NEWS STORY: Compromise sought in Israeli”who is a Jew”debate

c. 1997 Religion News Service JERUSALEM _ Reform movement leaders in Israel have offered to freeze a case pending before the nation’s high court dealing with the controversial”who is a Jew”issue if Orthodox rabbis and politicians open a dialogue with them and delay efforts to pass legislation granting Orthodox rabbis absolute control over conversions in […]

c. 1997 Religion News Service

JERUSALEM _ Reform movement leaders in Israel have offered to freeze a case pending before the nation’s high court dealing with the controversial”who is a Jew”issue if Orthodox rabbis and politicians open a dialogue with them and delay efforts to pass legislation granting Orthodox rabbis absolute control over conversions in Israel.

A leading politician in Israel’s National Religious Party said Thursday (June 5) his party would be willing to dialogue _ if the Reform movement does indeed freeze its court case.”We are willing to delay the passage of the law and to start an open dialogue with them (Reform and Conservative leaders) and also their rabbis,”NRP leader Hanan Porath told RNS.”The NRP will have no problem in sitting down with the Reform movement,”Porath said.”We aren’t boycotting them. We are willing to open a dialogue with everyone in Israel.” The gestures toward compromise are the latest in a long series of maneuvers and counter-maneuvers touching on the fundamental issue of who will control religious matters _ including the definition of valid conversions of non-Jews _ in Israel.


The Israeli Reform and Conservative movements, with considerable aid from their counterparts in the United States, have waged a decade-long battle to win Israeli government recognition of conversions performed by Reform and Conservative rabbis. As part of that battle, the Reform movement has challenged the authority of the Orthodox in a case pending before the Israeli Supreme Court.

The court has given the government a June 30 deadline to either pass a law formalizing the Orthodox conversion process as the only legitimate one in Israel, or to recognize the validity of some two dozen non-Orthodox Israeli converts who have appealed for recognition.

After the court issued its deadline, Israeli Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox political parties, which hold one-third of the seats in the coalition government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, threatened to topple the government unless a new law barring recognition of non-Orthodox conversions in Israel passed the Knesset, or parliament, by the June 30 deadline.

U.S. Jews have issued a series of protests over the pending legislation _ and threatened to cut donations to Israel _ arguing passage of the bill will undermine the status of diaspora Jews and create rifts between Jews abroad and Jews in Israel.

On Wednesday (June 4), more than 5,000 protest letters from American and European Jews were delivered to Netanyahu’s office as a”first fruits”offering in honor of the upcoming holiday of Shavuot _ a holiday honoring converts. Last Friday (May 30), the American Jewish Committee ran an ad in Israel’s largest daily newspaper saying the pending bill will”make Israel, however large its population and sacred its soil, progressively less relevant to Jews everywhere else.” Until now, however, getting talks started between the Orthodox and non-Orthodox factions has proven to be nearly as difficult as beginning talks between Israelis and Arabs. Israeli Orthodox leaders have steadily refused to talk to their Reform counterparts in Israel, fearing that talks in and of themselves would bestow recognition.

Attempts to find an 11th-hour compromise have intensified, however, as Netanyahu’s government begins to understand the damage the bill might do in Israel-diaspora relations, including the potential loss of financial aid.”I believe we have a ray of hope,”said Bobby Brown, Netanyahu’s adviser on diaspora affairs.”We’ve found a lot more flexibility than we expected, but we’re racing against the clock.”The Orthodox parties have the votes to pass the law, and they know it. But they also know that the prime minister is very concerned, world Jewry is very involved. There is also an issue of Jewish unity.” In present day practice, the government designates each Israeli citizen as”Jewish,””Muslim”or”Christian,”on state-issued identity cards, but has refused to do so for the several hundred Israelis who have converted to Judaism here in non-Orthodox ceremonies, including many new Soviet immigrants, who are the offspring of mixed marriages.

A freeze on the pending bill, and the opening of a formal dialogue on the issue, therefore, appears to represents the last hope that a major crisis between Israel and its important base of American Jewish support can be averted.”We extend our hand and invite the coalition parties, and particularly the religious parties, to sit down with us around one table for a dialogue to reach a mutually agreed upon and applicable solution,”said Uri Regev, an attorney for the Israeli Progressive Movement.”We will be willing to do our part and put a freeze on the legal action.”


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