Rabbinic Body of American Reform Judaism to Hold Annual Convention in Israel

For the first time the official rabbinic body of Reform Judaism, the Central Conference of American Rabbis, will hold its annual convention in the State of Israel, March 6 -10 in Jerusalem. CCAR president, Rabbi Roland B. Gittelsohn, Boston, stated that the convention has suspended its normal business procedures so that the entire program can be devoted to learning and exchanging ideas with Israeli scholars, educators and political figures. He hoped that the meeting would serve to strengthen the ties between the two Jewish communities, emphasizing the CCAR’s 1969 convention declaration, “their ordeal is our ordeal, their destiny is our destiny.” The CCAR vice-president, Rabbi David Polish of Evanston, III, the convention program chairman, said that as a result of the Israeli Supreme Court’s Shalit decision, two Israeli authorities would discuss the question of “Who is a Jew.” He stressed that, “we are not coming to propagandize but to express our solidarity with Israel and her people.”