American Reform Rabbi Assails Israel’s Chief Rabbi of Ignorance of Reform Movement

The leader of the American Reform rabbinate accused Israel’s Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi Isser Untermann yesterday of “abysmal total ignorance” of the Reform movement and charged Israel’s Orthodox religious establishment with issuing distorted statements about it. Rabbi Roland Gittlesohn, of Boston, president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, spoke to newsmen on the eve of the opening of his organization’s 81st annual convention, its first to be held in Israel. The five day assembly in Jerusalem will be attended by 360 Reform rabbis from the United States.

Rabbi Gittlesohn referred specifically to a public statement by Rabbi Untermann that the Reform movement had changed the Jewish Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday. He said he knew of only two out of 750 Reform temples that did not hold services on Saturday. The Israeli chief rabbinate is entirely Orthodox and refuses to recognize rabbis of the Reform and Conservative branches of Judaism. Under Israeli law it has exclusive jurisdiction in matters of personal status in the Jewish community and does not permit non-Orthodox rabbis to officiate at weddings and burials. Rabbi Gittlesohn said the Reform movement was not pressing at this time for equal rights in Israel “because we do not wish to add to the burdens and problems the people and government face today.” He added, however, “We will never ultimately be satisfied until every Jew, whatever his interpretation of Judaism, may be accepted as a first class Jew to be entitled to practice whatever definition of Judaism as a religion that suits him–no definition at all if that is what suits him.” In a broadcast interview earlier. Rabbi Gittlesohn sharply criticized President Richard M. Nixon for publicly apologizing to President Georges Pompidou, of France for demonstrations by American Jews against French Middle East policy. He said the Nixon apology implied that an American citizen may not justifiably criticize the head of another state. “It is not just a question of being a friend of Israel, but of an interpretation of American democracy,” he said.