A delegation composed of 36 members of the Board of Trustees of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (UAHC) flew to Israel Monday aboard El Al “to express our solidarity with the people of Israel, to measure the growth of the Reform movement in Israel and to demand equal rights for Reform rabbis and Reform Jews in the Jewish State,” said Rabbi Alexander Schindler, UAHC president.
The UAHC leaders left immediately following their semi-annual Board of Trustees meeting in St. Louis, at which they adopted a resolution urging that the Chief Rabbinate and the Orthodox rabbinic courts of Israel “be stripped of all coercive power and official standing.” The Trustees’ meeting will continue in Israel over the next 10 days.
In St. Louis, the Board of Trustees called on the Orthodox rabbinate in Israel to lift “all restrictions against the right of Reform rabbis to officiate at life-cycle functions” and demanded that non-Orthodox synagogues in Israel “receive government funding and support commensurate with that accorded to Orthodox congregations.”
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.
