Religion in Israel: Where Conservative is Radical
Nesvisky, Matthew
RELIGION IN ISRAEL WHERE CONSERVATIVE IS RADICAL Despite fierce opposition, the Conservative movement in Israel is growing apace MATTHEW NESVISKY Any Orthodox rabbi may conduct a marriage...
...To virtually all Orthodox Jews, it is enough to know that the Masorati synagogue permits the sexes to mix at its services...
...A synagogue isn't a theater or a social gathering...
...They've simply been deprived, they've not experienced the real function of religion...
...The school was sanctioned, and today by all measures it is a considerable success...
...This year we'll have to rent a hall for the overflow...
...Even more significant, fully 80 percent of the pupils are sa-bras, with a good many coming from tradition-minded Sephardi families...
...The Masorati effort to make a difference in Israel is not limited to the kibbutzim...
...Neither the Orthodox nor the secular school systems seemed suitable for their children...
...And that means that in many ways it is quite unequipped to deal with the modem world...
...two of the Israelis who have been most dedicated to this program are Yariv Ben-Aharon, son of the former secretary-general of the Histadrut labor federation, and Avraham Shapiro, a writer who along with Ben-Aharon helped compile Siach Lochamim, the well-known collection of soul-searching interviews with soldiers who had fought in the Six Day War (published in English as The Seventh Day...
...Non-Orthodox Jews say this kind of incident points up the peculiar and even un-Jewish form of intolerance that has been nurtured in modern Israel...
...The movement makes efforts to keep the leaders of these congregations in close contact...
...Numbers alone, they believed, would force the issue...
...An American Conservative Jew praying here would also find our use of it in keeping with Conservative ideology...
...Orthodox spokesmen in Israel do not need to confuse the Masorati movement with Reform Judaism in order to rail against it...
...They obviously share many objectives, such as the desire for legal status for their rabbis and recognition of and support for their institutions...
...Indeed, in recent years Orthodox olim have outnumbered any other single group...
...For example, we naturally tend to look to the rulings of the law committee of the American Conservative movement for interpretation of halachah (religious law...
...What we have here instead is an Orthodox clergy that has never had a taste of secular education...
...Now as a matter of course, we informed our Reform colleagues of what we were doing...
...Forced as they have been to choose between a religious or a secular school system, they have chosen the secular...
...Because elements of pride are involved in the dispute, as well as prestige, internal division, concern for status, occasional ignorance and even fear...
...Not quite so here in Israel...
...There are ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel who eschew all association with any religious body that functions within the state framework...
...The center is indeed directly funded by the Conservative movement in the U.S., and its synagogue uses the familiar Hebrew-English Conservative prayerbook...
...We got kicked out of both because the religious authorities threatened to revoke the kashrut certificates of those institutions if they continued to harbor non-Orthodox religious activities...
...For the first time, plans are crystallizing for the training of Israelis as rabbis in the mold of Conservative Judaism...
...It was intended, first, to address precisely the tradition-oriented but non-Orthodox Israeli and, second, to distinguish the movement from American Conservative Judaism, from which so much of its impetus derives...
...That's the kind of thing the Masorati movement is up against here...
...In the Israeli case, it is virtually impossible to imagine Labor returning to power without having to make a deal with the religious parties—and it is absolutely impossible to imagine the religious parties not insisting on the religious status quo— that is, no legitimacy to the non-Orthodox—as a part of the price for their support...
...Last year, just as five students were completing their training in Israel to become mohelim (ritual circumcisers) for the Conservative movement in the U.S., the religious authorities suddenly declared them halachically unacceptable...
...Recognition, in any case, is going to be a long haul...
...what others see as "pluralism" they see as "Ae/Jfcer," chaos...
...Attempts to introduce it into Israel will only divide the country, they say...
...Even the first chief rabbi in Eretz Yisrael, the revered Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak Hakohen Kook, said, "Let the old be renewed and the new be sanctified...
...That's just the point, the Masorati say...
...It's one time when the family is set aside...
...And this spring, when the Ramat Zion congregation announced that it was opening a nursery school, posters went up overnight in French Hill decrying the fate of innocent children being corraled into an atmosphere of perverted Judaism...
...Price's synagogue is one of the most successful of the Masorati congregations in the country...
...As it is, we're comfortable with our use of Israel's standard Orthodox Rinat Yisrael siddur...
...But by their hundreds of thousands, they are and feel themselves to be no more secular than they are Orthodox...
...We require membership...
...at the same time, they are aware that their own future in Israel may depend on whether their claim to halachic commitment—a claim that is weakened if they are perceived as "too" close to the Reform movement—is taken seriously...
