Reform Rabbis in U.s.,abroad, Deplore Nrp’s ‘unseemly Threat’ to Israel’s Coalition

In a cablegram sent today to Israeli Premier Golda Meir, religious leaders of Reform Judaism here and abroad expressed deep concern over the “unseemly threat” to Israel’s coalition government by the Orthodox National Religious Party, which has challenged the registration as a Jew of a woman who was converted to Judaism by Reform rabbis in Israel some three years ago. The cable, signed by Rabbi Maurice N. Eisendrath, President of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations; Rabbi Roland B. Gittelsohn, President of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, and Rabbi Jacob K, Shankman. President of the World Union for Progressive Judaism, which is the international arm of Reform Judaism, stated, in part:

“It is astounding that the National Religious Party should be so exercised over one conversion that at this critical juncture it would threaten the dissolution of the coalition government and jeopardize the unity of the Jewish people. We are especially dismayed by reports that legislation will be proposed to oppose registration as Jews of all such converts in the future. It is totally incongruous for the state to recognize conversion performed by non-orthodox rabbis abroad and then to disqualify the conversion of those same rabbis after they have responded to the call of aliyah.” The three Reform rabbis urged the government not to “compromise away the right of the majority to a small local minority who have once again demonstrated that petty vested interests take precedence over their sense of responsibility to the Jewish people as a whole.”