Saying Kaddish for Conservative Judaism?

In his recent remarks to The Jerusalem Post, Rabbi Norman Lamm, the esteemed chancellor of Yeshiva University, pronounced the time near to say Kaddish [the prayer for the dead] for the Conservative and the Reform Movements.
 
I shall leave it to the leaders of the Reform Movement to react to his criticism of their stream - I shall react to his criticism of Conservative/Masorti Judaism.
 
Rabbi Lamm states, "The Conservatives are in a mood of despondency and pessimism."
 
I am not certain upon what he bases this assertion. I, for one, am optimistic and foresee a firm future for Judaism and for the Masorti Movement.

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Ritual Baths: Single women and converts stay away

Imagine the following scenario: A Masorti/Conservative Jew walks into a public library in Tel Aviv to borrow a book. At the entry she is informed by the librarian, a civil servant, that owing to her Masorti affiliation, she would not be permitted to borrow the book.  If she truly wanted to read she would have to raise the funds to build her own building, stock it with books, and find the money to staff the facility and pay for its maintenance.

Sounds silly, right? Well of course it is. Our public libraries are built and maintained with tax payer dollars. They are intended to serve all of the public. There is no ideological or theological litmus test to determine who may borrow a book.

Yet this is exactly what happens when Masorti Jews seek to use the public Mikvehs (ritual baths) throughout Israel.

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Rabbis running our government - God help us!

Israel's new prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, is set to reveal his new government. This government has already come under heavy criticism from pundits of all stripes even before anybody has been sworn into office. I shall join the chorus of critics.
 
Some years back, Mr. Netanyahu criticized a government that had far fewer cabinet ministers as overly large, wasteful and unwieldy. His new government has some thirty ministers. That is far larger, bloated, swollen and wasteful than the government he criticized. The ministers will not be able to all fit around the current table.

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The Rabbi, The Pope and the Western Wall

The Western Wall (Kotel in Hebrew) has been a symbol to the Jewish people since the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem which marked the end of the Jewish commonwealth in our land. Even when the State of Israel was reestablished in 1948, Jews could only look from afar toward this site, a retaining wall of the Temple Mount.
 
There are so many stories depicting efforts by Jews to pray there, or to smuggle in a Shofar on Rosh HaShana, during the British Mandate. During Jordanian rule we were barred completely.
 
Of course, once retaken during the course of  the Six Day War, it immediately became a pilgrimage site for Jews the world over. The plaza behind was cleared of homes to create a large space for visitors.
 
A modest Mechizah (dividing barrier) was nearly immediately erected. Even in the sixties, when a Masorti (Conservative) Minyan sought to pray in keeping with their custom, with men and women together - Mayor Teddy Kollek declared the time not yet ripe. We are now forty years later and the idea seems even more distant.

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Black Hat Politics

Anybody know exactly what the Israeli Interior Ministry's intended functions may be? Yes, we all know that it is where we go to apply for a new passport or replace a lost ID card. We know that requests for aliyah [immigration], or visas (work, tourist, student, etc.) are routed through one of its departments.

But should this be the office that Shas, the Sephardi religious political party, most covets? What is really going on?

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A bone to pick with our Chief Rabbinate

The Chief Rabbinate of Israel has been defined as "the supreme  religious governing body in the State of  Israel". Of course, even if there was validity to this definition - let us not forget to add "for the Jewish people." For there is no single body that can govern over all of the recognized religions. The State of Israel respects, or certainly ought to respect, residents of all religious faith traditions.
 
So who should serve as the Chief Rabbi of Israel? Well, to begin with, lack of agreement on this question means that we have two Chief Rabbis. One Ashkenazi and one Sephardi. In the city of Tel Aviv, where the city council imposed budgetary constraints, they somehow manage to make due with but one municipal Chief Rabbi.

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Asking the hard questions

Every ten years Israel, as well as many other countries, carries out a population census. Many questions are asked in an effort to obtain information about the citizens.
 
Regular surveys are a part of everyday life. Some are to determine political leanings, educational, culinary preferences, television viewing habits and more.
 
Recently I received a call from a polling organization asking me, among other questions, to categorize my religious leanings. I was given three choices: Dati (religious), masorti (traditional), and secular.

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It may pay to be Jewish

A new director, Muli Yeselson, has just been appointed by the office of the Prime Minister, to the Israeli Conversion Authority. He has already come under severe criticism by the Haredi press, calling him a "traitor" and "collaborator." Rabbi Druckman, the recently ousted director, was far from popular in the fervently Orthodox world. While hardly a liberal, he was seen as too open and the conversions performed on his watch were questioned by the official Rabbinic courts.

Issues of conversion have been covered on the front pages of Israeli newspapers on a frequent basis.  Most sociologists accept that there are as many as 350,000 Israeli citizens living in Israel from the Former Soviet Union who are not Jewish. They made Aliyah under the Law of Return that allows Israeli citizenship with a single Jewish grandfather. But Jewish law recognizes as Jewish one who has a Jewish mother or who has converted to Judaism.

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Judaism and equality - or lack thereof

The days of Passover command us to remember the story of the Exodus. One of the most fundamental messages of the Exodus is the idea that a nation has decided that "freedom" can take precedence over life itself. In fact, halakha tells us that maintaining our freedom to remain Jews is one of the very few cases in which we must be willing to give up our lives.

In the past, the freedom of religion, in the sense of conducting rituals, was left to a small, elite group and the role of the religious leadership was crucial - that was the reality when man entered the modern age.

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Judaism is not racism

Approximately seven years ago at the World Conference against Racism held in Durban, South Africa in 2001, Rabbis for Human rights faced one of its most difficult moments. As a human rights organization, we are undoubtedly against racism, and feel strongly about efforts to stop the phenomenon. But, this particular conference became a platform for Israel-bashing in which Israel was blamed and Zionism for racism and to avoid dealing with this cross-continent phenomena. Eight years later when the second conference is about to take place, there is great hesitation in the organization about joining the conference; hesitation that is followed by a petition against having it hijacked by anti-Semitism.

For many years now I have been facing this dilemma. As a rabbi and educator I promote sincere and deep learning of the Jewish culture for every member of the Jewish nation, I think that this is essential in order to develop one's full identity. On the other hand, as a human rights activist, it is clear to me that emphasizing the belonging of a person to a community essentially leads him/her to differentiate between the way he sees members of his community from the rest of mankind. I think this is even clearer once dealing with a monotheistic culture that holds within it the concept of the right way and the concept of wrong doers. Because of that, I find it crucial to emphasize the voice within our tradition that points out our obligation to every human being and the texts that are for the basic equality for all mankind, irrespective of religion, gender or race. So what does that mean about the Jewish tradition?

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