The emphasis on ethnic rights of groups that has developed out of the urban crisis has given a new dimension to inter-group relations in the United states, according to Rabbi S. Gershon Levi, president of the Rabbinical Assembly. In an advance text of his presidential report to the organization of Conservative rabbis which opens its 72nd annual four-day convention this Sunday, March 12, in Kiamesha Lake, Rabbi Levi states that American Jewry now has to think of itself as an ethnic group as well as a religious denomination.
Declaring that there has “been a turn in the road” in the social process of inter-group relations, Rabbi Levi notes: “Our involvement in the prolonged urban crisis now makes it plain that we shall have to think of ourselves in more complicated terms–not only as one of the three religious groupings in American society, but also as an ethnic group among America’s ethnicities.”
The Conservative leader, rabbi of the Jamaica Jewish Center, New York, says that this change “has profound implications for Jewish public policy. We have long conducted our relations with American society as a religious communion in dialogue with other religious communions. That must continue, for we are a distinct religious group. But we have another dimension as well.”
DIALOGUE WITH ETHNIC MINORITIES
Focusing on that dimension, Rabbi Levi declared: “I call upon our national Jewish bodies to initiate constructive dialogues with other American ethnic groups–with Blacks, with Puerto Ricans, with Italians, with Poles–with all those urban ethnic groups whose interests may clash with ours, or coincide with ours.” He warns that this presents great difficulties and great pitfalls, but says that the “venture can scarcely be avoided. On our side, the main pitfall is the simplistic discovery by some people of Hillel’s maxim: ‘If I am not for myself, who is for me?’ to the neglect of his very next words: ‘If I am only for myself, what worth have I?”
The two other major points Rabbi Levi will discuss in his presidential report will be the question of the relations of American Conservative Judaism to Israel and the problem of adherence to halacha, specifically whether the Conservative rabbinate should adopt regulations including possible sanctions, that would bind rabbis to certain standards in the observance of religious law.
Noting that at least three divergent resolutions on the subject would be presented to the convention, Rabbi Levi states that his approach to the problem will not be solely by “the laying down of general principles, but rather inductively by the creation of channels for coming to grips with specific issues.” He will urge a course that would avoid rigidity, but which would be stronger than the present policy whereby each rabbi was his own conscience on the matter of ritual and observance of tradition.
On the question of Conservative Judaism’s position in Israel, Rabbi Levi says that a crossroads is approaching: Either freeze at the crossroads, or take a step forward. He urges the creation of an Israel Fund for Conservative Judaism to strengthen the movement in Israel and says that it must be a joint lay and rabbinical approach.
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