Compromise Appears to Avert Split Among Jews

JERUSALEM —  The Israeli government and Jewish leaders appear to have averted a split in world Jewry with the drafting of compromise proposals on the potentially explosive issue of who will conduct religious conversions in Israel.

No one involved in the negotiations seems happy. The proposals still would leave the basic question of the status of Reform and Conservative Jews largely unresolved.

But Orthodox, Conservative and Reform Jewish leaders said Monday that the plans put forward in the last couple of days make it unlikely that the Knesset, or parliament, will pass bills preventing rabbis from the more liberal movements from performing religious conversions in Israel or banning them from serving on religious councils.

The Reform and Conservative leaders, in turn, are likely to abandon their efforts to press for equal rights through Israeli courts.

The status of the liberal streams of Judaism is an issue that has threatened to divide Jews in Israel from those in the Diaspora, most of whom belong to the Reform and Conservative movements.

The Orthodox have held a monopoly on Jewish affairs in Israel since the founding of the state 50 years ago. But Reform and Conservative Jews did not want the Jewish state to legalize that status quo or to take steps that would officially brand them as “second-class Jews.”

Many Diasporan Jews identify with Israel, and, as a group, they have provided the state with political and financial backing. Under its Law of Return, Israel guarantees anyone with at least one Jewish grandparent the right to citizenship.

Israel’s Orthodox leadership does not recognize the Reform and Conservative movements as Judaism. The Orthodox adhere strictly to the laws of Judaism, which they believe were handed down from God. They follow detailed kosher diet rules. They will not work, light fire, or use electricity or machinery on the Jewish Sabbath. They oppose marriage out of the faith. They do not allow women to become rabbis, and Orthodox men and women pray separately.

Conservative Jews follow the laws less rigorously and ordain women as rabbis, while Reform Jews view the injunctions as more of a moral guide than absolute law and also ordain women.

Most Jews in Israel are either secular or Orthodox and relatively few belong to the Reform and Conservative movements, which emerged in 19th century Europe.

Still, Israel’s Reform and Conservative movements are growing, and their leaders have been fighting for the right to perform conversions in Israel, as well as marriages, divorces and burials. They want their converts to be recognized by the state, if not by Israel’s Orthodox religious authority, the rabbinate.

One of the compromise proposals was hammered out in 50 or so meetings over the last six months by a committee of Orthodox, Conservative and Reform rabbis under Finance Minister Yaacov Neeman, who is Orthodox. The Neeman committee suggested forming a tripartite council to teach Judaism to potential converts, with the final act of conversion remaining in the hands of the Orthodox.

The country’s two Orthodox chief rabbis have refused comment on the idea, submitted Sunday. But they are expected to reject it as too much of a concession.

Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, spiritual leader of the religious Shas party, has already rejected the plan, saying, “When darkness covers the land and the Reform and Conservative sects, the destroyers of religion, attempt to dig their claws into the Holy Land, they should not be recognized.”

Meanwhile, Orthodox, Reform and Conservative rabbis came up with a fallback position in negotiations led by Jewish Agency Chairman Avraham Burg. Under this proposal, all Jews, whether born into the religion or converted, would be registered by the Interior Ministry as Jews and would have yod--the first letter of both “Jewish” and “Israeli” in Hebrew--instead of the word “Jewish” on their national identity cards.

The date they joined the religion--either their birth date or date of conversion--would also appear on the card, while the details of the conversion would remain in the Interior Ministry.

Burg called this a “technical” solution that would let the state recognize all converts without making Orthodox rabbis do so. It would not, however, confer most of the rights Reform and Conservative converts are seeking, such as the right to be married in Israel.

“The advantage to this proposal is that it may be the only one that can be accepted by everyone,” said Rabbi Uri Regev, the leader of Israel’s Reform movement, who helped craft both compromises. “People realize this will get everyone off of the hook in terms of the conversion bill.”

The existence of the compromises has provided members of the government coalition with an opportunity to vote against a conversion bill that they did not like but had felt bound to support.

“There is no chance that we will support the conversion bill or any other proposal based on coercion rather than consent,” said Natan Sharansky, leader of the Israel With Immigration party. He had been leaning toward supporting the bill before the compromises.

Rabbi Avraham Ravitz, a member of parliament from the Orthodox United Torah Judaism party, said he found both compromise proposals objectionable and would have to decide “which is worse than the other.” He acknowledged that the existence of options meant that religious members of the Knesset would not be able to pass the conversion bill. “We don’t have the votes now,” he said.

The government’s coalition agreement commits its members to supporting each other’s legislation and specifically binds the parties to defending the religious status quo. Ravitz expressed anger that coalition members were now bailing out on the conversion bill.

“We will take into consideration that our partners didn’t fulfill part of the coalition agreement. We vote all the time for different issues that we do not choose but which are important to members of the coalition. Now we will feel very free to decide on what and how to vote. Things will be different,” he warned.

But the public here seems relieved that an explosion over the conversion issue has apparently been prevented. The daily newspaper Haaretz, in an editorial Monday, hailed the Neeman compromise as a “true masterpiece of balancing conflicting positions” and said it is positive for all concerned.