Conservative Jews

Trying to avoid a rift between Israel and American Jews, Reform and Conservative Jewish leaders agreed to suspend for three months legal action seeking the formal recognition of their movements in Israel. The turnaround gave Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a reprieve from what appeared to be an inevitable collision with American Jews, who provide crucial political support for Israel in Washington.

Judaism's much-divided Conservative Movement voted Wednesday to allow seminaries to enroll homosexuals as rabbinical students and to let rabbis perform blessings for same-sex couples, but kept in place a restriction on sexual activity. Under an unusual voting system that allows for contradictory measures to be adopted, the splintered rabbinical law panel meeting in New York also passed two other measures that would keep the long-standing prohibitions against gay rabbis and commitment rituals.

Specialists on the laws of Conservative Judaism have upheld welcoming of homosexuals into congregations and other Jewish groups, but prohibited admission of avowed homosexuals as rabbis or cantors. The committee on Jewish Law and Standards of the Rabbinical Assembly also affirmed a ban against providing ceremonies for homosexual unions. The Rabbinical Assembly represents about 1,400 rabbis serving 1.5 million members of Jewish congregations.

The nation's second-largest Jewish denomination is reconsidering its prohibition against ordaining gay men and lesbians and blessing same-sex unions. The move, which is expected to revive a controversy over human sexuality, makes Conservative Judaism the latest major religious group to tackle the debate on homosexuality in the clergy. About 1 million American Jews are members of Conservative synagogues.

A new survey of Conservative Jews shows that more than two-thirds reject traditional Judaism's insistence that only the children of Jewish mothers can be called Jewish at birth, regardless of the father's religious identity. Yet the same survey also showed that 62% believe that Conservative Jews are "obligated to obey" traditional Jewish law. Those findings underscore the degree of internal contradiction with which Judaism's 1.8 million-member centrist denomination is wrestling.

The nation's second-largest Jewish denomination is reconsidering its prohibition against ordaining gay men and lesbians and blessing same-sex unions. The move, which is expected to revive a controversy over human sexuality, makes Conservative Judaism the latest major religious group to tackle the debate on homosexuality in the clergy. About 1 million American Jews are members of Conservative synagogues.

Recently at my bank, a non-Jewish teller said that all his Jewish friends were very upset about the Union of Orthodox Jews' statement (March 22). The teller's friend now thinks "that Orthodox Jews do not regard him as Jewish." His question was directed at me because he knows that I am an Orthodox Jew. I explained to him that "there is a terrible misunderstanding about what the Union of Orthodox Jews means." It does not mean that the Jews who call themselves Reform or Conservative are not Jews!

For the past decade or so, the Conservative branch of Judaism has put much of its energy into breaking new ground, making such exceptions to tradition as allowing women to become rabbis. But now the movement, formed in the 19th Century as a middle ground between Orthodox Jews and liberals, is swinging back the other way.

Several points about Jewish day-care in the article "Jewish Identity: Group Fears the Loss of Community, Hopes to Bring Families Back to Fold" that appeared July 14 in the South Bay section of The Times, cry out for clarification. Vicki Burdman, a member of the South Bay Jewish community, is quoted (as saying), "Some Reform and Conservative Jews are uncomfortable leaving their children in an Orthodox day-care center where Orthodox principles such as strict observance of the Sabbath and stringent adherence to dietary laws are taught and practiced."

Tensions between Israel's religious establishment and more liberal branches of Judaism broke into the open this week when leaders of the country's tiny Reform and Conservative movements charged that the Sephardic chief rabbi had advocated the murder of non-Orthodox Jews.

The Reform rabbinate has gone too far. Their moral compasses no longer point heavenward. They have crashed and hit the bottom of the moral slippery slope. Two-thirds of all Californians voted March 7 not to accept same-sex marriages. On March 29, the Central Conference of American Rabbis voted to approve same-sex marriages. What are we supposed to think when religion is led by the most permissive voices in the society it purports to lead?

The Israeli government and Jewish leaders appear to have averted a split in world Jewry with the drafting of compromise proposals on the potentially explosive issue of who will conduct religious conversions in Israel. No one involved in the negotiations seems happy. The proposals still would leave the basic question of the status of Reform and Conservative Jews largely unresolved.

Trying to avoid a rift between Israel and American Jews, Reform and Conservative Jewish leaders agreed to suspend for three months legal action seeking the formal recognition of their movements in Israel. The turnaround gave Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a reprieve from what appeared to be an inevitable collision with American Jews, who provide crucial political support for Israel in Washington.

Recently at my bank, a non-Jewish teller said that all his Jewish friends were very upset about the Union of Orthodox Jews' statement (March 22). The teller's friend now thinks "that Orthodox Jews do not regard him as Jewish." His question was directed at me because he knows that I am an Orthodox Jew. I explained to him that "there is a terrible misunderstanding about what the Union of Orthodox Jews means." It does not mean that the Jews who call themselves Reform or Conservative are not Jews!

A new survey of Conservative Jews shows that more than two-thirds reject traditional Judaism's insistence that only the children of Jewish mothers can be called Jewish at birth, regardless of the father's religious identity. Yet the same survey also showed that 62% believe that Conservative Jews are "obligated to obey" traditional Jewish law. Those findings underscore the degree of internal contradiction with which Judaism's 1.8 million-member centrist denomination is wrestling.

Hoping to overcome Judaism's centuries-old distaste for missionary activity, an influential rabbi urged his synagogue Friday night to seek converts among non-Jews. The notion of conversion "is upsetting to some Jews because they feel Judaism is less an ideology than a biology, a matter of chromosomes, not choice," said Rabbi Harold Schulweis of the 1,800-family Valley Beth Shalom, the largest synagogue in the San Fernando Valley.

The Israeli government and Jewish leaders appear to have averted a split in world Jewry with the drafting of compromise proposals on the potentially explosive issue of who will conduct religious conversions in Israel. No one involved in the negotiations seems happy. The proposals still would leave the basic question of the status of Reform and Conservative Jews largely unresolved.

The united leadership of Judaism's Conservative movement has issued its strongest condemnation ever of interfaith marriage, urging Jewish parents and young people to recognize the threat that the growing number of Jews marrying non-Jews poses to the faith's continued survival. "We want Jews to marry other Jews," the 2,000-word policy statement bluntly declares to the centrist movement's 1.5 million members in the first definitive statement of Conservative doctrine on intermarriage.

Hoping to overcome Judaism's centuries-old distaste for missionary activity, an influential Los Angeles rabbi is urging his synagogue to seek converts among non-Jews. The notion of conversion "is upsetting to some Jews because they feel Judaism is less an ideology than a biology, a matter of chromosomes, not choice," said Rabbi Harold Schulweis of Encino's 1,800-family Valley Beth Shalom, the largest synagogue in the San Fernando Valley.

Tensions between Israel's religious establishment and more liberal branches of Judaism broke into the open this week when leaders of the country's tiny Reform and Conservative movements charged that the Sephardic chief rabbi had advocated the murder of non-Orthodox Jews.