CJF Leader Avoids ‘who is a Jew’ in Talk with Lubavitcher Rebbe

A leader in the fight to remove Israel’s proposed “Who Is a Jew” amendment from the Israeli political agenda had a rare audience Monday with one of the bill’s leading North American proponents, the Lubavitcher rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Schneerson.

But in the few minutes allotted for remarks with the Hasidic leader, Shoshana Cardin, chairwoman of the Council of Jewish Federations’ “Who Is a Jew” committee, avoided the controversial topic.

Instead, Cardin and the rebbe focused on her other responsibilities as chairwoman of the National Conference on Soviet Jewry.

Schneerson urged Cardin to continue to work toward alleviating problems created by the mass emigration of Soviet Jews, and to reassess the National Conference’s traditional support of U.S. trade restrictions toward the Soviet Union.

American Jewish groups are said to be close to supporting a waiver of the most punitive of those restrictions, the Jackson-Vanik Amendment, which links most-favored-nation trade benefits with the Soviets’ performance on emigration.

Cardin said that prior to her meeting with the rebbe, she discussed the “Who Is a Jew” issue with Lubavitch representatives in New York and Baltimore, where she resides.

“I asked my shaliach (emissary) if that would be an appropriate topic to discuss with the rebbe, but he said it was not the time to discuss it,” Cardin said in a telephone interview.

‘TONING DOWN’ ADVOCACY

“At any rate, our preliminary discussion centered on the fact that the rebbe and the movement cannot move away from their positions.”

She was told, however, that the Lubavitch movement is “toning down” its advocacy of the amendment to the Law of Return. If passed, the amendment would deny automatic Israeli citizenship to those converted to Judaism by non-Orthodox rabbis. Non-Orthodox Jews in the Diaspora vehemently oppose its passage.

Cardin’s audience with Schneerson came during a public meeting between the rebbe and some 160 of his followers at Lubavitch world headquarters in Brooklyn.

Schneerson no longer holds private meetings with petitioners. Meetings with the rebbe are conducted with the reverence reserved for royalty.

Most of the other participants at the meeting, some from as far away as Australia, have contributed a minimum of $100,000 to the rebbe’s Machne Israel Development Fund. The fund maintains Lubavitch activities in the world’s remote Jewish communities.

Cardin was invited to the audience along with a delegation of leaders of the United Jewish Appeal-Federation of Jewish Philanthropies of New York.

The fund-raisers were invited to the gathering “to strengthen their relationship with us,” said Rabbi Shmuel Butman, an aide to Schneerson and director of the Lubavitch Youth Organization.

The 87-year-old rebbe addressed the group, in Yiddish, for 30 minutes on the subject of Jewish unity, and then invited those gathered to come forward and speak with him individually.

Cardin said the rebbe opened their discussion by acknowledging a letter Cardin wrote to him at the height of the “Who Is a Jew” controversy last fall. “I think I owe you a letter,” she quoted him as saying.

Cardin said she hoped Schneerson’s mention of her letter means he will address the Jewish community’s concerns over “Who Is a Jew.”

But according to Butman, “the rebbe asked a while ago that we should remove that from the agenda. The rebbe even stressed that if someone approaches you with the issue, to tell him that you and he have an agenda given you by God, which is to bring unity among Jews.”