Conservative Leader Urges Reform Rabbis to Drop Plan for Patrilineal Descent

Reform rabbis were urged here today at their 96th annual convention by a leading Conservative rabbi to drop their plan on recognizing both the mother and father in a mixed marriage as parents of a Jewish child.

The Reform rabbis were asked by Rabbi Alexander Shapiro, president of the Rabbinical Assembly, the association of Conservative rabbis, to return to the traditional Jewish position, accepted by Orthodox and Conservative Judaism which holds that a child is a Jew only if his or her mother is Jewish. The plan has been called “patrilinial” transmission of Jewish identity because it would not consider whether either the mother or the father is Jewish, if either of them is. Shapiro, in an unusual appearance at a CCAR convention, cautioned the Reform rabbis that if “patrilinealism remains in place, then Conservative rabbis might have to question the Jewish status of someone from a sister movement, and we will be confronted with a cleavage in Jewish life which can threaten the survival of the Jewish people both here and in Israel.”

He said “our understanding of the reality is that patrilinealism is not considered by you to be a blanket notion; rather it assumes that the Jewish child will find modes of affirmation of his Jewishness.”

Rabbi Jack Stern of Scarsdale, N.Y. was elected CCAR president today, succeeding Rabbi W. Gunther Plaut, of Toronto.

JOINT COMMISSION ON INTERMARRIAGE URGED

Shapiro called for Conservative and Reform Judaism to form a joint commission to deal with the problems of intermarriage “in those areas where cooperation is possible.” He said intermarried couples face many problems, such as basic tensions in such a union; educating children Jewishly; the stress of parents and grandparents; and the involvement of an inter married couple in the Jewish community.

Rabbi Shapiro said if such a commission was set up, he hoped “it could function under the common banner of matrilinealism on the one hand while simultaneously seeking to reach out to every child born of a mixed marriage in a context which is open, sympathetic and deeply understanding of the human issues that are involved.”

BET DIN FOR CONVERSIONS

He repeated a proposal he had made at an unprecedented appearance earlier this year at the annual convention of the Orthodox Rabbinical Council of America, asking the CCAR to participate in establishing a Bet Din (Jewish Law Court) “that will convert according to Halacha; a Bet Din created for the sake of the unity of the people of Israel with a mode prototype structured first in America and ultimately carried into effect in Israel itself.”

He said he was optimistic that, given patience and time, such a Bet Din could be established. He said he felt “cautious optimism” in the fact that the Rabbinical Council has not outrightly rejected his Bet Din proposal.

He also cited Reform Judaism’s “deepening commitment to traditional forms and traditional values” as another reason for optimism.