The Central Conference of American Rabbis resolved today to review conversion procedures by Reform rabbis and to seek a dialogue on the subject with the other Jewish denominations. A resolution to that effect was adopted at the 85th annual convention of the CCAR. Rabbi Robert I. Kahn, of Houston, CCAR president, who initiated the plan, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency today that the committee appointed to study the conversion procedures would report back to the CCAR executive committee in June.
The CCAR convention is being attended by some 350 of the group’s 1100 rabbis and over 1000 lay leaders of the Reform movement. When it opened last week, Rabbi Kahn called on the Orthodox and Conservative branches of Judaism to seek a mutually acceptable solution to the problem of conversions and the Who is a Jew issue that has created a furor in Israel and abroad.
He suggested as a model solution the “Toronto arrangement” of mixed tripartite conversion panels. He said that if such a system were adopted, the Reform movement would be guided by halacha in performing conversions. Rabbi Kahn warned, however, that the Reform movement would not tolerate aspersions cast on persons converted to Judaism in the past by Reform rabbis who did not follow the halachic rules.
URGES RIGHT TO CRITICIZE ISRAEL’S POLICIES
The CCAR convention heard today from Rabbi Alexander Schindler, president of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, who lashed out at certain American Jews who, he said, “Bought to suppress all free discussion relating to any policies or problems of Israel.” Rabbi Schindler said pressures for silence came “not from Israel as much as from her self-appointed minions, with American passports, minor functionaries strutting about as guardians of the Jewish State’s security.”
These persons, he said, tried to restrain him and others from criticizing Israel’s political policies as perhaps not flexible enough and from “decrying this government’s manifest incapacity to cope with the yawning social gap which tears this society’s fabric.” Declaring that “dissent should never be equated with disloyalty,” Rabbi Schindler asked, “Must I applaud this government’s every act to demonstrate my love for Israel? Why should I not be able to say what Israelis themselves are free to say in their own land?”
Rabbis Allan Levine and Henry Skirball. Israel-based Reform rabbis, reported today on plans to establish a Reform kibbutz in Israel. They said that several sites were under consideration, particularly in the Arava region in the south. They said the scheme had been evolving over four years and that Reform temple’ youth in the U.S. was being canvassed.
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.