...That's your interpretation, retort the Orthodox...
...To his great credit, Mayor Teddy Koliek saw to it that we were alloted land for building...
...Our attitude became one of 'creating facts,'" explains Lee Levine, professor of Jewish History and Archaeology at Hebrew University and a Jewish Theological Seminary graduate who has been involved in the Masorati struggle since he moved to Israel in 1971...
...Instead, they say they simply want their stream of Judaism to be recognized as a legitimate alternative to the one currently acceptable form...
...I could find no Orthodox spokesman who did not dismiss the Masorati movement out-of-hand...
...Then they'll learn...
...all of whom must spend a year in Israel as part of their rabbinic training...
...There's a great gap between their Sephardi and Ashkenazi schools...
...Today, after many years of desultory action, the challengers are gaining momentum...
...This means that certain prayers referring to the Messiah and to Temple h Hill practices are omitted...
...The Masorati movement is going to change that," Hammer continues...
...He knew where that would lead—right to women being called to read from the Torah, and from that to women rabbis...
...Then, in May, came the sorry Neve Hanna affair...
...Until recently, the Conservative (and Reform) attitude was a kind of resigned acceptance that nothing would change in Israel until enough committed non-Orthodox constituents immigrated to the country...
...This year, Rabbi Aharon Singer was conducting the service when a group of Chabadnikim—Lubavitch Chassidim—appeared and, as Singer says, expressed their wish "to bring joy to the" youngsters...
...decides what work is essential and therefore who may or may not be employed on the Sabbath...
...in the Israeli context this would be a step of revolutionary dimensions...
...The Education Ministry was not quick to act on the demands of these parents...
...It has a network of around 40 congregations throughout the country—none of them, naturally, recognized by the state...
...Consider how things started here in the French Hill neighborhood...
...They think of themselves—if only vaguely—as "traditional" Jews...
...officials probably viewed them as "crazy Anglo-Saxons" who refused to adjust to the Israeli reality...
...Yet a great number of them would bridle at being labeled "secular Jews...
...Obviously, that didn't mean just Moses and the men...
...You're using negative evidence, the Masorati Jew replies...
...Conservative movement has always advocated tradition and change...
...Halachah knows how weak-willed you are, the Orthodox exult...
...Our critics are of course quick to say that the Masorati concept of a synagogue is strictly an American idea, but they are totally wrong...
...and they will fail to do so in Israel...
...Lack of religious pluralism means a lack of creativity...
...Either the Orthodox will strangle the country, or they will be reduced back to their true dimension—which is that of a minority...
...Leven stresses that the growth of Masorati-stream schools in Israel parallels that of Masorati congregations, but is not in fact part of the official Movement for Masorati Judaism in Israel...
...Money and power—who gets them and who gets to keep them—further complicate matters...
...His articles from Israel, the most recent of which was "On The Cutting Room Floor" (July-August 1983), appear regularly in these pages...
...Price points out that although French Hill has a large number of English-speaking immigrants, 40 percent of his congregation is not of "Anglo-Saxon" background—that is, they are either sabras or immigrants from South America or elsewhere...
...Gush Emunim has come to the end of its funds and its manpower, a religious peace movement has sprung up, young people are leaving the fold, as I've seen again and again at the university...
...Historically it always has been...
...Today, the movement claims 10,000 members, of whom fully 40 percent are native Israelis, many of them Sephardim...
...A highlight of the year is the annual Shabbat service for the bar and bat mitzvah class, to which, of course, parents are invited...
...In March, for instance, when the Knesset once again defeated a bill that would have legitimized non-Orthodox Judaism, we organized a protest demonstration...
...But while conflict between the radical fringes can increase public awareness of the issues, it is not between them that the battle is most interestingly waged...
...Our congregations have mixed seating, which is radical for Israel...
...We are," says Hoffman, "a movement that is still defining itself, and as such we run the risk of losing whatever identity we have...
...Their leaders— Amnon Rubinstein, Mordecai Virshubski and Shulamit Aloni— have been chiefly responsible for the occasional bill that would legitimize non-Orthodox streams of Judaism, bills that have inevitably died in committee or been defeated on the floor...
...Monthly programs are sponsored to bring them together in Jerusalem to exchange ideas and experiences, to promote solidarity and to develop outreach to the public...
...The girl—and this is a girl from a so-called 'secular' family, remember—recoiled in horror...
...True, say the Orthodox, but he still forbade mixed seating, or, for that matter, even entering a synagogue that permits mixed seating...
