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A bill before the Israeli Knesset that would give full authority for conversions to the Chief Rabbinate is causing a huge controversy in Israel and in the United States.The Knesset’s Constitution, Law and Justice Committee approved 5-4, on first reading to plenum on July 12, a bill that would give the Israeli Orthodox rabbinate a monopoly on conversions to Judaism. The bill must go before second and third readings before being brought to a vote in the Knesset and can be revised during the process.

Under current practice, Israel recognizes only conversions performed by Orthodox rabbis inside Israel. But, under the Law of Return, people converted by non-Orthodox rabbis outside the country are automatically eligible for Israeli citizenship like other Jews. The proposed legislation would give Israel’s chief rabbinate the legal power to decide whether any conversion outside Israel is legitimate.

The groups most likely to be affected would be about a half-million immigrants to Israel from the former Soviet Union and those who converted to Judaism abroad and could now be denied Israeli citizenship.

The bill, supported by various religious and right-wing parties, essentially would give the Israeli Orthodox rabbinate the power to decide who is Jewish and who is not. At the same time, it would delegitimize non-Orthodox rabbis outside Israel. Opponents of the bill say that passage of the bill would defeat efforts to promote a more flexible and Halakhic conversion process and would marginalize the non-Orthodox Jewish movements.

The bill has set off a storm in and outside Israel.

“I understand the concern of the Conservative and Reform movement,” said Rabbi Barry Gelman. “From the perspective of Israel, it is already a fact that the rabbinate controls conversions in Israel. They also have retroactively nullified conversions. They have already been notoriously well-known for deciding which conversions are good and which are not good – that is, not acceptable according to Halakha.

”Rabbi Gelman is senior rabbi of United Orthodox Synagogues and president of the International Rabbinic Fellowship, a worldwide organization of rabbis founded to promote Modern Orthodoxy and serious study of Torah and Halakha and to advocate policies and implement actions on behalf of World Jewry and humankind.

“The key here, which is why I’m not so concerned yet, is what this bill does is turn into law what, in fact, is already being done,” said Rabbi Gelman. “So, how much is really being lost in that part of the negotiations? That remains to be seen, which is why I’m not ready to stand squarely behind the bill.

“On the plus side, the bill would allow city rabbis in Israel to perform conversions without the need to work with the Chief Rabbinate’s rabbinical courts. That could help in two ways. One, which is significant, is it could help liberalize the conversion standards so that the close to half-million Russian immigrants who are of Jewish stock – if not Halakhicly Jewish – can convert. The new bill is taking an approach to conversion that would not necessarily require complete mitzvah observance.

“Second, the bill will generally offer a more realistic and, in many cases, a user-friendly process for everybody.

So, there is a lot of plus side.

“The American movements are looking at the bill from the American perspective. There are very few Reform or Conservative conversions done in Israel. This bill could be the answer to the problem that many people in Israel have been complaining about. But, because it may call into question some conversions done in Israel, it has caused an uproar.

”Because of the possible upsides to the legislation, Rabbi Gelman explained that he was not ready to condemn the bill. He was hopeful that Conservative and Reform movement leaders, who have arrived in Israel on Sunday to lobby the bill’s chief sponsor, Israeli Beiteinu MK David Rotem, will find a way to alter the language in a way that is more acceptable to American critics.

One important question raised by Religious Zionists: Does the Chief Rabbinate understand their responsibility toward making conversion a realistic possibility for these half-million Russian Jews?

And, a second question raised by the Conservative and Reform movements in the United States: Does this bill disenfranchise the majority of American Jews?Rabbi Gelman argues there are well-established Halakhic ways to make the conversion process doable for these Russian Jews.

“These are not necessarily methods we would use for individual converts,” he cautioned. “But because the issue of these Russian Jews and the future of their children as well as the future of the state is affected, the rabbinate should be exercising nationalist or Religious Zionist Halakhic thinking. They should realize their decision would affect the entire country.

“We have handed the keys to the kingdom to anti-Zionists.

“But, there are city rabbis who are Zionist. There are city rabbis who understand what needs to be done in regards to converting these Russian Jews. So, that’s why I think the bill has an upside for the state. I understand it has a downside for Reform and Conservative Jews.

