Alexander Schindler

...In Israel it is not...

...and an emphasis on the ethical element, both from a personal standpoint and from the point of view of Israeli society, as a component which is at least equal to the religious observance as a matter of importance to Judaism...

...Orthodoxy is not more authentic Judaism, as far as I am concerned and as far as Reform Judaism is concerned and as far as Conservative Judaism is concerned...

...So far, I'm satisfied, but I don't know what's going to happen in the course of the negotiations...

...Finally, it would hurt them politically and financially on the American scene...

...And, of course, we've established kibbutzim, which gets me to the main point—the distinctive element of Reform will obviously not be the vernacular—the vernacular is Hebrew—the distinctive element will be in primus, to go back to elements: the full equality of men and women in religious life, which is absent from Orthodox...

...Those who do not, who believe that there is a progressive strain in the history of Jews, are liberal Jews...

...Even on the question of taharat hamishpachah (family purity), which is of concern to them, we've had 30 years of the status quo, so if there's any mixing that is thought to be a danger to us, it's already been done...

...People who are confident are open...

...They don't want to be second-class Jewish citizens when Israel was established in order to eliminate the second-class status of Jewish citizens in lands all over the world...

...We are wrong in this...

...To all of this I would add—and this begins to approach your last question—that the synagogue form is not necessarily <he only form that Reform Judaism will have to develop as part of its movement in Israel...

...What of the substance of the view that Orthodoxy is the authentic way...

...The beginnings of an indigenous movement are visible, and as the most dramatic case in point we have now ordained three Reform rabbis who were born in Israel and fully trained in Israel and ordained in Israel as Reform rabbis...

...I received a call from a Reform rabbi whose brother and sister-in-law are immigrating to the United States from Hungary...

...The early Reform Jews were all German and they prayed in German, they wrote in German, and it wasn't until an American rabbinate and an American Judaism developed that you had true burgeoning and growth of Reform Judaism...

...How do you react to those people in your own movement who regard Orthodoxy as authentic...

...That's a failing that we have and there is no excuse for it...

...Well, they would be making a serious mistake...

...When you see yourself as crumbling, when you perceive yourself as fraying at the edges, you tend to draw inward and to be more exclusive, and I see it as such...

...You have a congregation like Shlomo Ris-kin's, which is flourishing, because he doesn't read anybody out, he doesn't say that anybody who is intermarried has no business there, whether it be the Jewish partner or the non-Jewish partner, as did the Rabbinical Council some months ago...

...So you see how these Israeli attitudes have their impact on the American scene as well...

...My own reaction was not so much out of genuine concern as it was an effort to create a political counter-pressure, to help Begin be true to what he once promised me...

...Two of the three were youngsters who had come to the United States as part of our high school exchange program and there familiarized themselves with the movement and then went back to devote their lives to the growth and development of Reform Judaism in Israel because they deemed this to be necessary for Israeli society as a whole...

...Now she had no right to assume this, and no right to say this, no right to question this...

...Namely, that no issue like this, anything remotely connected with the Law of Return, would ever be a matter of party discipline, that he would leave it to the free choice of the individuals within the Knesset...

...If such an amendment to the Law of Return should ever be effected, there would be a major altercation between Orthodoxy and Reform on the American scene...

...what divides us is principle, the answer to the question "what is Torah?," Torah in the restricted sense of the first five books of Moses...

...What are they preserving...

...you know what you can expect to hear from me on that score...

...I don't think a movement can flourish if it is only an immigrant movement, and is not in some manner naturalized...

...It was his dream to have an American-born Reform rabbinate, which is rather odd because just now, the Presidents of the Hebrew Union College, of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, and of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations are all German-born Jews—but I guess that a hundred years later, you can afford to have an import at the head of the movement...

...The Orthodox seem to be primed for just such an altercation...

...gogues...

...You're a Reform rabbi, why don't you take care of it yourself and leave HIAS out of it...

...I don't need it, I don't want it...

...But before I left Israel, knowing of the pressures which were building up, I called him again and I spent about an hour with him, and I said, "Please don't sell us down the river," and he promised that he wouldn't, that he would abide by his promise, so when I sent the telegram, I was doing it to create a public counterpressure that would enable him to fulfill his promise...

