I have to think that Ya’acov Margi, the Shas minister of religious affairs who set off a firestorm last week, thought he was merely stating the obvious when he said non-Orthodox movements shouldn’t recieve Israeli state funds. He’s been beat up on now by Natan Sharansky, and of course the Conservative movement’s Rabbinical Assembly (Religious Action Center — not jumping into this one?).
Now comes the Israeli head of the Conservative rabbinical group, Peretz Rodman, who chalks the episode up to the state rabbinate’s increasing irrelevancy and its efforts to strike back using the tools of the state.
THE HOPELESS irrelevance of the official state rabbinate to the lives of virtually every Israeli Jew is so obvious as to have become a national embarrassment. The refusal of the present leadership of that rabbinate to accept even conversions conducted by most Orthodox rabbinic courts outside Israel (not to mention its obvious denial of status to non-Orthodox converts) has moved the state rabbinate outside even the Orthodox mainstream around the world.
The same forces that have insisted on back-of-the-bus seating for women on some public bus lines are those that now control the Jewish religious apparatus of the state. Is it any wonder, then, that so few of us turn to the officially-appointed and publicly-salaried rabbis of our neighborhoods, cities and regions for any sort of assistance or guidance, even in the realms in which they supposedly have a monopoly? How many even know who those rabbis are?
Non-Orthodox Jews with a commitment to tradition, whether part of existing denominations or members of the many grassroots ad hoc communities that have sprung up around the country, do not seek a "separation of synagogue and state." (The phrase itself is painfully inelegant and inexact, in any case.)
Like most Jewish Israelis, we do not find it odd or objectionable that the State of Israel would provide support for expressions of Jewish religious life of all sorts: institutions of Torah study, synagogues, mikvaot (ritual baths), publications and others. All we expect as citizens and taxpayers is that all expressions of Jewish religious life be eligible for state support.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