”Danny Horwitz, rabbi of the Greenfield Chapel at Beth Yeshurun, has been a Conservative pulpit rabbi for 30 years. He views the conversion bill as a move fraught with political peril.

“Sometimes, power politics takes precedence over what’s best for the citizens – in this case, members of the Jewish people,” said Rabbi Horwitz. “The bill is designed to place total control over the definition of Jewish identity in the hands of the Chief Rabbinate, probably the most extreme ultra-Orthodox element in Israel with any power. Not only will this be a problem in terms of recognizing conversions, but in its current form, it could affect the status of people who want to make aliyah. The rabbinate has the desire to maintain control over conversions. But, they have also retroactively annulled conversions.

“The bill maintains a certain amount of power and employment within the ultra-Orthodox community. But, as we know, the current situation of the ultra-Orthodox community is not sustainable. A majority from the ultra-Orthodox community does not work. So, where does their money come from? It must come from the government. They currently have a certain amount of votes in the Knesset. But, I also foresee a situation in 10 to 20 years where you may reach a point where 50 percent of the people who are 18 years old won’t serve in the army.

”For Conservative and Reform Jews throughout the world, the bill makes no sense, argues Rabbi Horwitz.

“Given Israel’s need to deal with much more existential problems, it doesn’t make sense that Israel would create this kind of slap in the face to the communities of Jews who have stood behind Israel. That’s part of the reason why [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu came out on Sunday against the bill.

“However, I don’t take it for granted just because he came out against the bill that it may fail.

”Rabbi Horwitz also views the conversion bill as harmful to Modern Orthodox interests. “In general, modern Orthodox have allowed the status quo in Israel to continue,” he said. “They have hoped they would remain legitimized – that their conversions would remain legitimized by the Chief Rabbinate. Now, many of them are having their conversions rejected by the Israeli rabbinate. In my judgment, if they don’t stand up for the rights of those who are being undermined, they will also be squeezed out of the business of conversions.

”What should American Jews do? Rabbi Horwitz suggests that U.S. Jews must make a separation between those existential issues and the conversion bill.

“We have to stand with Israel,” he said. “But, we also have to be willing to say to Israel: This is not the kind of Israel we want to see. You can’t expect young American Jews to support a people whose thinking is the same ilk as the folks in Tehran. When you have women attacked for carrying a sefer Torah at the Western Wall, that’s not going to warm the hearts of American Jews. It’s not realistic for Israel to expect that every Jew will give them a pass for this behavior and allow Judaism to be defined by its most extreme elements.

“Ben-Gurion said in 1939, when the British created the White Paper: ‘We will fight the Nazis as if there was no White Paper and fight the White Paper as if there were no Nazis.’

“I think we ought to fight the enemies of Israel as if we didn’t have this internal problem in Israel. And, we ought to deal with the internal problem of freedom of religion in Israel as if she did not have external enemies.”

The Economist

October 29

Can a handful of peaceniks challenge the power of AIPAC?

POLITICAL lore in Washington has long ascribed mighty powers to the Jewish lobby—and especially to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). In 2007 two academics, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, went so far as to write a book accusing “the lobby” of hijacking American foreign policy and luring America into the quagmire of Iraq to serve Israel’s interests. Henceforth, however, it will not be possible to write of a monolithic pro-Israel lobby in America. AIPAC now has a small but vocal competitor.

More than 1,500 people, mostly American Jews, but including both Israelis and a few Palestinians, showed up in Washington this week for the first annual conference of J Street, a one-year-old, self-describedly “pro-Israel, pro-peace” lobby, whose executive director, Jeremy Ben-Ami, says it is fighting for the “heart and soul” of the American Jewish community. Unlike AIPAC, J Street intends to push aggressively for a two-state solution based on Israel’s pre-1967 borders.

AIPAC has maintained a lofty public silence about this doveish upstart. But J Street’s first job has been to rebut a posse of detractors who question how “pro-Israel” it really is. Israel’s ambassador to the United States declined to attend. In print and in the blogosphere, in America and Israel, foes have excoriated J Street for having called for an immediate ceasefire during last year’s Gaza war, paying excessive heed to Richard Goldstone’s report accusing Israel of war crimes, making room at its conference for people who do not support the Zionist idea of a Jewish state, and other alleged heresies against the orthodox line of Israel’s traditional supporters in America.

