Saturday, March 29, 1997

Conservative, Reform Jews say now is not the time for division

By Jerry Hirsch

The Orange County Register

SANTA ANA, Calif. - America's oldest organization of Orthodox rabbis is set to declare that Conservative and Reform rabbis are heretics, which has set off a war of words among the leaders of the different branches of Judaism.

News of the formal resolution, planned for March 31 by the New York-based Union of Orthodox Rabbis of America, stunned Jews in Orange County as they gathered last weekend at dozens of religious services and parties to celebrate Purim, which commemorates how Jews in ancient Persia dodged genocide planned by the king's evil adviser.

"We just don't agree. We are not less Jewish than they are," said Susanna Kotlyar, standing in line with her costumed children for a Purim carnival game at the Reform Congregation Shir Ha-Ma'alot in Irvine, Calif.

"We light Sabbath candles just like the Orthodox," Kotlyar said. "We have family Sabbath dinners on Friday nights, we come to temple, we celebrate the holidays, our children go to religious school, I speak Hebrew. They are wrong."

Rabbi David B. Hollander of the Orthodox rabbinical group said he believes the resolution will encourage members of the Conservative and Reform movements to join the Orthodox.

"Hundreds of thousands of American Jews don't understand that their leaders are teaching them heresy when they say that the Torah (Jewish law) is adjustable to the times," Hollander said.

The Union of Orthodox rabbis advocates a strict and unchanging fundamentalist interpretation of Jewish law.

Published reports that Hollander's group was about to deny the Jewishness of Conservative and Reform Jews added to the weekend debate. But Hollander said Sunday that his organization adheres to the traditional view that a Jew is anyone who has a biological Jewish mother or who has undergone an Orthodox conversion. Unlike in the Reform movement, Orthodox rabbis do not recognize the child of a Jewish father and a Gentile mother.

The 600-member Orthodox group is advancing its declaration at a time when the Israeli Parliament is considering changes in its definition of who is a Jew and who is eligible for the Law of Return, which grants instant citizenship to Jews.

Hollander said he believes the resolution will influence Israel to change its definition of who is a Jew to conform with Orthodox standards. The Conservative and Reform movements are vigorously fighting any changes, arguing that it would essentially disenfranchise the rabbinical leadership for the majority of America's 5.8 million Jews and affect thousands of Jews who converted under Reform or Conservative rituals. Orthodox rabbis do not recognize conversions and marriages conducted by their Reform and Conservative counterparts.

"I think it is ridiculous. Why would you turn people away, especially with the diminished population as it is?" said Dana Tovsten, an Irvine resident who was born Catholic but is raising her family Jewish.

The union's public airing of the schism among the major branches of Judaism comes at a time of increasing tension within American Jewry.

Large parts of the American Jewish public are questioning the latest moves by the Likud-led Israeli government to build Jewish housing in what traditionally have been Arab sections of Jerusalem.

Closer to home, the American Jewish community is facing dramatic erosion from high rates of assimilation and intermarriage. The intermarriage rate among American Jews has reached 50 percent, according to the B'nai B'rith Center for Jewish Family Life.

Moreover, the evangelical Christian community is organizing to take advantage of Jewish divisions by re-establishing long-dormant efforts to convert Jews.

"We are real good at talking politics, at criticizing ourselves," said Rabbi Bernard King of Shir Ha-Ma'alot. "We are not so good at walking humbly with our God. That's what needs to be emphasized now in Jewish life. Jews have to reach out to God to save us from all this craziness."

Although the Union of Orthodox Rabbis represents one of the smaller and more right-wing Orthodox groups, its philosophy reflects that of larger Orthodox organizations.

"The Reform and the Orthodox are fundamentally different," said Rabbi Joel Landau of the Orthodox Beth Jacob Congregation of Irvine and the Rabbinical Council of America. Because of the schism between the Orthodox and other Jewish groups over conversion and intermarriage, "there will come a time when the majority of the Reform and Conservative constituents will not be Jewish."

But Rabbi Emily Feigenson of Adat Chaverim Synagogue, a Conservative congregation in Los Alamitos, Calif., said there's nothing new in the debate. "This is a decades-old Orthodox position," she said.

What's new is the public attack that the Union of Orthodox Rabbis is making on the Conservative and Reform faiths, said Rabbi David Ellenson, director of Jewish studies at the University of Southern California.

Feigenson said, "I want children who are adopted as babies and undergo Reform and Conservative conversions to be accepted as Jews by the Orthodox and Israel.

"Children who grow up thinking they are Jewish and participating in Jewish life will feel this as a slap in the face."

(c) 1997, The Orange County Register (Santa Ana, Calif.).

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