Rabbis seek new dialogue at time of tension and divide

NEW YORK, May 12 (JTA) — The creation of a national organization whose mission is to bring together rabbis of every denomination for dialogue is being met with a degree of skepticism — and a lot of hope. The new group — named the North American Board of Rabbis — is the idea of modern Orthodox Rabbi Marc Schneier, president of the New York Board of Rabbis and spiritual leader of a 1,000-member synagogue in Westhampton Beach, N.Y. Schneier raised $50,000 from three heavyweight philanthropists to bring some 30 rabbis from across the country together this week for a daylong inaugural meeting in New York. The gathering took place against an ongoing backdrop of severe Jewish in- fighting, spurred recently by the push for religious pluralism in Israel by the non- Orthodox movements and by an increasing insistence on religious hegemony on the part of the Orthodox. The current disagreement over the Jewish character of Israel has exacerbated long-developing tensions between Orthodox and liberal Jews in the United States. “The American Jewish community is crying out for a voice of rabbinic cooperation, not conflict; one of devotedness, not divisiveness,” Schneier said in an interview. While Jewish unity is a mom-and-apple-pie issue for leaders of the Jewish community, the idea has proven much easier to endorse than to accomplish. The Synagogue Council of America was a venerable, 70-year-old umbrella group of Orthodox, Conservative and Reform rabbis and laity that died in 1995. That group, with a similar mission to this new one, collapsed in part for financial reasons after some Orthodox participants decided they were no longer interested in this form of interdenominational dialogue. Is it possible that NABOR, which also hopes to be involved in national interfaith efforts, will succeed where the Synagogue Council failed? Schneier is confident that it will. Noting that rabbis already work together on the local level, he said, “We already have the microcosms throughout the country. We”re looking for a macrocosm.” Others are hopeful, too. “This stands a chance because those participating come unencumbered by institutional baggage,” since they are there as individual rabbis, rather than delegates from their movements, Rabbi Henry Michaelman of New York, the longtime director of the Synagogue Council, said in an interview as the new group got under way this week. “The Synagogue Council collapsed because it lacked a strong central office willing to engage day and night in shuttle diplomacy” between the Orthodox and liberal movements, he said. “This organization will have to do that, too, to work.” Yet others have questioned the value of adding a new organization to the alphabet soup of Jewish institutions, particularly at a time when those already in place are struggling financially. “To go and try and organize a pan-American board of rabbis is unacceptable,” said the executive of one major centrist Orthodox group who asked that his name not be used. “You”re not going to paint with one brush a ”ganz” (whole) America.” “There are enough organizations already. To spend needed resources is a waste,” he said. Schneier disagrees. “We could serve as a paradigm of rabbinic unity at a time when people are looking for this. Our very existence could rally the Jewish community,” he said. The kickoff dinner, held at the Museum of Jewish Heritage: A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, included as guests Martin Kraar, executive vice president of the Council of Jewish Federations, and Elan Steinberg, executive director of the World Jewish Congress, which were the conference”s co-sponsoring organizations. The conference was funded by philanthropists Charles Bronfman, Michael Jesselson and Michael Steinhardt, who each contributed over $16,000 to fly in rabbis from communities large and small and from each of the major Jewish denominations. They came from Omaha and Kansas City, Kan.; St. Louis and Portland, Maine. They came out of curiosity — and hope, said those interviewed. “I came to compare notes as to what other boards of rabbis are doing,” said Reform Rabbi Lawrence Goldmark, president of the Board of Rabbis of Southern California, based in Los Angeles. The L.A. board has 250 members from all of the four denominations, “men and women, gays and straights, everybody together,” Goldmark said with pride. Orthodox Rabbi Joseph Weiss, chairman of the rabbinic council in Pittsburgh, said he came to New York “to find out just what”s going on. To present a unified voice is possible, but it”s not an easy course.” For Reform Rabbi Paul Cohen, head of the Maine rabbinic organization, which is based in Portland and is in its first year of operation, “What”s intriguing is choosing to focus on ways that we can be together in community, rather than following the trend of looking at who”s not there.” “Whatever we can do to enhance relationships is a good thing.” That thought was echoed by many others present. “Anything fostering cooperation is good,” said Conservative Rabbi Neil Sandler, one of three rabbis in Des Moines, Iowa, a community of about 3,000 Jews. The reality in many communities is that rabbis of all denominations work closely together — most often to organize community-wide celebrations for Holocaust Memorial Day and Israeli Independence Day, but also on other matters of local interest. And interdenominational tensions come up all the time. In Pittsburgh, for example, where Weiss runs the 35-member rabbinic council, the clergy decided a couple of years ago to initiate a several-week community- wide, Jewish learning experience. Classes were run by 10 rabbis from each of the denominations on a variety of topics, and were promoted to the entire community. The catch was that each class had to be held in a venue in which any member of the community — from liberal to Orthodox — would be able to sit, and that ruled out any Reform synagogue for the Orthodox. Learning Torah is a religious act and in the view of many Orthodox Jews, it is forbidden to engage in religious activity in a non-Orthodox synagogue. But one of the Reform rabbis in town insisted that his class be held in his synagogue rather than on neutral turf, Weiss said, and it turned into a major fight. In the end, the Reform rabbi agreed to hold his class in the Jewish Education Institute, a community center devoted to learning, but the compromise was hard- won, Weiss said. Several boards of rabbis, including Pittsburgh”s, generally cope with such tensions by agreeing to put aside divisive topics. “We have a gentleman”s agreement and look for common issues that we can deal with together,” Weiss said. Exactly what”s next for the new NABOR is not yet clear. “Obviously the question is, what”s Chapter 2?” said Goldmark of Los Angeles. Nor is it clear how this nascent group will be funded. “I have no idea” where future funding where come from, said Schneier. “I just believe there are enough people in the Jewish community who will embrace this organization and be supportive.””