orthodox legislator, said such ideas are untenable. “We have thought from the beginning that this committee would not achieve anything serious,” Ravitz said. “Judaism is a religion with absolute ideas, and we cannot accept these things.”

Ravitz said Netanyahu has agreed to proceed almost immediately with the religious councils legislation and to move forward with the conversion bill by mid-November if Neeman’s committee does not produce a compromise acceptable to all sides.

In the meantime, the prime minister will try to keep committee members talking in the hope of finding a formula to satisfy everyone, said Bobby Brown, Netanyahu’s advisor on Diaspora affairs.

But even Brown sounded doubtful. “We have every intention of continuing this, but it’s been tough since the beginning. What we’re looking for is goodwill and a drop of understanding on all sides. Sometimes we don’t find that,” he said.

Regev, the Reform leader, said his movement is not yet discounting any chance for compromise but said the Orthodox reaction to the Neeman proposals made it appear nearly impossible.

“This indicates that a solution based on their goodwill is bound to fail,” he said. “But we are leaving the door open to any compromise that we can live with--not one that is an outright de-legitimization of Reform and Conservative Jews.”

He said the movement will press ahead with its court cases.

But if the disputes go back to court, Brown said, Netanyahu’s government will support the Orthodox legislation. “The government feels that either litigation or legislation could cause tremendous damage to world Jewry,” he said. “We prefer neither of those, but if the status quo is threatened, we will have to go forward.”

Brown and other Netanyahu aides acknowledged that the timing of the latest clash over conversion--just before Netanyahu’s expected visit to Washington--could hardly be worse.

Details of the trip have not been worked out. But a spokesman said the Israeli leader is tentatively scheduled to arrive in the United States in the first or second week of November and meet with President Clinton about how to advance the peace process.

Netanyahu is also scheduled to address a major convention of American Jewish organizations Nov. 16 in Indianapolis, a visit that could prove problematic if the conversion issue is not resolved.

“Obviously, there is room for concern here,” senior advisor David Bar-Illan said Wednesday. “The last thing the Israeli government wants at this point is a rift with American Jewry over conversions.”

Times religion writer Larry B. Stammer in Los Angeles contributed to this report.