'Western Wall shouldn't be a synagogue'

[Dr. Philip Bliss]

The Jerusalem Post
'Western Wall shouldn't be a synagogue'
BY GIL HOFFMAN AND REBECCA ANN STOIL
04/02/2010 02:04



http://www.jpost.com/Home/Article.aspx?id=167739


The Western Wall should be a national site and not a synagogue, Deputy
Prime Minister Dan Meridor said on Tuesday, in a revealing conversation
in Tel Aviv about matters of religion and state with rabbis and leaders
of the American and Israeli Conservative Movement.

Top American Conservative and Reform officials met this week with
Meridor as well as with a number of other government ministers in
separate and – according to the Reform Movement – uncoordinated meetings.

Whereas the visit of Rabbi Eric Yoffie, the president of the Union for
Reform Judaism, the congregational arm of the Reform Movement in North
America, was planned months in advance, the Conservative delegation,
which consisted of heads of congregations and rabbis from across the
United States, emphasized that they had come for a brief visit to
address what they perceived as a recent serious downturn in
religion-state relations in Israel.

Meridor, who is secular but attends an Orthodox synagogue in Jerusalem’s
Rehavia neighborhood, told the Conservative rabbis that he “identifies
with them” and is unsatisfied with the status quo.

He said he was upset by a recent incident at the Western Wall in which a
woman was arrested for praying with a tallit and Torah scroll. He spoke
about the incident with Western Wall Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovich but failed
to change his mind.

“The truth is that there is no equality between religious streams in
Israel,” Meridor said. “There is no free market.

“What happened at the Western Wall bothers me. It doesn’t have to be a
synagogue. It is a national site. I would change the status quo if I
could, but it cannot be done with the current coalition.”

Regarding civil marriage, Meridor said it was “unacceptable” that
Israeli couples who are unable or unwilling to marry in Israel via the
rabbinate are forced to wed abroad.

“Who knows what would have happened had Ruth the Moabite tried to join
the Jewish people now, with the way the rabbinate handles conversions?”
he said.

The rabbis expressed their deep frustration and their feeling that the
leaders of Israel do not understand their view that such high-profile
incidents like the one at the Western Wall endanger the relationship
between American Jews and Israel.

“Israel is dear to us,” said Bill Lipsey, a leader of the Agudath Israel
Congregation in New Jersey, one of the largest congregations in North
America and an active figure in the New Jersey Jewish Federation.

“We are Zionists, and longtime supporters of the governments of Israel
and of Israel’s policies. But things have gone too far. It cannot be
that our rabbis are not recognized here, that our conversions are not
respected here, that the non-Orthodox streams in Israel and especially
the Masorti movement, receives degrading and discriminatory treatment.

“If in any country in the world, a Jewish woman was arrested because she
tried to carry out the commandments, we would all – all over the United
States – protest outside of the embassy. We would not give them a
moment’s rest.

“And now here, in the State of Israel, at one of the holiest sites in
Israel, at the Western Wall, which is such an important symbol for us
all, a Jewish woman was arrested by a Jewish police officer in the
Jewish state, just because she tried to carry out the commandment of
wrapping herself in a tallit.”

Yizhar Hess, the director of the Conservative Movement’s Israeli branch,
the Masorti Movement of Israel, warned that “the Israeli political
leadership is ignoring an earthquake that is shaking US-Israel
relations. The continued, degrading, infuriating and sometimes even evil
discrimination against non-Orthodox streams of Judaism in Israel have
brought us to a breaking point. Israel cannot continue to be the only
Western state in which Jews do not have freedom of worship.”

Yoffie, however, played down the immediacy of his meetings, explaining
that he usually conducted such talks twice every year.

“We’re always trying to push religion-state issues, but not more this
time than before. In meetings with government leaders, our agenda is, on
one hand, to speak about the political and security situations, and the
second to discuss religion-state issues.”
Yoffie did agree that “the coalition is potentially worrisome because of
who sits around the government table. We understand the danger that
exists for legislation that will be troubling to us on a whole variety
of areas.”

He but added that “thus far, there hasn’t been any great disaster that
has transpired. There hasn’t been a law that fundamentally alters the
status quo, although the potential for such legislation exists and we
have some very specific proposals such as questions on the core
curriculum and the civil union law, that have positive elements but also
some negative ones.”

 

 

Dr. Philip Bliss
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F 61 3 9824 8163
E phili...@blissdentistry.net.au
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