...The American Reform movement's recently adopted position that a Jew is anyone born of either a Jewish mother or a Jewish father who performs certain acts of Jewish public identification has only aggravated the situation in Israel...
...And there are some secular Jews in Israel who are fiercely opposed to the concept of state-sanctioned religious activity, who regard such activity as inherently coercive, illiberal, unacceptable...
...The analogy may cause discomfort, but it is the case that in many ways Jews who attempt to win recognition for alternatives to the sole state-sanctioned form of Judaism in Israel face as awesome a challenge as Martin Luther did when he confronted the monolithic medieval church...
...Like havurot, they meet in member's homes...
...And we won't have any trouble in getting top-level students for our first class next year...
...The numbers have not materialized...
...How the congregation appears to outsiders was one of the factors that led the synagogue's board to turn down, at least for the time being, a proposal put forward this summer to allow women to be called to the To rah, to have aliyot...
...But our pYayer book has no English...
...Varying views on tactics, however, are not surprising in his Ramat Zion congregation...
...On a personal level, of course, we have good relations, and we often consult on matters of joint interest...
...Now this is totally new for Israel...
...Get those churchly ideas out of your head, my Masorati friend...
...For years, the Masorati movement has provided these children with a Jewish education...
...And so it came to pass tftat the Masorati leaders eventually were forced to change their tactics...
...The concern is real enough: For most Israelis, still, the spectacle of men and women praying together immediately conjures up visions of organ-thumping, Shabbat-driving, pork-munching infidels...
...Masorati" is Hebrew for "traditional," and the choice of name was quite deliberate...
...What with the school program, the synagogues, the Center for Conservative Judaism and the JTS activities," says Rabbi Hoffman, "many people naturally tend to lump us ail together...
...For this reason they didn't favor setting up some sort of renegade school, or an after-school program of religious studies...
...But the Bible forbids a female from approaching the Torah,' she said...
...But opposition parties everywhere traditionally make the right noises so long as they remain in opposition...
...And, after limping along for years on a hand-to-mouth basis, the Masorati movement is now being backed by a million-dollar foundation established in 1980 by the Conservative movement in America...
...So, for example, the religious establishment seeks to define, according to its own standards, the core question of who is a Jew—a power it has not yet attained...
...How can you go against that...
...On the one hand, they endorse the principle of religious pluralism...
...Although Reform practice in Israel may appear star-tlingly traditional to U.S...
...The challenge issues most significantly from the Movement for Masorati Judaism in Israel...
...But in the press the demonstration was identified as a Reform action...
...Besides, the law was the law...
...sets the standards of kashrut and accordingly licenses hotels and restaurants...
...Yet there's still a demand for membership...
...The Orthodox establishment, aware of the immigration data, tended to laugh up its ecclesiastical sleeve and say, "Fine, when you start appearing here in your tens of thousands, then we'll talk...
...Last year about 500 kids took part here...
...Most of those who challenge the Israeli religious establishment maintain that they have no desire to interfere with the state religion...
...But none of this has any roots in halachah, which provides no basis at all for a religious-political office such as the chief rabbinate...
...Masorati support in the Knesset has traditionally come from the small liberal parties, such as Shinui and the Citizens Rights Party...
...Men and women sit together at services, of course...
...Now not everyone in the Masorati movement agrees with me," Levine goes on, "but I don't much care what the Orthodox establishment thinks of us...
...Further, say the Masorati leaders, the whole idea of a chief rabbinate, with its elaborate court system, electoral college, town religious councils and patronage, is an institution that was created in response to Diaspora conditions...
...But the thing to focus on," he says, "is the vast population here that has been alienated by the state religious bureaucracy...
...Rabbi Victor Hoffman, formerly of New Orleans, is director of the United Synagogue of Israel and in charge of leadership development for the Masorati movement...
...To allow for some community role in education, however, Ben-Gurion's government wrote into the law that a quarter of any school's curriculum could be determined by the pupils' parents, subject to approval by the Education Ministry...
...once in office, they have a marked tendency to forget their earlier commitments...
...Further, the action has inspired Agudat Yisrael to press Menachem Begin to get on with making good his promise on the amendment...
...Currently that costs the equivalent of $100 a year...
...rabbi and determines what prayer book it will use...
...They wanted an education in keeping with their philosophy of modern halachic Judaism...
...no mixed seating...
...observers (members of Reform's Kibbutz Yahel, for example, observe strict kashrut and pray with t'fillin and tallitot), the Reform World Union for Progressive Judaism does not emphasize the cen-trality of halachah in Jewish life...
...The Masorati movement and the Reform Jews in Israel maintain an uneasy alliance...
