Response: A Correct Assessment

David Forman

Stanley Ringler is correct in his assessment that Reform Judaism in Israel is marginal. In his article, he points to the overwhelming political realities in Israel that virtually prevent any possibility for Reform to penetrate Israeli society. Yet simultaneously, and to my mind accurately, he holds the Movement in Israel, and its principal supporting diaspora institution, ARZA (Association of Reform Zionists of America), equally responsible for the secondary status that Reform occupies in Israel. Ringler does a great service in stating what many of us in Israel feel, that while IRAC (Israel Religious Action Center) has done excellent work here in Israel, its negative approach - along with ARZA's - in trying to build diaspora support for Reform in Israel has been counterproductive.

Reform Jews are not the sole besieged minority in Israel. To promulgate such a thesis creates a dual antagonism toward Reform, here and abroad. But Ringler is too gentle in dealing with our diaspora Reform partners. He is remiss in not pointing out that, before Reform Judaism can make inroads into Israel, it has to overcome an extremely negative and cynical attitude that Israelis have toward Reform Judaism as played out in the diaspora.

Here I do not refer to Reform in its historically classical anti-Zionist context. I refer to the growing anti-klal tendency of the North American Reform Movement. Imagine an Israeli trying to comprehend the latest trends within our Movement.

1. The son of a mixed marriage - the father being Jewish, the mother, not - is dating the daughter of two Jewish parents. Is this interdating? According to the Reform Movement's law of patrilineal descent, the answer is no, that is, providing the child of the mixed marriage sheds him - or herself of non-Jewish beliefs and practices and is reared and educated as a Jew. Of course it is difficult to know what goes on behind a family's closed doors; and in the Reform Movement there is no central control over who enforces or what constitutes sufficient Jewish education.
2. So what if the child is not reared as a Jew, but also not as a non-Jew? Yet, at the age of twenty-one the boy decides that he really loves this daughter of two Jewish parents; and so he declares himself Jewish. Would this fall under the category of interdating?
3. Suppose the boy's mother is Jewish and the father is not. He also is reared neither Jewish nor non-Jewish. If that same daughter of two Jewish parents chose to date him, would she be interdating? According to Jewish law, the son would be Jewish. But a true egalitarian religious movement could not accept that. If it did, it would violate that element of egalitarianism that patrilineal descent was supposed to introduce.
4. What does it mean not to be reared non-Jewish? Would the yearly familial obligation of celebrating Christmas and Easter with non-Jewish grandparents be considered being reared non-Jewish?
5. What does one tell the child of a mixed marriage regarding interdating? Do we say that it is okay for that child to interdate, but not okay for the child of two Jewish parents?
6. What if one child of a Jewish mother and another child of a Jewish father are both reared Jewish, but in their adult years drop out of Jewish life entirely? Will they both still be considered Jewish?
7. What about the child of two Jewish parents who doesn't care about his or her Jewishness, so much so that he or she never received a Jewish education? Once Jewish law no longer determines who is a Jew, shall willful identification alone determine one's Jewishness?

To a Reform Jew, all the above issues are legitimate. To an Israeli, they are incomprehensible. For example, the pronouncement at the 1994 UAHC Biennial to engage in "outreach to non-Jews" set the Reform Movement in Israel back light years. One Israeli reacted with characteristic cynicism by claiming that since the Reform Movement is succeeding in "Protestantising" Reform Jews, why not begin to "Judaize" Protestants? Israelis simply cannot comprehend such debates as to whether a non-Jewish partner of a mixed marriage should be a fully enfranchised member of a synagogue. Should he or she be allowed to be a synagogue board member, read prayers at services, teach in the religious schools or vote in congregational matters? When close to 55 percent of all new marriages among the North American Jewish community are mixed, with a new force of non-Jews invited into Reform ranks, how does one know who is Jewish out there? If conversion to Judaism is no longer necessary - which de facto will be the case - then what are the guidelines for being Jewish? It seems that the most minimal of religious standards are cast aside. And so an Israeli asks, are there any serious demands for being Jewish? Under such a freewheeling religious system, how are any standards accurately monitored? These are not just religious questions, they are sociological ones that come out of a diaspora reality, out of a minority mentality. Catholics would never tolerate a Jew leading mass. They do not need the Jews. But North American Jewry, as a minority, desperately needs the Christian world; so much so that it would never want to offend it - even at the expense of its own sense of Jewish self, even at the expense of inviting the non-Jew to take over. For an Israeli, no self-respecting Jew would allow such a phenomenon.

What this means is that not only are children of mixed marriages being counted as Jews, but the non-Jewish parent is also being counted, and now the non-Jew off the street. And the only basis for inclusion into the Reform Movement in North America is a "spiritual feeling," which is the narrowest of definitions as to what constitutes a Jew. Ethnicity, nationality, culture, language, statehood, even religious rituals - all part of one's Jewishness - are becoming irrelevant. For an Israeli this is unacceptable.

Further, with the "700 Club" available on Israeli Cable TV, "spirituality" strikes the Israeli as nothing more than Christian evangelicism, and as another sign of total assimilation. To be spiritual is to merely say, "I believe," no commitments required. One Israeli told me, upon her return from a year's sabbatical in the States, that Reform Jews are little more than "catholic" Americans.

