Premier Golda Meir’s last minute hopes to form a coalition government were rudely dashed late today when the Chief Rabbinate Council banned the National Religious Party from joining a coalition on the basis of a compromise on the Who is a Jew issue. Late tonight Mrs. Meir was meeting with President Ephraim Katzir in an apparent effort to find a way out of this latest roadblock. She was due to appear on television to explain the situation to the nation. (By late this evening New York time there was still no official word as to the fate of the hoped-for coalition.)
The unanimous decision of the Council, which met today under the chairmanship of Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi Shlomo Goren, was published tonight although an announcement had not been expected until tomorrow morning. The Orthodox NRP whose ten Knesset seats are essential to a viable Labor-led coalition government is not considered likely to defy the Chief Rabbinate’s ban although many NRP Knesset members seemed sad and bewildered at the decision.
The Chief Rabbinate refused to countenance a compromise that would have deferred the Who is a Jew issue for one year while a special ministerial committee sought to solve the problem through consultations among leaders of all trends in Judaism abroad. The Orthodox establishment here, under severe pressure from ranking Orthodox rabbis in the U.S., is demanding a government commitment to amend the Law of Return so as to invalidate conversions made by non-Orthodox rabbis abroad. The Labor Party has refused to give such a commitment which is not only vigorously opposed by the various secular parties here but would be bound to alienate the millions of adherents of Reform and Conservative Judaism overseas.
NRP members who had hoped for a compromise that would permit their party to enter a new coalition partnership, were venting their anger tonight on Dr. Yitzhak Rafael, chairman of one of the NRP’s major factions, whose idea it was to ask the Chief Rabbinate for an opinion. They apparently realize now that the Chief Rabbinate Council could not have come to a different decision in view of the extreme religious sensitivity on the issue and the exhortations by Orthodox rabbis abroad against a compromise.
FEAR KISSINGER DIPLOMACY MAY BE AFFECTED
Earlier in the day it had been expected by most circles here that Mrs. Meir would succeed, before the day ended, in putting together a new coalition based on Labor’s past partnership with the NRP and the Independent Liberal Party. She had seemed confident of this when she said last night that she would not ask President Katzir for a 21-day extension of her mandate to form a government, which is provided by Israeli law. Her mandate expired at 5 p.m. local time. She asked and received a five-hour extension.
The collapse of Mrs. Meir’s coalition efforts appeared certain to affect the new round of personal diplomacy that U.S. Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger is supposed to start in the Middle East next Monday. Mrs. Meir’s intensive efforts to form a coalition immediately rather than ask for a three-week extension were based on her need for a new government to negotiate with Dr. Kissinger on a Syrian-Israeli disengagement accord. Sources here noted that a continuing crisis in Israel’s governmental situation could give the Syrians an excuse to scuttle Kissinger’s efforts with the argument that there was no stable government in Israel to approve and enforce such an accord.
Earlier Mrs. Meir told the Labor Alignment faction at the Knesset that if a ministerial committee is set up to study the Who is a Jew issue, it will consult all trends in Judaism. Rabbi Goren said following the Chief Rabbinate session he did not want to say whether the NRP should regard the Rabbinate ruling as halachic ruling or merely as an advice. “This was up to the people who have asked our opinion to decide.” NRP representatives said earlier they would accept the Rabbinate decision as binding.
Addressing the Zionist General Council meeting here last night. Premier Meir praised the NRP for its readiness to listen to reason and asked that party to demonstrate patience until the Who is a Jew problem can be solved by mutual efforts. She also praised the Reform trend in Judaism which she said had made important strides towards Israel “and we cannot permit ourselves to keep them far away.” That remark was a rebuff to Orthodox leaders in America–notably Rabbis Moshe Feinstein and Joseph Soloveitchik–who have been bombarding Israeli leaders with telephone calls exhorting against any compromise on the issue.
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.