...RELIGION IN ISRAEL WHERE CONSERVATIVE IS RADICAL Despite fierce opposition, the Conservative movement in Israel is growing apace MATTHEW NESVISKY Any Orthodox rabbi may conduct a marriage ceremony anywhere in Israel, even in a night club...
...I believe it will be the latter—and, in the meantime, the Masorati movement is gaining momentum all the time...
...Last year we had people actually standing outside listening to the services...
...There's a certain logic in saying that when a pressure group gets large enough, it will secure its rights," says Levine...
...They deny that their goal is to impose the American model of separation between church and state in this radically different environment...
...The confusion of the movements is particularly nettlesome to Masorati leaders because of the politics of religion in Israel...
...maintains an elaborate system of patronage through its control of key government ministries, including Education and Culture, Police and Interior, and, of course, Religious Affairs...
...Polar differences in religious perspective are often reflected in seemingly mundane details, and the mixed seating issue is a good example of that...
...Still, the Masorati movement continues to cultivate its contacts with the Liberal and Labor alignment parties—and it even pays attention to Be-gin'sLikud...
...So if the Moses and the children of Israel who crossed the Red Sea included both men and women, why didn't the Moses and the children of Israel who sang a song unto the Lord include the women as well...
...Some will think it quaint, some vital, some entirely irrelevant...
...Centrally, the Masorati movement seeks legitimation in Israel on the grounds that it is a halachic movement—albeit in the Conservative sense of joining tradition and adaptation...
...The Jewish Theological Seminary accepts students for rabbinical training only after they have acquired at least one university degree," says Hammer, "and we see this as the pattern for training Masorati rabbis here...
...When a Jew addresses God it is in a personal, solitary way...
...In addition, Hammer points out, the Masorati movement conducts regular Jewish studies programs for the Hashomer Hatzair left-wing youth movement...
...Neve Schechter also houses Midreshet Yerushalayim, which offers a year's program in Jewish studies for graduate and undergraduate students...
...Similarly, while the synagogues foster the youth movement, its members include youngsters who attend state secular and state religious schools, as well as Masorati-stream schools...
...Again, say the Masorati, that's our point...
...Look, every year we conduct a sort of introductory course on the High Holidays for kids from the secular school system...
...It sponsors community programs for the elderly and a national youth movement...
...Our concept of a synagogue is deeply rooted in Jewish tradition...
...That is the way it has always been in the State of Israel, and that is the way the political and religious establishments are determined to keep it...
...Besides, women are a distraction...
...An independent Masorati stream of study has been introduced into the state secular school system...
...The debate is intensifying in Israel these days—although, since the Masorati and Orthodox camps rarely meet on any official basis, perhaps "debate" is not the right term...
...Manyofus,"saysRabbi Hoffman, "are anguished by the right-ward swing of the country...
...At the risk of confusing matters still more, Jerusalem has a well-known institution called the Center for Conservative Judaism in Israel...
...Dammit, you're confusing us with the Reform...
...The foundation does more than make all this Masorati activity possible...
...And we also have to be sensitive to the Israeli context...
...That depends on how weak-willed you are, say the Masorati...
...In recent years, for example, it has become customary for advertisements to appear in the newspapers warning Jews that if they attend High Holiday services at non-Orthodox synagogues, they will not be fulfilling the mitzvah of hearing the shofar...
...But the two movements have different religious philosophies, differences that are more acute—and politically more relevant—in Israel than they are in the U.S...
...Recently, it has taken on a public-relations firm to promote its presence, and that has led it to sponsor conducted tours (transportation and snacks provided free) of Masorati institutions in Jerusalem, as well to issue a flurry of position papers and statements to the press on issues of concern to the movement...
...here you don't have such a thing as rabbinic education that includes university experience...
...Even in countries that foster a state religion, such as Britain, alternate forms of faith have long enjoyed legal recognition and protection...
...Yet for years Hammer's office at Neve Schechter has been promoting Jewish studies at the kibbutz movement's teacher-training college at Oranim...
...But it's clear that many Masorati members are uncomfortable about cooperating too closely with Reform Jews...
...That certainly was a sign that we were arriving, and were here to stay...
...They largely ignore the mitzvot and as a matter of course send their children to the state non-religious school system...
...I'm more concerned with the quality of our movement as a serious alternative than with the struggle for rights...
...Our first public service was on Rosh Hashanah in 1973...
...Agudat Yisrael demands that the law include a definition of "Jew"—to wit, that a Jew is a person born of a Jewish mother or converted to Judaism according to halachah...
...if it has any purpose, that purpose can be served only in America, where it should stay...