Exclusive definitions of Judaism separate North American Reform Jews from the Jewish world, particularly from Israel. Reform Jews in the diaspora do not want to admit this, so they pin their disenchantment with Israel on the fact that Reform conversions and rabbis are not recognized. But before diaspora Reform Jews concern themselves with Israel's legal definition of "who is a Jew," it should first decide for themselves "what is a Jew"; and what is their relationship to the Jewish people. Agreement or disagreement with Israel's policies should have no bearing on one's commitment to a Jewish state. However, in a blended Jewish community, try to sell that view to non-Jewish partners in a marriage, or to a convert, not to mention to non-Jewish couples who might wish to "see the light" and join the Reform Movement.

For Israelis, North American Jews are performing a disappearing act, and they see the leaders of this trend in the Reform Movement. While Reform Judaism is creating something that may seem legitimate for its own reality, it will create something that has no relation to anything historically recognizably Jewish. It is dealing with twenty-first century diaspora life by accepting assimilation as the rule. Sociology has replaced theology and history as the sole and ultimate shaper of Jewish self-identification. There are no parameters for Jewish identity.

The above provides the basis for the prevailing perception of Reform Judaism that Israelis hold. When asking Israelis about Reform Judaism, they might say that it adapts the tradition to modern day realities. But most likely, they would respond that Reform Judaism permits someone to discard what he or she doesn't like, to be religious without doing very much or knowing very much. Even if Israelis went beyond these above-mentioned stereotypes, they would not find legitimacy in a Movement which calls itself religious when less than 50 percent of Reform Jewish families have a mezuzah on their door, less than 2 percent keep kosher, less than 1 percent speak Hebrew, 20 percent light shabbat candles or chant kiddush, less than 1% do not drive on Shabbat, less than 2 percent do Birkat HaMazon or Havdalah. Within the Israeli secular world, the above outward manifestations of religious observance receive considerably higher percentages, even if carried out for cultural reasons as opposed to religious ones. Given these statistics, it would seem that most North American Reform Jews do not regard ritual and/or cultural observance as a useful yardstick to measure one's belief, practice, or religiosity. But such percentages are understandable. In a 1994 survey, conducted by the Youth and Pioneering Department of the World Zionist Organization, of NFTY (North American Federation of Temple Youth) participants in a summer tour to Israel, 93 percent of them considered their Jewish identity enhanced as a result of their visit, making the trip clearly worthwhile. Sixty three percent of the NFTY participants personally regarded themselves as religious, although their religious self-regard in no way reflectedwhat they actually do religiously, (unless doing good deeds, "mitzvot," is the sole criterion for defining a religious individual).

At the same time, after their summer in Israel experience, 84 percent of the participants ranged from being slightly opposed, ambivalent, to "nothing wrong" in marrying someone who is a non-Jew. Prior to the trip, 90 percent fell into this category. With the passage of time, the 84 percent will return to the pre-Israel experience of 90 percent . For the vast majority of North American Reform Jewish youth, there is no correlation between one's Jewish identity and the kind of home he or she establishes - not only regarding what is done religiously in the home, but also regarding the religious affiliation of the person he or she marries. Such declarative expressions of Jewish self-identification may be sociologically palatable to a diaspora Jew; to an Israeli, they are totally contradictory. Further, the above statistics make buzzwords like "Jewish Continuity" seem disingenuous at best, self-deceptive at worst.

Further, although Israelis may want to regard a rabbi as a moral spokesperson (something that is lacking in the Orthodox rabbinic leadership in Israel), they expect that any rabbi should have a respect for tradition. A rabbi who flaunts disrespect for Halacha forfeits his or her role as a religious leader. Reform rabbis are not taken seriously in Israel because the perception is that the ritual lifestyle of Reform rabbis is no different from that of a self-defined secular Israeli Jew. It is difficult to break such a stereotype. Many Israelis believe that all Reform rabbis will perform a wedding jointly with a priest. So ingrained is this image in the Israeli psyche, that this view is still held despite the fact that Israeli Reform rabbis, if permitted, would not perform mixed marriages, let alone perform a ceremony with clergy of another faith.

Further, MARAM, the official organization of the Israeli Reform rabbinate, has rejected patrilineal descent. Indeed, so powerful is the image of religious "hefkerut" (lawless abdication) in Reform Judaism, that even if the Reform Movement were formally recognized here, its membership would not increase, nor its impact be felt.

Given the trends of the Reform Movement in North America today, these stereotypes are being reinforced. One Israeli pointedly told me that, given the "progressive" tendency of the Reform Movement in North America, in the next generation one will know if someone in the Reform Movement is interdating if he or she is dating a Jew!

It is this perception that greatly contributes to the marginality of the Reform Movement in Israel. Israelis feel that while they are fighting to maintain Jewish survival, Reform Judaism is doing its best to combat Jewish survival. They would rather hand over the religious reigns to Orthodoxy, with all that may be objectionable in that, than entrust themselves to a brand of religious Judaism that seems to them to be "self-destructive." Ringler's article would have had more of an authentic ring to it had he recognized that the image of the Reform Movement in North America is perhaps a stronger deterrent to Reform Judaism's entry into Israel than any political reality in the country. As a Labor Party activist, Ringler should know better than most of us that it is often easier to deal with political realities than to overcome an all-encompassing image.

The Israel Reform Movement needs help. However, help will not come from a North American Reform Movement whose focus is to change Israel's political reality. IRAC, the Israel Reform Movement, and enlightened Israelis must take the lead here, as Ringler urges. Rather, help must come from a North American Reform Movement that tries to change its own image. Should this happen, Reform Judaism's struggle to reduce its marginality in Israel will be greatly enhanced.

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Copyright © 1996, Central Conference of American Rabbis
Most recent update 20 May 1996