Southland Rabbis Express Mixed Feelings on Israeli Leader’s Visit

A ranking Israeli cabinet member on the front line of efforts to end the “who is a Jew” controversy wrapped up a five-day mission to the United States on Wednesday that left Jewish leaders here uncertain over progress.

Finance Minister Yaakov Neeman emerged from a closed meeting of the Southern California Board of Rabbis to say that he was “encouraged” that many U.S. Jewish leaders want to press forward in efforts to win official recognition of non-Orthodox streams of Judaism in Israel.

For their part, Los Angeles leaders said Wednesday that despite a major setback in negotiations last week in Israel, there is far less acrimony among Jews now than there was nine months ago when negotiations opened.

Moreover, they said that although they are far from satisfied--and in some cases are still angry at developments--they are taking some hope that Reform and Conservative branches of Judaism are slowly establishing their legitimacy in Israel on the eve of that country’s 50th anniversary.

The rancorous dispute has pitted Orthodox Jewry against the more liberal Reform and Conservative streams and threatened a major breach between Israel and the Jewish diaspora in the United States, most of whose members are not Orthodox. At the heart of the dispute are daunting theological differences, including whether ancient Jewish religious law always applies in the contemporary world--as the Orthodox insist--or whether a child born of a Jewish father and a Gentile mother is just as Jewish as a child born to a Jewish mother, as the Reform movement holds.

These and other differences have come to be focused on the pivotal issue of conversion. Currently, only conversions made under the auspices of Orthodox rabbis and Halacha, or Jewish law as the Orthodox interpret it, are considered valid in Israel. The same goes for religious marriages, divorces and funerals.

But the more liberal Reform and Conservative movements--which predominate in the United States but are a minority in Israel--have pressed for recognition of their legitimacy to undertake conversions in Israel.

For the past eight months, a commission appointed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and headed by Neeman has attempted to break the impasse. But last week, when a solution seemed at hand, a key commission recommendation was all but rejected by the Chief Rabbinical Council, an Orthodox body.

The recommendation called for the creation of an Institute for Jewish Studies under the auspices of the Jewish Agency, in which non-Orthodox as well as Orthodox rabbis could participate in the religious education of prospective converts. The chief rabbinate rejected that idea while accepting a second commission proposal--leaving the actual conversion in the hands of Orthodox rabbis.

Despite the setback, liberal Jewish leaders said Wednesday at a news conference called by the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles that progress has been made, although it is far from satisfactory from the liberal perspective.

“There’s a growing legitimacy of Reform and Conservative movements precisely because the Orthodox are now willing to talk and say we’re part of the process,” said Rabbi Aaron Kriegel of Temple Ner Maarav in Encino, a Conservative synagogue. “The news is that down the road there is a light. We can see the light at the end of the tunnel.”

As Neeman met with about 60 rabbis and other Jewish leaders, the mood was respectful, according to some of those in attendance. But some of Neeman’s remarks did not sit well with some, particularly his opposition to three things: intermarriage, the blessing of same-sex unions and the assertion that a child born of a Jewish father and non-Jewish mother could be considered Jewish.

“He certainly was a man without any charm who thought because he was a member of the Knesset [Israeli parliament] that he had the power over the American rabbinate, if there was an American rabbinate,” said Kriegel.

Nonetheless, most rabbis and others were circumspect. To some of them, the fact that the Reform and Conservative movements were represented on the Neeman commission at all showed progress.

Another positive sign is Neeman’s assertion that 80 of 120 members of the Knesset are prepared to endorse a resolution backing the Neeman commission report.