If this flood of denigration was intended to drown J Street at birth, it seems to have failed. Israel’s Likud-led government may have stayed away from its conference, but its president, Shimon Peres, and Tzipi Livni, the leader of its opposition Kadima party, expressed their support. James Jones, America’s national security adviser, not only gave a speech but made a point of saying that the Obama administration would be represented at future meetings as well. Although some invitees pulled out, more than 40 members of Congress attended a gala dinner.

So J Street has planted a foot in the door. Yet it remains puny compared to AIPAC. The new organisation has an annual budget of around $3m and a handful of staff. AIPAC has an annual budget of around $60m, more than 275 employees, an endowment of over $130m and a new $80m headquarters building on Capitol Hill.

Beyond the disparity in resources, Mr Ben-Ami now faces the nightmarish job of retaining the loyalty of the doves who flocked to this week’s conference without alienating mainstream Jewish opinion in America. This requires some contortions. J Street criticises the “flawed” mandate Mr Goldstone received from the UN but says Israel should take the findings seriously. It favours imposing harsh new sanctions on Iran, but only if the Obama administration’s efforts to engage it fail. Mr Ben-Ami says American Jews take “very sophisticated and nuanced positions” on the Middle East. But many will continue to prefer AIPAC’s simpler view that the government of Israel is the best judge of where Israel’s interests lie.

Haaretz

By Natasha Mozgovaya

WASHINGTON - On the stage in the plenum of The Jewish Federations of North America’s annual conference sat three well-tailored and smiling young people, who had immigrated to Israel from Ethiopia, Brazil and Peru. They told their story to the audience of 3,000. One described how far she had come since childhood, when she was excited by the elevator in the absorption center, and the other two focused on their military service and their love for Israel. A significant percentage of their achievements, as expected at an event of this type, were attributed to American Jewry and its support for Israel.

Also as expected, the audience at the General Assembly was moved - but somewhat less so than in the past. The long relationship between Israel and American Jewry has moved on to a new phase. They’re not equals yet, but Israel is no longer the unfortunate relative. The enthusiasm is waning, and the news from Israel is eroding what idealism remains.

Participants at the GA sang the anthems of the United States, Canada and Israel, and the White House chief of staff spoke about his personal connection to Israel and the U.S. president’s commitment to its security. But Israel is not a top priority, and that is evident in the decline in donations to Israel collected by the federations: less that a third of the approximately $900 million donated in 2008.

One of the serious problems was and remains assimilation (for those who consider it a problem). Because of cutbacks, there were fewer young people at the GA this year. Some said that in spite of the claims that young people are cutting themselves off from community institutions, they actually feel more involved than their parents, in that they aren’t just signing checks. In addition, the argument goes, less formal organizations like havurot require greater personal responsibility and investment than more traditional ones.

The Taglit-Birthright Israel project, which offers young Jews a free 10-day visit to Israel, has been a success, and has sent about 220,000 young people to Israel since its establishment a decade ago.

Visits to Masada, encounters with other Jews, and meetings with Israel Defense Forces soldiers and college students create a sense of fun for the young people, and it pays off in the long run. Jewish Agency chairman Natan Sharansky called for all young Diaspora Jews to be brought on trips to Israel.

But beyond preventing assimilation and fostering connections with young people, Israel and American Jewry lack a common agenda. Not surprisingly, the two most recent outpourings of solidarity came during the second intifada and the Second Lebanon War. The American Jewish community lacks reasons for enthusiasm. Although Sharansky the hero still receives a standing ovation, there are no longer mass demonstrations to free Soviet Jewry, and American Jews have come to terms with the “desertion” of hundreds of thousands of Jews from the former Soviet Union to the United States; they are working energetically to integrate “the Russians” into existing institutions so that at least they won’t assimilate. Some community activists feel betrayed by the “new yordim” - the growing community of Ethiopian Jews who have wandered from Israel to New York. “We paid to bring you to Israel, and you fled here?” they accuse them.

