U.S. Unit of Mercaz Formed

The first meeting of the board of Mercaz, the movement to reaffirm Conservative Judaism’s participation in the Zionist movement, was held in Washington Monday, under the presidency of Rabbi Stanley Rabinowitz, and adopted a constitution and certified articles of incorporation under U.S. law, Rabbi Wolfe Kelman, executive vice-president of the Rabbinical Assembly, reported here today. The RA is the international association of Conservative rabbis.

Kelman said the American section of Mercaz, the group which met in Washington, has a membership application pending with the American Zionist Federation. He reported that the 40 American Mercaz board members also arranged for the first annual convention of the American Mercaz to be held here on Nov. 11 and laid plans for publication of a national newsletter, scheduled to be issued quarterly, starting in the fall.

Robinowitz, rabbi of Adas Israel Synagogue in Washington, where the board meeting was held, told the board members that “now that peace is at hand, we join hands with all other Zionists to strengthen Israel and address ourselves to the quality of life of its society. We reaffirm our commitment and struggle to achieve full religious pluralism in Israel, a luxury we could ill afford when Israel was beleaguered on all sides.” Rabinowitz is also chairman of the world-wide Mercaz now in formation, Kelman said.

Kelman said the board meeting also authorized establishment of a Mercaz chapter in Israel, with headquarters probably in Jerusalem. He reported that the Canadian branch of Mercaz, organized a year ago, has applied for membership in the Canadian Zionist Federation. He said a Latin American branch, under the leadership of Rabbi Marshall Meyer, director of the Rabbinical Seminary of Latin America in Buenos Aires, will be applying to the Latin American Zionist Federation for membership.

Kelman said that there was no European Mercaz branch but did report that a provisional group for Conservative Judaism had been set up in Stockholm as part of the European section of the World Council of Synagogues, the international organization of Conservative synagogues.

STRIVE FOR RECOGNITION OF RELIGIOUS PLURALISM

A statement issued in Washington in advance of the board meeting said the Mercaz movement would “strive for recognition of religious pluralism in the World Zionist Organization and within itself,” and would seek to enroll “the unaffiliated within the Zionist movement world-wide and to provide an alternative expression of Zionism for those who object to the Orthodox monopoly in the area of religion.”

The statement quoted Rabbi. Theodore Friedment, a former RA president, who settled in Israel, and who is a founding member of Mercaz, as saying that “the secularists would base Israel on nothing more than people and land, the Orthodox would base Israel on Torah and yet refuse to accept the proposition that Torah must be interpreted in the idiom and frame of reference of a modern democratic state. They adamantly persist in thinking of Judaism reduced to Shabbat, Kashrut, marriage and divorce. On the broad moral and social issues that agitate Israel from time to time, they have nothing to say.”

Friedman, who now lives in Jerusalem, is a voting member of the Jewish Agency Executive and the WZO as a representative of the World Council of Synagogues, Kelman said.