Projected Conservative-reform Program Would Offer New ‘option’ to Israeli Jews

An effort to provide a “third option” to Israeli Jews whose choice now is limited to Orthodox Judaism and secularism was described by a Conservative rabbinical leader today as one of the goals of a projected Conservative-Reform rabbinical cooperative program.

Rabbi Ralph Simon of Chicago, president of the Rabbinical Assembly, said that the principle of such a cooperative effort was endorsed yesterday at an unprecedented all-day study meeting of the executive board of the (Reform) Central Conference of American Rabbis and the Rabbinical Assembly, held at the Jewish Theological Seminary, the Conservative Institution. The gathering. attended by 65 Reform and Conservative rabbinical leaders, was the first joint meeting since the CCAR was founded in 1889 and the RA in 1899.

Rabbi Simon said that this general objective had been sought separately by the two branches through their Committees on Israel and that both would hereafter “communicate with each other and cooperate in endeavors in which they have mutual concerns.” The conference yesterday was convened, in the words of the CCAR president, Rabbi Levi Olan of Dallas, as a representation of “what is happening in the world at large-the growing movement of secularism which has brought the religious forces closer together.” Rabbi Simon added that the two Committees on Israel would set a date soon for their first joint meeting to consider steps toward the basic objective.

Rabbi Simon cited as an example of the program to be advanced by cooperative Reform-Conservative action wider dissemination of a journal of religious thought “Petahim” (Gateways), which he called a journal not bound by the “rigidity of the fundamentalist position. “The bi-monthly publication is published in Jerusalem under the editorship of Joseph Bentwich, the Anglo-Jewish editor. Rabbi Simon said that the publication had been struggling with problems of financing and support and that the Committees on Judaism hoped to give it more financial aid and help in stimulating its circulation which he described as “several thousand.”

Another cooperative goal. Rabbi Simon explained, would be efforts to grapple with “the whole philosophical concept of a Jewish State.” New efforts also are planned to encourage American rabbis to go to Israel and carry on programs of liberal religious thought and education among Israeli Jews.

There are at present seven Reform congregations and five Conservative congregations in Israel. Each congregational group in Israel will continue to receive support from its American counterpart but it was stressed by Rabbi Simon that the cooperative Reform-Conservative plans would seek to avoid confrontations with the Israeli Government and the Orthodox rabbinate, the sole Jewish religious movement recognized in Israel.

An example of the separate efforts cited was a program approved at the November. 1967 convention of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations in Montreal, calling on each member congregation to seek contributions of one dollar per member family to be used in aiding the Reform congregations in Israel. Under the direction of Nathaniel Hess, chairman of the UAHC Committee on Israel, more than $100,000 has been raised in that campaign. It was also reported that there are 39 RA rabbis now resident in Israel, working in synagogues, youth villages and other institutions and agencies.