...Still, for a long time the establishment could—and did—disdainfully turn its back on non-Orthodox voices in Israel...
...But otherwise, we try to fit into the Israeli scene...
...Masorati leaders say it hasn't helped their movement, and even Reform leaders have expressed anguish over the new definition...
...This, say the Orthodox, clearly shows that men and women do not address the Lord together...
...But that lacks moral logic...
...As Price wryly points out, there are enough rabbis in his membership to compose at least two minyanim (pi...
...Neve Hanna is a boarding school in Kiryat Gat for children from broken homes or other unhappy social environments...
...Conservative rabbis insist that their conversions are conducted according to halachah, but most Orthodox authorities would likely agree with the succinct opinion of Rabbi Pinchas Stolper, of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations in America: "Conservative conversion in accordance with halachah is like a square circle...
...It's just a public facility, like a phone booth, where you can drop in for a minyan...
...Here's how the argument might go: Orthodox insistence on separating men and women at worship derives in part from the classic interpretation of what is considered the first biblical reference to public Jewish worship...
...In other words, it simply can't exist...
...What does cause the movement some discomfort is being lumped together—at least in the Israeli mind— with Reform Judaism...
...But the cracks in the supposed Orthodox monolith are already appearing...
...At one point, I invited a girl to open the awn kodesh, the ark...
...Not so any longer...
...Our approach to it, however, is similar to the Conservative approach to the siddur...
...The national religious establishment, of course, alternated between ignoring us and condemning us...
...It offers adult education classes...
...Meanwhile," Hoffman continues, "while this movement is still in the process of forming its ideology, we've had to make certain decisions concerning our form of worship...
...It has some 500 pupils up to junior-high level, and a high school is in the offing...
...And because Agudat Yisrael is a key member of Israel's governing coalition, its demand has political clout...
...Although he says he concentrates more on what he is permitted to do than on what the state forbids him to do, he also says he is likely to challenge the Orthodox monopoly on rabbinical duties this fall in the Supreme Court...
...Last year, Rabbis Shalom Mashash and Bezalel Zolti, respectively the Sephardi and Ashkenazi chief rabbis of Jerusalem, went so far as to warn the public "not to be tempted by the propaganda of this movement [Masorati], not to participate in any of its activities, and not to associate with them.'" In addition to these annual denunciations, Masorati congreagtions are regularly condemned from the pulpit by rabbis of nearby neighborhood synagogues...
...Added to this is our youth movement, our research facility at the Schocken Library and our educational activities at Neve Schechter...
...Since, for example, they pay Israeli taxes, they both feel that they should receive their share of the government funds that are disbursed to religious institutions...
...Can you deny that when your ladies arrive all dolled up for the High Holidays, you aren't distracted from your prayers by their allure...
...Otherwise, the party says, it will walk out—and the government will fall...
...But the synagogue opened in 1979...
...Surprisingly, some of those students may very well come from kibbutzim, not usually known as hotbeds of religious sentiment...
...Even the smallest minority deserves its basic rights...
...Ronald Price, a former assistant dean at the Jewish Theological Seminary and currently rabbi at the Masorati movement's Ramat Zion Synagogue in Jerusalem's French Hill neighborhood, says the Masorati leaders hope to see the development of the movement's own siddur...
...This opened in 1972 in a handsome building on Agron Strreet that formerly housed a Baptist headquarters (a fact that its Orthodox critics, with wicked glee, rarely fail to point out...
...Heading the committee that is drawing up the curriculum is Rabbi Reuven Hammer, formerly of Chicago and today director of both Neve Schechter and of field operations for the Conservative movement's Foundation for Masorati Judaism in Israel...
...I was one of a small group that had in common the feeling that the Orthodox synagogue provided here by the state was unappealing, both spiritually and aesthetically...
...forced to identify with strict Torah Judaism or to reject formal identification, they have remained unidentified...
...for all that Conservative Judaism is the largest single stream in the Diaspora, and has always been receptive to Zionism, the movement has produced at most a trickle of olim, immigrants...
...Says Levine, "The Israeli neighborhood synagogue provided by the state doesn't have the tradition of providing adult education, family camps, programs for the elderly, social life or social service...
...With its overflowing membership, Ramat Zion certainly seems to have tapped into a real need, and its experience has been repeated elsewhere in the country as well...
...Rabbi Reuben Gross goes a step farther when he says, "Reform and Conservative are further from Judaism than Christian sects, because they overrule halachah...
...As rabbi of Levine's congregation, Ronald Price is understandably less sanguine about the issue of legitimacy...
