Rabbi Gilbert Klaperman, president of Rabbinical Council of America, reported today at the 47th annual convention of the Orthodox rabbinical organization, that he had appointed a commission to study whether the RCA should continue its association with Reform and Conservative rabbis in umbrella agencies.
Klaperman said the decision to name such a commission, headed by Rabbi Sol Roth, honorary national RCA president, stemmed from the action of the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR), the association of Reform rabbis, at the CCAR convention in March, in adopting a resolution changing the centuries-old pattern of transmitting Jewish identity to children by parents.
Klaperman said the commission had been instructed “to study the feasibility, desirability and halachic implications of continuing to act in a peer relationship in multi-rabbinic groups with Reform and Conservative rabbis.” Among such groups are the Synagogue Council of America, the New York Board of Rabbis and local boards of rabbis throughout the United States, and the JWB Commission on Jewish Chaplaincy.
Klaperman condemned the CCAR resolution which declared that, for the Reform movement, the child of a Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother had the opportunity under certain conditions to be Jewish. He said the Rabbinical Council “totally and absolutely rejects this concept,” in his address to the 500 delegates attending the convention here. Klaperman also said “we have had consultations with other Orthodox groups on this subject and we shall continue to do so.”
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