...Though it sometimes seems that Reform, quite apart from the integrity of its beliefs and the seriousness of its purpose as a movement, is a home for lazier Jews...

...And this will have to take place in Israel...

...I don't see it as a sign of growing strength...

...They see the absurdity of a land that grants freedom of religion to every conceivable expression of religion in the entire universe and fails to grant it to non-Orthodox Judaism...

...I see this exclusivity, this reading out, as an expression of a great inner weakness...

...What are some other manifestations of the discrimination against Reform Judaism in Israel...

...First of all, I agree that there is a manifest need for an indigenous movement...

...We have established contact with the kibbutz movement and have introduced, with their help, courses in Reform Judaism in their kibbutz teacher training seminars...

...I'm not a Jewish social scientist, I'm certainly not a demographer, so I have to rely on demographers to tell me what the real facts on the American scene are, but if you take the studies of even the Orthodox demographers the estimate is that by the year 1990 the Orthodox religious community will be no larger than five percent of the American Jewish community...

...And while he has some strong feelings on the subject—of course he shows his limited knowledge, he feels that one ought to, in order to be converted, have milah, and he can't understand why this is not so—he certainly insists that it should never be subject to party discipline and party negotiations...

...We have a very successful youth movement, which again is led by someone who is a shaliach from the kibbutz movement who came here, worked with our congregations, was totally converted to the idea and the principles of Reform, and came back to Israel determined to build the Reform movement in Israel and chose this way...

...Charles Lieb-man's analysis was that Orthodoxy in America as a synagogue movement was essentially a first generation phenomenon and Conservative Judaism gives every indication of being a second generation phenomenon and that the future, at least demographically, belongs to Reform...

...This was the greatness of Isaac Mayer Wise, that he saw the need for that on the American scene...

...There's a certain growth here or there, in some movements, but it's interesting that those are the movements that have the greatest inner strength and that grow when they are open...

...He says to anybody, "Come in...

...In any event, Orthodoxy must know that it's declining...

...Of course, it's a very dangerous slogan these days—a secular democratic state...

...We do have some 15 synagogues throughout the country, but we have other efforts as well...

...They don't want to be beggars at Jerusalem's gates...

...They are not going to be read out of the Jewish people...

...They'll say, "Well, we have to help the people no matter what absurd laws the government of Israel passes under the duress of an adverse political situation," but I don't think that they will be at all upset about withdrawing funds from Orthodox institutions here in the United States...

...those who believe that it is divine revelation given to Moses by God on Sinai are Orthodox Jews...

...Take the issue of prayer in the vernacular, so important an innovation of Reform, but absolutely irrelevant in Israel...

...So what are they talking about...

...And some of the grants that are given by the Ministry of Religions to Orthodox synagogues are not given in proportional measure to liberal synaRabbi Alexander Schindler is President of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, the organization of Reform congregations in this country...

...they have enough confidence in the integrity of their beliefs and practices to accept anyone and everyone, to treat other people as human beings and as fully equal partners...

...the halachah does not gain compelling power because it enjoys a majority vote in the Knesset— anything that can be voted up by a Knesset can be voted down by a future Knesset, so it seems to me that to seek such a vote would be absurd from an Orthodox point of view...

...Many American Jews might have compunctions, and we, the leadership of Reform and Conservative Judaism, have always restrained them, about expressing their dismay in financial terms, in terms of Israel...

...His sister-in-law was born a non-Jew and was converted by the Neologue Rabbi of Hungary—the term is new to me, and is, apparently, a kind of cross between Conservative and Liberal Judaism—she was converted by one rabbi, they were married by another rabbi, non-Orthodox, and the HIAS official who was dealing with their immigration said "I'm sorry, I can't help you, I question the validity of that conversion, I have to investigate it thoroughly...

...And, as a result, his synagogue is filled to the overflowing...

...The man I've just told you about used to say about the Orthodox, "Isn't it wonderful how steadfast they are...

...Now there are throughout the country many Orthodox day schools that are receiving Federation funds...

...We might be approaching that as the only way of achieving the equality that we seek...

...I think that most American Jews are concerned about the principle of equality and their Jewish status...

...That's his analysis of the situation...

...He now says, "What do we need them for...

...There are more devastating problems...

