Recommendations for Religious Reform Dropped After Consultation with Mrs. Meir

The Labor Party convention was informed today that a series of recommendations for religious reforms in Israel would not be brought to the floor for discussion as previously expected. The official reason for dropping the subject from the agenda was that it was too in tricate a matter to discuss under pressure of the convention time-table. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency learned however that the matter was “deferred” after consultation with Premier Golda Meir because it would have offended her coalition partners, the National Religious Party. The recommendations represented months of deliberation by a special “brain trust” set up by the Labor Party for the purpose of looking into the religious problem and the State’s relationship to it. The deliberations produced several draft resolutions that were to have been considered by the Labor Party convention. One called for official recognition of the various trends in Judaism–Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox. Another would have voided legislation that enforces the hegemony of one trend in Israel. The JTA learned that when the recommendations of the “brain trust” were submitted to Justice Minister Yaacov Shimshon Shapira he vetoed their presentation on the convention floor. He reportedly argued that adoption of any one of the draft resolutions “would mean the end of the coalition. You cannot conduct a coalition with the Religious Party based on such resolutions.”