Orthodox Split on ‘who is a Jew’ Matter of Politics, Not Halacha

Leaders of North American Orthodox Jewry are split into two distinct camps over whether to support the drive by Israel’s religious parties to amend the Law of Return.

It is a debate over whether a halachic issue should be decided by Israel’s largely secular Knesset and pressed at the expense of incurring the wrath of the great majority of Diaspora Jews who are non-Orthodox.

The proposed change in the law would make immigrants converted by non-Orthodox rabbis ineligible for Israeli citizenship. Premier Yitzhak Shamir promised the religious parties, in exchange for their political support, that he would get the amendment adopted.

Although the change would have a direct impact on only a handful of immigrants, non-Orthodox Jews protest it would symbolically delegitimize their rabbis and movements.

Statements in the past week by two Orthodox leaders, both connected to Yeshiva University, exemplify the debate raging within Orthodoxy.

‘BITTERLY DIVIDED JEWISH WORLD’

On Monday, Rabbi Norman Lamm, president of Yeshiva University, said he took exception to the Orthodox parties who are pursuing the amendment. He said the Knesset is “not the right forum to determine halachic issues.”

Speaking in Philadelphia at the annual convention of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, Lamm said the Orthodox community is united on such fundamentals as “the Jewish identity and the exclusive definition of conversion as ‘according to halacha.’ “

But taking note of the “bitterly divided Jewish would and growing enmity and hatred” the issue has precipitated, Lamm declared that “no symbols are worth hurting the cause of Torah or the cause of Israel so grievously.”

Lamm’s statement echoed one made last week by leaders of the Rabbinical Council of America, a major Orthodox rabbinical body, which also called for the removal of the “Who Is a Jew” issue from the political arena.

The RCA statement heartened Israel’s Degel Ha Torah party and moderates within Israel’s National Religious Party, who have distanced themselves from those pressing for the amendment.

But a second prominent Orthodox rabbi said he was “shocked” by the RCA’s position.

Rabbi Aron Soloveichik, dean of the Brisk Rabbinical College in Chicago and professor of Talmud at Yeshiva, called on the RCA’s members to repudiate the statement.

The ailing Soloveichik this week flew to Israel, where he was scheduled to meet with Shamir Tuesday to press for the amendment.

Other Orthodox forces sharing Soloveichik’s view include Agudath Israel of America and the Lubavitch Hasidic movement.

‘ORTHODOX-BASHING’ ASSAILED

In Canada, a group of prominent rabbis, including David Sabbeh, Sephardic chief rabbi of Quebec, and Pinchas Hirschprung, chief rabbi of Montreal, also lent their voices on behalf of the amendment. Sabbeh joined a lobbying delegation that left for Israel Monday night.

Rabbi Binyamin Walfish, executive director of the RCA, said Tuesday that 90 percent of those in his organization support its position on removing “Who Is a Jew” from the political process.

One thing all Orthodox groups do agree on is resentment over what they perceive as “Orthodox-bashing” by the non-Orthodox. The Orthodox Union passed a resolution at its Philadelphia convention condemning the “vicious caricature, unformed generalizations and outrageous slander against Orthodox Jews.”

Orthodox groups also have joined in criticizing non-Orthodox communal and philanthropic organizations for interfering in Israel’s internal debate over the issue.

Referring to recent missions to Israel by angry representatives of the major fund-raising and membership organizations, Rabbi Moshe Sherer, president of Agudath Israel of America, said Sunday that it is “scandalous” that United Jewish Appeal funds were being used in a “war” against Orthodoxy.