US liberal Jews decry ‘slap in the face’ from Netanyahu on Western Wall prayer

AMANDA BORSCHEL-DAN

Conservative and Reform leaders may not be surprised by the latest development – years of experience have taught them better – but the sense of betrayal is powerful, and they’re determined to fight

A group of American Conservative and Reform rabbis and members of the Women of the Wall carry Torah scrolls during a protest march against the government’s failure to deliver a new prayer space, at the Western Wall in Jerusalem’s Old City, November 2, 2016. (Hadas Parush/Flash90)

Leaders of liberal world Jewry were despondent Sunday, but determined to fight, hours after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his cabinet froze plans to dedicate a pluralistic prayer pavilion at the Western Wall.

The announcement, which came in a terse statement from the Prime Minister’s Office, caught the leaders of North America’s Reform and Conservative movements unawares, though it would be a stretch to say they were surprised.

Already on January 31, 2016, immediately after the cabinet passed a decision to construct an egalitarian prayer platform in the southern section of the Western Wall complex, the ultra-Orthodox members of the Knesset vowed that it would not be implemented.

“And now the prime minister with zero leadership and zero backbone is caving to the most extreme members of Israeli society,” Rabbi Steven Wernick, the head of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, said Sunday by phone from California.

For many liberal Jewish leaders who spoke with The Times of Israel, the sense of betrayal was compounded by a bill, also approved Sunday by ministers, that would give the Israeli Chief Rabbinate the sole authority over conversions to Judaism in the country.

Jerry Silverman, CEO of the Jewish Federations of North America, at the 2012 General Assembly in Baltimore, Maryland (photo credit: JFNA/JTA)

“At a time where we should be coming together as a Jewish people, Israeli and Diaspora Jewry, these types of messages from the government create more of a divide than unity,” said Jerry Silverman, president of the Jewish Federations of North America. “The conversion bill changes the status quo of conversion globally,” he said, citing a JFNA study of the bill with three independent lawyers.

Independent conversions — whether through liberal Jewish conversion courts or Orthodox, halachic batei din — would be considered invalid according to the bill.

“There were promises not kept after progress on certain key issues,” said Rabbi Philip Scheim, the Toronto-based president of the Rabbinical Assembly, the international association of Conservative rabbis. “Along with our deep love and sense of commitment, there is also a sense of hurt. Why shouldn’t we have the ability to have our space, our converts recognized as Jews when we come to Israel?”

Rabbi Steven Wernick, the chief executive officer of umbrella body USCJ. (Ethan Weg)

Between the conversion bill and the abortive Western Wall initiative, “Israel is basically declaring it is not the Jewish homeland because not all Jews have the right to be Jewish according to their understandings of Jewish practice and history. Israel is now only the Jewish state for some Jews,” said Wernick.

“It’s a sad day. The government has formally slapped Diaspora Jewry on the face. It’s not good for Israel, and not good for people who actually believe in klal Yisrael [the Jewish collective],” he added.

Rabbi Rick Jacobs, the head of the North American Reform Movement, had just gotten off the plane at Ben Gurion Airport when he received word that the Western Wall plan had been suspended.

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Amanda Borschel-Dan
is The Times of Israel’s Jewish World editor.