...It tends to argue for legitimation here on the grounds that any form of Jewish worship should be permitted...
...I'm thinking of things like relations with the state, in communal life, in the army...
...Yet many of our congregants are Likud supporters—and the Likud is, after all, the party in power...
...no non-Orthodox rabbi is permitted to conduct a marriage ceremony anywhere in Israel, not even in front of the awn kodesh, the holy ark...
...Observers of this kind of dialogue may differ in their response...
...We're not a landsmanschaft organization feeding nostalgia for Americans in Israel...
...After the Israelites crossed the Red Sea, we are told (in Exodus 15:20), "Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the Lord...
...Now, just three verses earlier we're told that Moses and the children of Israel crossed the Red Sea...
...to build a synagogue of our own...
...The man proceeded to make a vitriolic attack on Reform and Conservative Judaism, castigating all who associated with them...
...So, for example, a Jew may marry in Israel according to Orthodox ritual—or not at all...
...But we're not unanimous that everything the committee says is automatically applicable to the peculiar Israeli situation...
...Israelis have their houses of worship provided for them in their neighborhoods by the state...
...Nor for that matter are the Masorati-stream schools a function of American Conservative Judaism, as is commonly, if erroneously, supposed...
...their rejection of the state religious machinery follows from their rejection of the Zionist state itself...
...Because of the coalition set-up, the religious parties appear to be riding high...
...of minyan, the ten-man—or, increasingly, ten-person— group required for certain prayers...
...Many of our own members aren't ready for this," Price says...
...We have about 150 member-families," Price says, "and incidentally, you have to remember that even the concept of membership in a congregation is unusual here in Israel...
...Further, it has meant a major effort to make Masorati views known in the Knesset...
...The sole legitimate form of Judaism is promoted by a government bureaucracy that: • funds the citizen's neighborhood synagogue, appoints and pays its Matthew Nesvisky, an editor and feature writer for The Jerusalem Post, is a moment contributing editor...
...And then there's Neve Schechter, the Jerusalem branch of the Jewish Theological Seminary, which serves JTS students...
...Israel's middle ground: As many as three-quarters of Israel's Jews do not identify with the state Orthodoxy...
...That's about 40 congregations, though around 10 are still so young that they don't have permanent premises...
...The Turks encouraged it in the Ottoman period in Palestine, and the British, who had known a chief rabbinate for the Empire since the middle of the 19th century, maintained the chief rabbinate in Palestine when they succeeded the TUrks in 1920...
...This would most likely include certain additions to the prayer book we use now," Rabbi Price says...
...But it was understood from the start that we must strive to develop our own religious ideology...
...Often referred to as "the American Conservative Embassy in Israel," the Agron Street facility offers in addition to Sabbath and holiday services a range of lectures and classes, usually in English and largely directed towards retired Americans living in Israel...
...The Labor alignment is on record as supporting the rights of non-Orthodox Jews, and has pushed for Conservative and Reform roles in the Zionist Organization and the Jewish Agency...
...Before starting with us, candidates will probably study at Hebrew University, in Jewish studies or in related fields...
...That was one of the prime objectives when Gerson Cohen established the foundation for the movement here—to develop native Israeli rabbis and teachers...
...Much as he welded the various underground armed movements into a single army, David Ben-Gurion forced the abolition of politically oriented school systems, replacing them with a state secular and a state religious system...
...Masorati synagogues are reported to be thriving in such far-flung localities as Kiryat Ono, Ashkelon, Ramat Gan—and even in such Orthodox strongholds as Safed and the yeshiva-packed Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem...
...True, the various Moslem and Christian sects here may legally conduct their affairs as they choose...
...Equally important, the Likud is the key to the Sephardi population...
...The "growth area" is definitely from sabras, he says...
...These schools differ from other secular schools in that 25 percent of their school day is devoted (boys and girls together) to prayer and study of religious subjects...
...Fact is, we're so full up that prospective members are told that membership won't guarantee them seats for the High Holidays...
...Mixed seating, the ads announce, invalidates the services and surrounds the sounding of the shofar with "unclean" circumstances...
...This is exactly what we took advantage of," says Barbara Leven, principal of the Masorati school in French Hill...
...So what the movement decided to do was simply establish itself...
...Some of them joined us, which was fine...
...Thus, they say, the religious establishment is a distinctly East European phenomenon, and one that is manifestly out of keeping with the views of most Israelis...
...It is, thereby, a challenge to Israeli Orthodoxy on its own ground...
...We marshalled about 400 Masorati members at the Knesset gates...
...The movement is looking into the legality of using public funds for such advertising...
