Conservative rabbis have announced they will build their own mikvahs, encourage more of their colleagues to specialize in Jewish divorce law and train more physicians to qualify as “mohelim” to fill needs that are overwhelmingly being served by Orthodox rabbis and institutions.
The Conservative movement also announced establishment of its own Beth Din to rule on divorce matters.
The Rabbinical Assembly, the umbrella body of Conservative rabbis, announced the moves Monday at its 89th convention, which is being held at the Grand Hyatt Hotel here. The assembly represents 1,300 Conservative rabbis internationally, serving 2 million congregational members.
The moves are intended to counter what the rabbis charge is an unwillingness on the part of certain “aggressive and militant separatist” Orthodox rabbis to share religious facilities and services with their Conservative counterparts.
The problem started about 10 years ago in such communities as Los Angeles and Detroit, and it has grown ever since, according to Rabbi Albert Lewis of Cherry Hill, N.J., who is president of the assembly.
“I’m not happy over the fact that we can’t have the kind of working relationship that we once had,” said Lewis.
He added, however, that there are “still many communities where Modern Orthodox spiritual leaders offer their full cooperation for these life-cycle religious functions.”
RESTRICTIONS FOR NON-ORTHODOX
Lewis said that mikvahs (ritual baths) built by communities to serve all streams of Judaism have gradually become appropriated by Orthodox groups that resist allowing the non-Orthodox to use them.
This has occurred, said Lewis, despite the fact that both Orthodox and Conservative Judaism strictly require ritual immersion for both men and women undergoing conversion to Judaism.
“The dissension has arisen, not because of what we do, but because it’s ipso facto not good if it’s done by a Conservative,” he complained.
Rabbi Wolfe Kelman, executive vice president of the assembly, said that “what makes this condition deplorable is that Conservative Judaism has always strictly followed the halacha — Jewish law — when it comes to dealing with life-cycle rituals.”
Lewis said mikvahs would be built by local synagogues, the assembly and the United Synagogue of America, the Conservative movement’s congregational body.
The need for specialists in gitten, or divorce, has increased as age has begun to deplete the number of Conservative rabbis who know the minutiae of divorce law, Lewis said.
He also pointed to the growing number of divorces and the spread of the Jewish population beyond areas where such specialists work.
The Rabbinical Assembly has just graduated seven new gitten specialists to prepare religious divorces, a program initiated two years ago by the assembly and the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, the movement’s institution of higher learning and rabbinical ordination.
There are now about 15 Conservative gitten specialists.
The Beth Din, or religious court, being established by the movement to rule on matters of divorce law will include nine members: three each from the Rabbinical Assembly, the Jewish Theological Seminary and the United Synagogue of America.
The problem of aging authorities and shifting Jewish populations also has produced a new demand for Conservative mohelim (ritual circum-cisors).
The need, in part, stems from the refusal by some Orthodox mohelim to perform a brit milah on the son of someone not converted to Judaism by an Orthodox rabbi.
So, beginning in October, the seminary will start training a class of physicians in ritual circumcision, in order to qualify them as mohelim.
As of now, the mohelim are all men.
Kelman attempted to play down the separatist aspect of the Conservative moves, saying that they reflect “a growing assertiveness” on the part of the Conservative movement.
There is still “close Jewish religious cooperation” with the Orthodox on such issues as Soviet Jewry, human rights and Israel, he said.
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