There were a great many topics on the agenda, from the Iranian threat to Facebook fund-raising to environmental initiatives. What is missing is a unifying and exciting agenda. If Israel wants to continue to be relevant to these young people - and not only because of its problems, the common fears and the free trip - it must do its part to contribute to an egalitarian relationship.

It isn’t pleasant to hear a young American Jewish activist, to whom Israel is important, claiming that the country is not interested in him. A Sarah Silverman comedy special on Israel’s Channel 2 may be a hit, but it’s not enough. Teaching the history and culture of Diaspora Jewry in Israeli schools would be a good start.

rahmblr:

Just one GA highlight:

After announcing that his son and his nephew would be having their bar mitzvahs this spring in Israel, and receiving applause, the White House chief of staff said the applause was “cheap” and that he’d be accepting $18 dollar checks on their behalf.

Read more here.

Rahmblr empathizes with you high-fiving Rahm back. On your computer.

“Preserving and Unifying the Ideals of the Russian Speaking Jewish Community”

Each culture, each community brings something unique to America. Often referred to as a melting pot many Americans confuse this with an abandonment of their historic communities. In fact, America is not so much a melting pot as it is a tapestry of unique cultures and people. In this way preserving the American way of life is about preserving individual cultures. In America we celebrate and are nourished by other communities, other cultures. In this way we are the standard-bearers of, and responsible for, keeping our culture alive. America is not a chorus that sings unison, it sings harmony. Therefore, preserving and unifying the ideals of the Russian speaking Jewish community with its varied history and culture is an American expectation, an American responsibility, that each culture is expected to shoulder.

The Challenges We Face

We are first and foremost Jews. In Russia geography, where we were from, did not matter. In coming to America we have lost sight of this one immutable fact – we are Jews, and we need to let the differences in geography not deplete us but enrich us and our communities. Because we are so diverse the challenges we face in trying to keep our community intact are difficult but not insurmountable. One of the greatest challenges we face is keeping our community together.

Why it is important to keep our “neighborhood” intact.

It is important to understand that while it is best if we have Russian-Jews living and working in close proximity to one another so there is a large Russian-Jewish presence this is not always possible. However, moving away from the community does not mean leaving the community.

Keeping Traditions Alive

Keeping our traditions alive will strengthen our heritage and strengthen the bonds between us. Traditions establish a support network for all Russian Jews now and into the future. When people move away and do not stay connected to their community they weaken those bonds and make it easier to lose them.

Keeping traditions alive means we must create an environment that is the type of environment we want to live, work and raise our children in. Issues such as schools (education) clean, safe streets, open green spaces (parks and fields), and zoning and development issues are all better addressed by an intact community with a unified voice.

Traditions however do something even more important, they strengthen the bonds between parent and child. By readily reinforcing a common culture we create an environment that we all understand and can function most effectively in.

Founder: Emanuel David

Program Director: David Mirand

The Struggle for Soviet Jewry in American Politics: Israel versus the American Jewish Establishment, by Fred. A. Lazin, Lexington Books, 2005, 356 pp.

Reviewed by Sarah Schmidt

Fred A. Lazin, Lynn and Lloyd Family Professor of Local Government at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Beersheba, has written a well-researched and documented case study of the struggle between Israeli authorities and the American Jewish establishment over where Jewish émigrés from the Soviet Union should be allowed and encouraged to resettle, once Soviet policy changed to allow free emigration. He uses this study to address the broader issue of ethnicity and American politics, particularly the changing role of Jews in American politics during the past half-century. In doing so, Lazin provides important information and insight about how American Jewry came of age as a result of the “Free Soviet Jewry” movement, as its style and behavior changed to reflect the group’s acceptance, security, wealth, and newfound influence in the corridors of political power.

Most of the volume deals with the period from 1967 to 1989, before the breakdown of the Soviet Union and Mikhail Gorbachev’s decision to open its gates to anyone wishing to leave. Initially the Israeli government and most American Jewish leaders viewed the Russian Jewish émigré issue as one of aliyah-immigration to Israel. Most Soviet Jews, however, preferred to go to the United States, and the American Jewish community responded by pressuring their government to admit these Jews as “refugees” and to help them find housing, jobs, and health care.