...In America, the argument can proceed in the secure knowledge that each interpretation is equally valid in the eyes of the state...
...When that was done, we are told, "Miriam the prophetess, sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand and all the women went out after her with timbrels and dancing...
...And Professor Levine adds: "It's Orthodoxy that is in the real state of crisis here...
...All we're talking about here is the right of a family to worship together...
...It is interesting, in this regard, that both the Orthodox establishment and the Masorati movement see each other as a product of the Galut, as Diaspora phenomena...
...Prior to the establishment of the state, various ideological bodies—the Labor Zionists, the Mizrachi religious Zionists, the General Zionists—each operated its own educational network, its own schools...
...And it is around this pool of Israelis that the battle lines between the Orthodox establishment and its challengers are being drawn today...
...Now obviously we thrive on financial and moral support from the ConserveRamal Zion Synagogue, Frei tive movement...
...So we started holding services and lectures in our homes...
...The fact is, we are concerned about how we look to the community at large...
...It's basically a token fee, but it indicates a degree of commitment from the member...
...But to be accurate, when we talk about the Movement for Masorati Judaism in Israel, we mean our 10,000 synagogue members...
...So again," Price continues, "the atmosphere at Ramat Zion is not quite like your typical Conservative congregation in the U.S...
...Meanwhile, at Neve Schechter, plans are under way for the training of Israelis as Masorati rabbis...
...The Orthodox say that Masoratism is merely American Conservative Judaism...
...A lot of Americans who settled here in the early 1970s were from Conservative backgrounds...
...Officially, the Masorati movement has no set policy on relations with the Reform movement," says Rabbi Hoffman...
...They say that in the previous Jewish commonwealth great theological differences also existed (as between the Pharisees and Saducees) but that one camp would never denounce the other as illegitimate...
...But if that's all they want, why isn't sweet reason sufficient to produce an amicable solution...
...The Masorati idea developed in Israel over the last 20 years or so through the efforts of North American immigrants of Conservative Jewish background...
...Fundamental realignment of a society is generally more likely to come about as the tectonic plates below the middle ground begin to shift...
...In fact, we use the standard Orthodox prayer book of Israel...
...This anomalous-sounding creation arose out of a sort of loophole in the State Education Law...
...We expect to have our first rabbinical class begin in the fall of 1984...
...So many Israelis have no sense of Jewishness as a part of their culture...
...Success will not be so much in 'recognition' as it will be in a large and meaningful movement...
...licenses the citizen \mohel (ritual circumciser) and sets the curriculum for his child's religious education...
...And beyond all these reasons, beyond reason itself, is the matter of faith and the belief in the Truth of one's own position...
...And that's where much of the future of our movement lies...
...As expected, many of the children of Masorati families attend Masorati-stream schools—but many do not, and, by the same token, many of the children who do attend are not from families that attend the Masorati synagogues...
...Indeed, a piece of the Agudat Yisrael's price for participation in the coalition was the acceptance by Prime Minister Begin of the amendment, and his promise to press for its adoption into law...
...The synagogue has been the center of Jewish communal life for hundreds of years and in every land...
...He explains the relationship between the American Conservative movement and the Masorati movement: "When Gerson Cohen [chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, where Conservative rabbis are trained] announced the establishment of the foundation for the Masorati movement, it was made clear that we were not to be just a branch of Conservative Judaism...
...But both Lee Levine, himself a past president of the congregation, and Rabbi Price agree that their signal achievement is the creation of a community-oriented synagogue...
...They must worship, marry, divorce and bury their dead in accordance with a uniform, state-sanctioned religious ideology...
...And it provides the Israeli Masorati movement with diverse educational and other services...
...The battle may still be somewhat amorphous, but its lines are being drawn daily...
...The struggle has so far not led to anything suggestive of Europe's infamous religious wars, but the passions are there, and the antagonism is often bitter...
...They were determined to get the kind of education they wanted within the state school system...
...But the absence of religious pluralism in Israel means that here you either follow the state-sanctioned form of religious expression or you are subject to public opprobrium...
...it reflects the commitment of the American Conservative movement to the development, in Israel, of a fully independent stream of Judaism designed for the Jewish state...
...Strictly alien to Judaism...
...But Jews do not have that freedom...
...Naturally, since these all have similar interests, we don't resent being in each other's company...
...But the parents persisted, and the ministry was finally won over by their sincerity...
...Even Bar-Ilan University, which is a religiously-backed institution, doesn't train rabbis...
...Our problem," says Rabbi Hoffman, "is that the mass of Israelis come from authoritarian countries, from backgrounds of monolithic, intolerant forms of religion...
