In advance of Israeli President Reuven
Rivlin’s address to the Jewish Federations of North America’s General
Assembly, that group passed a resolution on “Jewish pluralism” in
Israel, opposing a bill to enshrine a single conversion
standard in the country and asserting that the Israeli Government’s
decision to freeze an agreement about the Western Wall has “deep
potential to divide the Jewish people.”
It is sadly ironic, although not
surprising, that leaders of heterodox movements that have in fact
undermined true Jewish unity and continuity by inviting intermarriage
and breaking away from the Jewish religious heritage have
of late been lecturing others about Jewish unity.
More disappointing still are the
unity-cries of the Jewish Federation movement. The historic role of
Jewish federations has been to provide support and solace for
disadvantaged or endangered Jews and to mobilize the community
to come to Israel’s aid when it is threatened. Taking sides in
religious controversies anywhere, and certainly in Israel, egregiously
breaches the boundaries of that role.
The Jewish Federations of North
America, moreover, has traditionally sought to represent all of American
Jewry, but here it entirely ignores the feelings of the substantial and
growing American Orthodox community.
The Reform and Conservative movements,
despite their great efforts over decades, have few adherents in Israel.
Most of their members do not visit or settle in Israel, nor do they
visit the Western Wall in large numbers. And yet
their leaders seem prepared to offend the religious sensibilities of
their Orthodox brethren, who regularly visit and move to Israel, and who
come to the Kotel to pour out their hearts to G-d there. A holy place
should not be balkanized, nor wielded as a tool
to advance partisan social goals.
And the patchwork of standards for
conversion that exist in America has created an Ameican Jewish landscape
where those who respect halacha as the ultimate arbiter of personal
status cannot know who is in fact Jewish. Creating
in Israel a multiplicity of “Jewish peoples,” as is the tragic reality
in America, would not foster unity but its opposite.
To our dear Jewish brothers and
sisters, we say: Please do not push for changes at the Kotel that will
only cause discord and pain to the vast majority of Jews who worship
there. And please realize that the conversion standards
that have ensured Jewish unity for millennia are the only ones that can
preserve it for the future.
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