Njcrac Avoids, for Now, a Debate on Religious Pluralism in Israel

A major battle in the United States between Reform and Orthodox groups over religious pluralism in Israel has been postponed but not averted.

The Reform movement’s Union of American Hebrew Congregations had hoped the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council would take a bold stand on the issue at its annual plenum next week in New Orleans.

But a resolution offered by the UAHC calling on Israel “to end the religious monopoly granted to one segment of Jewry” will not be debated on the plenum floor.

A NJCRAC committee responsible for plenum resolutions, meeting two weeks before the annual gathering of delegates from Jewish communities across the country, ruled that the pluralism resolution must first go through thee umbrella organization’s committee-heavy “process.”

This averted a threat by the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America to walk out of NJCRAC if the topic were raised. Such a move would have left the major umbrella group charged with setting Jewish communal policy without an Orthodox voice.

The rationale behind the Orthodox Union’s walkout threat, which was first reported by the New York-based weekly Forward, was explained by Betty Ehrenberg, executive director of the group’s Institute for Public Affairs.

“We see this as a religious issue and as an internal Israeli issue, and on the basis of those two facts, we don’t feel NJCRAC is the proper venue for addressing these issues,” she said.

“One day the Israelis will decide on a constitution and will decide on their own religious structures, but this is not something American Jews should determine by remote control,” she added.

But Rabbi Eric Yoffie, director of the Commission on Social Action of Reform Judaism, insists that religious pluralism in Israel is “political issue and a civil rights issue.”

“We can’t apply one standard to this country and apply a different one when look to the Jewish state,” he said, noting the strong support of NJCRAC – including the Orthodox Union – for American legislation supporting the rights of religious minorities.

Despite the procedural defeat the Reform movement suffered with its resolution, which Yoffie admits was submitted late in the elaborate NJCRAC process, the UAHC hopes to bring the resolution before the umbrella group’s 1995 plenum.

And meanwhile, the Reform movement intends to seek the support of local Jewish community relations councils for its position. NJCRAC is made up of over 100 of these local councils, as well as 13 national Jewish organizations.

Already, the Community Relations Council of the Jewish Federation of Portland Ore, has adopted the call “to extend full freedom of religion to all Jews in Israel.”

For its part, the Orthodox Union has alerted its members, and the Orthodox rabbinate, that the issue is now on the local agenda.

“I would be very surprised if many communities decided to pass this,” said Ehrenberg of the O.U. “I think there will be many JCRCs who will decide this will be too divisive.”

She said that for JCRCs to adopt this measure would “dramatically reduce their effect,” since there will be a whole segment of the Jewish community that will not be representing.

The controversy comes at a time when the Orthodox Union has walked a very narrow, treacherous course on the issue at the top of agenda of the NJCRAC plenum and the Jewish community as a whole: the Middle East peace process.

The O.U. has expressed concern over the direction of the peace process, but unlike the rival Young Israel movement, it has not loudly opposed it. The O.U. has also taken criticism for sending its leadership last September to the White House ceremony where Israel and Palestine Liberation Organization signed the historic declaration of principles on self-rule in the administered territories.

An O.U. walkout now from the NJCRAC umbrella could have sparked a reassessment of the organization’s efforts to maintain a position on the peace process compatible with the general support given by other, non-Orthodox organizations.

For Yoffie, though, preventing an O.U. shift on the peace process was never a consideration.

“Their answer is that it (the resolution) cannot be considered at anytime, so I don’t find those reasons compelling,” he said.

“For 45 years, there’s always been a compelling reasons why this cannot be considered by communal bodies,” he said. “There are new issues on the agenda. We can’t put them off until the peace process is completed, which will take years.

“I still want the Orthodox Union in NJCRAC, but they cannot prevent NJCRAC, which has dealt with a whole range of issues, including those internal to Israel, from putting such issues on the agenda,” said Yoffie.

But the scheduled keynote speaker at the NJCRAC plenum, Deputy Foreign Minister Yossi Beilin, says he thinks peace is more important than pluralism.

“My general opinion is we should be a liberal, pluralistic society,” Beilin told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “I was one of those who suggested separating church and state” when Israel’s Labor Party was debating its platform two years ago.

“But if you ask if it is the most important thing on the agenda, I would say no, it’s not the most important,” he said.