Even as religious practice gets new attention from the Reform movement and its leader proposes that the denomination reach out to un-churched non-Jews, debate rages over the role that non-Jews sitting in the pews should play in synagogue life.
At the recent biennial convention of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, it was one of the major topics discussed, during speeches and in the halls between sessions.
Rabbi Alexander Schindler, UAHC’s president, in his keynote address called for non-Jews to be given a greater role in Jewish rituals.
He advocated that non-Jews be permitted to handle the Torah scroll and to be buried in Jewish cemeteries.
“There seems to exist a very strong taboo against non-Jews touching a Torah. Yet this zealousness has no traditional or halachic (legal) underpinning whatsoever,” he said during his Shabbat sermon.
“After all, this Torah scroll they are not allowed to touch — is it not, in the case of Christians, part of their religious heritage?” said Schindler.
“That cemetery plot denied to them — is it not on the very hallowed ground where they go to pay respect to their in-laws, their Jewish friends and neighbors, in some cases to their own spouses and children?”
While scattered applause greeted Schindler’s proposals, his views were debated by delegates to the convention, which was held here Oct. 21-25.
“There’s a certain hypocrisy involved in having someone lead rituals which are limited to membership in the Jewish people, like an aliyah” to read the Torah, said Rabbi Joseph Glaser, executive vice president of the movement’s rabbinic organization, the Central Conference of American Rabbis.
“I am concerned that we are giving a message when we involve a non-Jew in the sacred rituals of Judaism that ‘what’s the point of converting or marrying a Jew, for that matter,'” Glaser said in an interview.
‘A TEMPLE IS NOT A SOCIAL CLUB’
According to delegate Shulamith Zimmerman of Temple Sinai in Toronto, allowing non-Jews too much of a role in the synagogue poses a serious problem for the Reform movement.
“We need boundaries,” she said. “A temple is not a social club.”
Her husband, Harvey Zimmerman, said: “I find this issue more threatening than anything else in Reform to what my idea of Judaism is about.
“If you give non-Jews everything,” he said, “what’s the point of being Jewish?”
The issue has been percolating in Reform temples for several years, since large numbers of non-Jewish participants became evident in the pews.
It exploded into full-fledged debate among the movement’s leaders last February, at an executive committee meeting of UAHC, when Schindler first put forth some of the ideas he later proposed in San Francisco. As a result of the uproar, the slated agenda was put aside.
At the February meeting, Rabbi Walter Jacob, president of the Reform rabbinic organization, said: “There should be a very clear distinction between a Jew and a non-Jew in our religious services. It is wrong to have a non-Jew leading us in prayer.
“If we take prayer and these words seriously, then we cannot have a gentile mouth what they clearly do not believe.
“The non-Jew knows that it would be absurd to have a Jew assist a mass or take communion in a Catholic church,” Jacob said.
“In fact it has been my experience that non-Jews questioned their role even at a Bar/Bat Mitzvah. If they understand the difference, shouldn’t we?” Jacob asked.
His point, Schindler said in an interview, is to ensure that non-Jews, and the children of intermarriages, not be hurt by being excluded.
He suggested that temples be most open to the participation of non-Jews in rituals and least open to their participation in governance matters.
For example, he suggested that when a child becomes a Bar or Bat Mitzvah, the non-Jewish parent place the tallit (prayer shawl) over the child’s head.
“That’s not profane,” said Schindler. He denied there is any contradiction or mixed message in having young people publicly proclaim for the first time that they are making an adult commitment to a Jewish life, while their non-Jewish parent participates in the ritual without having made that commitment.
MOST GRANT NON-JEWS MEMBERSHIP
On the contrary, he said, it is “mutually reinforcing” for the Bar Mitzvah child to see the non-Jewish parent participating.
“After all, practice is the antecedent of belief in Judaism,” he said. “It may be the first step of the parent’s conversionary process.”
As part of the movement’s emphasis on autonomy, each congregation defines its own rules for the participation of non-Jews.
Non-Jews are a presence in just about every Reform temple, and in some places comprise a significant minority.
In most cases, the non-Jews are married to Jews and have agreed to raise their children Jewishly. They come with their families to pray and bring the kids to Hebrew school.
They are permitted membership in the overwhelming majority of Reform temples — 88 percent — although the degree of participation allowed in ritual and governance varies from place to place.
And while a minority of congregations currently have the roles permitted to non-Jews written into their bylaws, a large number are in the midst of defining the issue, according to Dru Greenwood, director of the movement’s Commission on Reform Jewish Outreach.
Sixty-two percent of congregations allow non-Jews to vote on congregational issues, according to an outreach census conducted by the UAHC in 1991.
In terms of ritual, more than 90 percent of Reform congregations allow non-Jews to participate from the pulpit in life cycle ceremonies, including baby namings and Bar and Bat Mitzvahs.
Four out of 10 Reform temples allow non-Jews to light Shabbat candles in front of the assembled congregation.
And more than one-fifth of temples — 22 percent — allow non-Jews to have an aliyah at the reading of the Torah.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