In response, Israel demanded that American Jewish organizations stop working on behalf of the Soviet Jews. It claimed their aliyah was essential to Israel’s continued existence, and emphasized that past absorption of many unskilled Jews from Arab countries gave Israel the right to receive the highly educated Russian Jews.

This situation created a dilemma for American Jewish leaders: they were forced to choose between Israel’s expressed need and their own residual sense of guilt about the passivity of the American Jewish community during the 1930s, when America had refused entry to Jews fleeing Hitler’s Germany. The solution they found was the principle of “freedom of choice”: émigrés should be allowed to decide for themselves where they wanted to settle. Despite their ambivalence, for the most part Israeli political leaders tolerated the Americans’ decision; the Soviet Jewry issue apparently had a lower priority than maintaining good relations both with American Jewry and the American government.

Lazin’s study incorporates and acknowledges a vast amount of published scholarship. Perhaps his major contribution, however, is the access he gained, beginning in the late 1980s and continuing through the next decade, to extensive archival material both in the Jewish Agency and from a range of mainstream American Jewish organizations, as well as from the files of Ralph Goldman, former director of the American Joint Distribution Committee. In addition, he lists the names of eighty-two Jewish community activists whom he interviewed, both in Israel and the United States. For the present at least, Lazin’s volume seems to represent the most extensive and authoritative account of the subject to date.

American Jewish Leaders Define Their Political Interests

Most of this volume focuses on the strategies Americans used to put the Soviet Jewry issue on the public agenda, the conflict over turf within the American Soviet Jewry movement, and the struggle between Israel and the American Jewish establishment. Lazin concludes, however, by discussing how his study highlights changes within the American Jewish community since the 1930s, a community now heavily influenced both by the Holocaust and the existence of a Jewish state.

In the 1930s only one major Jewish organization, the American Jewish Committee, had access to the Roosevelt administration. By the 1970s many Jewish organizations, with varying degrees of influence on Congress and the administration, were actively working for Soviet Jewry. Lazin also notes the difference in the quality of the leadership. The top echelon of the American Jewish Committee consisted of wealthy and successful men whose involvement with the Committee was often limited. In the 1970s and 1980s, however, the organizations had an overabundance of qualified lay leadership, including women, who often took leave from other pursuits to devote their full time to the Soviet Jewry movement.

Perhaps most important, during the 1930s establishment Jewish leaders were still insecure as Jews and fearful of an anti-Semitic backlash, and so preferred “quiet diplomacy” to public activism. By the 1970s, however, Soviet Jewry advocates felt comfortable both as Jews and as Americans, and, during the Cold War, saw no conflict between American and Jewish concerns. After all, American Jews were seeking support for a population being persecuted by a communist regime, and even American presidents were speaking with Soviet leaders about the Jews’ right to emigrate. Additionally, the Israeli victory in the 1967 Six Day War had given American Jews a new sense of pride and confidence as they identified with their Israeli counterparts, affecting their political behavior.

During the late 1980s, however, when Gorbachev proposed free immigration for Soviet Jews, the American Jewish establishment retreated from its support for “freedom of choice” and agreed to a yearly quota of forty thousand Soviet Jewish refugees allowed to enter the United States based on family reunification. They did so because the economic burden of resettlement, coupled with increasingly limited federal funding, led to a more positive perspective on Israel’s willingness to accept all Soviet Jewish émigrés. After 1985, as they became more concerned about the future of their own community, American Jewish leaders learned to distinguish between their collective memory of the Holocaust and current pragmatic political issues. The “Israeli option,” therefore, had now become attractive.

When the American Jewish leadership abandoned “freedom of choice,” then, it did not do so in response to Israeli demands. Instead, it succumbed to economic limitations at a time when Israel’s centrality had given way to internal concerns, particularly the anxiety about rising intermarriage and assimilation. In the broadest sense, therefore, Lazin’s historical study may provide a useful guide to what could happen in the future should American Jewish and Israeli interests once again conflict.