...It's not only an Israeli Jewish problem, but also a world Jewish problem...

...The Lubavitch movement certainly was open, and it succeeded, at least in some measure, because of that openness...

...Sometimes when you assume the right to make a choice in terms of, say, ritual observance, you assume that the right to choose gives you the right to be indolent, but that is a violation of the principles of Reform and makes you a non-observant Reform Jew, even as there are—quite likely a majority—non-observant Orthodox Jews...

...I think this is what attracted the kibbutz leadership intellectually to Reform Judaism...

...I've tried to tell that to some of my more liberal Orthodox friends...

...As a matter of fact, in setting the foundations of the movement, we are not focussing on synagogues, not exclusively...

...They will suffer no diminution of that status...

...Obviously it's not...

...That's the essence of it...

...I'm sure there are other factors, but I think that the openness is one of the factors that is operative, an ihdispensi-ble prerequisite of growth...

...I would certainly have no compunctions about it on the domestic scene, and I might be willing even to carry this out vis-avis Israel too, if I had assurance that those same funds would go to Israel for causes that are closer to us...

...I think that it would do them a great deal of damage without doing them any good whatsoever...

...This is a symptom of a more general problem which has been of concern to you, namely the status and role of the Reform movement in Israel...

...I'm sure you've noticed over the past several years an increasing level of vituperation on the part of the American Orthodox in talking about Reform and Conservative Jews...

...Reform is fundamentally alien, is it not...

...Their demand is for equality, and they don't care how they get to it...

...It must be a matter of conscience...

...I am appalled by what goes on in our congregations...

...Both of these movements are essentially self-confident movements...

...Essentially, they deal with the rabbinate...

...What divides us is not the intensity of belief nor even necessarily the quantity of observance...

...We have established a youth movement, totally unlike the pattern of NFTY here in the United States, which is essentially a synagogue youth movement...

...liturgical innovation, and there we have done entirely too little...

...This was the history of Reform here in America...

...Some of these attitudes affect the performance of people in their official duties, people in the Jewish Agency and in other agencies who assume something they have no right to assume and that isn't even rooted in Israeli law...

...If religious pluralism does come to Israel, must it not be indigenous...

...I don't need them to raise a generation of young Jews who will read me out of the Jewish people and read my relatives out of the Jewish people...

...I think that, born and bred as we were spiritually, ideologically, in societies where we have achieved our greatest safety because of the separation-of-church-and-state principle, we come to that as the only way of achieving that equality for which we strive and which we demand as our birthright...

...When you talk about religious pluralism in Israel, do you imply the American model of radical separation between church and state...

...Only yesterday, I spoke to one of the most prominent fund-raisers in the American Jewish community, who is categorically refusing any kind of donation to the Lubavitcher, because he learned that much of the pressure for amending the law is coming from them...

...We have contact through schools, the Leo Baeck school in Haifa and the Ben Shemen Youth Village, where some sort of Reform identity is being developed...

...I already referred to the generosity of spirit towards Israel which has impelled the leadership of the Reform and Conservative movements to eschew the financial recourse we have as a form of pressure on Israel, but maybe it's time for us to change...

...Very, very seriously...

...What do you think accounts for it...

...Reform rabbis are not allowed to officiate at marriages, to bury their congregants, or to officiate at conversions...

...Yes, it is dangerous, and, to some extent, not a fulfillment of our dream for a fuller Jewish expression which gives a dominant force to the religious component of Judaism...

...Our authenticity as Jews cannot, must not, be questioned...

...it follows the Israeli pattern of having youth organized in movements like the scouts...

...This is the principle that divides us, not the intensity of belief, not the authenticity of belief...

...How is the halachah served, and the principle of the halachah, if it is to be given validation by a Knesset vote...

...It's a sign of dispair, not a sign of confidence...

...I see it as a sign of weakness, frankly...

...Obviously, it is an indigenous movement...

...Sanctity is not enhanced by Parliamentary disposition...

...I don't think that Reform and Conservative leadership will have any compunction about cutting these funds out, and so on the one hand, there is nothing to gain from a religious point of view, there's a great danger from a financial point of view, and they would be well-advised to drop the whole thing...

...That's a crumbling...

...That obtains, but it can quickly change...