...We're not saying that we're strong enough yet to have our own law committee, but we think that such a development is in time likely...
...He also believes that the denunciations and other forms of opposition that one sees everywhere these days must serve, in the end, to advance the acceptance of religious pluralism in Israel...
...It promotes Jewish studies at the kibbutz movement's Oranim teacher-training center, and is about to establish its own kibbutz settlement...
...What is clear is that we must be an Israeli phenomenon, not a copy of something from abroad...
...In response, the establishment is showing signs of increased alarm and is hardening its position...
...As interpreted by the Israeli Orthodox establishment, this would render meaningless conversions conducted by non-Orthodox rabbis...
...The Orthodox Agudat Yisrael party has for years been pressing to amend Israel's Law of Return, which provides that any Jew in the world who so chooses may come to Israel and automatically acquire Israeli citizenship...
...And the Israeli nucleus group that is fo settle Kibbutz Hannaton, the first Masorati kibbutz (located 16 kilometers north of Nazareth) is led by Ehud Bendl, who is also preparing to be a Masorati rabbi...
...It developed, they say, as a convenient instrument for community organization under foreign rulers...
...Indeed, the most yielding comment I gathered came from a religious Zionist who said, "At least they're performing the mitzvah of living in Israel...
...Even The Jerusalem Post, which should know better, lumped us together and stressed the 'Reform' character of the protest...
...The Jerusalem municipality even granted us some token funding...
...We don't want to abandon halachah, but we feel it has to be interpreted to suit the times...
...The desire to become an integral part of Israeli society is also what has kept the Masorati movement from attempting to establish a chain of Solomon Schechter-like day schools in Israel...
...Our task is to translate that authoritarian tradition into a new Judaism suitable to our new condition—the democratic, independent State of Israel...
...Sabras know Judaism only in terms of strict Orthodoxy...
...In its opposition to such movements as Chassidism and Liberalism, say these critics, mainstream Judaism simply ossified into what we call Orthodoxy...
...They may be uncomfortable with or at best mildly tolerant of the religious establishment, but neither are they wholly satisfied that the term "Israeli" fully captures their Jewish identification...
...The Masoratist replies that Orthodoxy itself is a Diaspora phenomenon that developed in response to the Enlightenment...
...Hoffman points with some pride to the fact that the Orthodox press is writing with growing alarm today of what it calls "the increasingly successful Masorati movement...
...That's the reason the quality of life, the state of human relations, the willingness to accept Jewish values are all in such a state of crisis...
...Specifically, the Masorati movement was bound to respond to the Law of Return controversy...
...The festive mood was shattered, the children were left shocked and confused, and the adults were profoundly disturbed...
...Back, in other words, to the political arena, which cannot safely be ignored by any religious enterprise in Israel...
...So let them come, and let them be exposed to true Orthodox Judaism...
...Instead, it has developed four thriving schools that function within the framework of the state secular school system—with three more scheduled to open this fall...
...Yet the children were going to grow up as Israelis...
...The issue that causes such controversy in Israel is one that is taken for granted in virtually all enlightened nations today: religious pluralism...
...Our objective, as I see it, is to tend to our spiritual needs now...
...But while it remains to a great extent an American phenomenon, its character had already begun to shift in important ways by 1979, when it became a formal entity...
...But in addition to our interpretation, say the Orthodox, we have a long tradition of keeping the sexes apart at services...
...It's only in Israel, it seems, that it has become an impersonal government institution...
...Beyond that, as Rabbi Mendel Lewittes puts it, "Reform and Conservative Judaism have failed to save the non-committed Jew in the U.S...
...Look, before the women went out and danced, the text says the song of praise was rendered by Moshe u'vnei Yisrael—Moses and the children of Israel...
...Like Luther, who was said to be grieved to discover that he'd helped create a new church, they say they wish neither to tear down the present set-up nor even to replace it...
...After the Torah readings, Singer goes on, "I was approached by one of the Chassidim who requested permission to bless the b'nei mitzvah (meaning, of course, just the boys—the girls were totally ignored...
...So in 1975-76 we raised money from Conservative congregations in the U.S...
...as such, it has attracted considerable attention...
...that invalidates everything about the movement, no matter how halachic it claims to be...
...Not everything about the American Conservative synagogue is immediately transportable to the Israeli context...
...The Kiryat Gat Religious Council later entered the fray by taking out newspaper ads to denounce the Masorati activities at Neve Hanna...
...In subsequent years we used rooms at the Hadassah complex and at a WIZO facility...
...The basic difference he would notice is that we don't use any English...
Vol. 8 • November 1983 • No. 10
