* A statement by Israel’s president, saying he’d address the head of the U.S. Reform movement as a “Reform rabbi,” has failed to end a dispute. Eric Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, says Moshe Katsav still does not acknowledge Yoffie simply as a “rabbi.” “The essential fact that we are rabbis along with all other rabbis in Israel is a principle he is still not prepared to accept,” Yoffie said. Yoffie, who is in Israel this week, said he wouldn’t meet with Katsav because the president has refused to call him a rabbi. In a statement Wednesday, Katsav said he “honors and respects the Reform leaders along with those in other streams in Judaism,” but he has said he will recognize the Reform movement only when the Knesset does so.
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