Die Freie Jüdische Umschau
Internationale Presseschau
Rabbi R. Hirsch:
Keeping the Jewish
People alive!
Von München nach Jerusalem:
Schalom
Ben-Chorin died in Jerusalem
Inspiration und Motivation:
European Regional
Annual Conference in Lyon
HIGH COURT DIRECTS BIG CITY RELIGIOUS COUNCILS TO
SEAT NON-ORTHODOX
13.November 1998 / 24 Cheshvan
5759 Israel's Supreme Court recently ruled that Progressive and
Conservative Jews who had been elected to serve on the religious councils in Jerusalem,
Tel Aviv and Haifa, as well as in Kiryat Tivon in the north, and Arad in the south, must
be seated. The councils, as well as the Ministry of Religious Affairs, which effectively
controls them, had refused to seat non-Orthodox members. Leaders of Israel's Progressive
and Conservative movements hailed the court decision, citing the fact that the ruling was
aimed at the three major cities. Last year, in what was seen as a test case, the court
ordered the Netanya religious council to seat a member of the local Progressive
congregation. Religious councils oversee the activities of local rabbis and other public
sector employees and organizations handling religious matters, such as kashruth
inspectors, ritual circumcisers and burial societies.
CONGREGATIONAL EFFORT FAILS TO COUNTER NON-ORTHODOX
VOTER APATHY
With religious parties capturing an additional two Jerusalem
City Council seats in this week's municipal elections, it's not clear whether Congregation
Kol Haneshama's voter awareness drive had much effect on an apparently apathetic
non-Orthodox electorate. Despite community programs at the synagogue, as well as living
room get-togethers and the distribution of pamphlets on city street corners, only about a
third of Jerusalem's non-Orthodox voters cast ballots, compared to about 85 percent of the
city's Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox electorate. This resembled the turnout in the 1995
municipal elections, when an unprecedented 90 percent of the city's eligible
ultra-Orthodox voters showed up at the polls following a last-minute power sharing deal
between mayoral candidate Ehud Olmert and the religious parties. In those elections, the
voter imbalance, coupled with Olmert's victory, gave the Orthodox parties 13 of the 31
City Council seats and control of some of the most powerful municipal committees. This
time the religious parties will fill 15 council seats. So far there's no word on a
municipal coalition.
MARAM PROPOSES RELIGIOUS DAY OF MOURNING FOR RABIN
The Council of Progressive Rabbis in Israel (MARAM) of the
Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism (IMPJ) has proposed that a religious day of
mourning be made part of the annual commemoration of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's death.
The proposal came as Israel marked the third anniversary of Rabin's assassination. While
there are no calls for a fast, as is custom on Jewish days of national mourning, MARAM
secretary Rabbi Yoram Mazor says Jews should avoid "any event that involves joy and
merriment on the [Hebrew] anniversary of the prime minister's assassination." A
recent poll conducted in Israel found that only a third of the public believes Israeli
society has learned a lesson from the assassination.
RA'ANANA CONGREGATION IN CYBERSPACE
Kehilat Ra'anan, the IMPJ congregation in the Tel Aviv suburb
of Ra'anana, recently established a permanent Web site. It can be accessed at: http://www.raanan.org/ . The congregation's spiritual
leader, Rabbi Micky Boyden, invites everyone to "take a look at what is, I believe,
the first fully Hebrew/English Web site for a Reform congregation." Kehilat
Ra’anana recently received a municipal building permit for the construction of a
synagogue and community center.
The Orthodox Movement Meimad:
HALACHA
AND DEMOCRACY
We cannot remain blind to the disastrous consequences to
Israel as a Jewish state if Israelis were to begin to believe that the halacha opposes
democratic rule. It is frightening to think of what would happen to relations between
religious and non-religious Israelis, and especially to our own children who would grow up
thinking that they must make an "either-or" choice between Torah and Israel.
BASIC
POSITION: THE PEACE PROCESS
We supported Mr. Peres for Prime Minister because of our
long-standing support of the Oslo Accords and the peace process, as well as evidence of
our view that commitment to Torah does not imply support for one particular political
stance. The monolithic support of the religious parties for Binyamin Netanyahu, and the
nature of the campaign material implied it was a religious imperative for every observant
Jew to vote for the right wing. This made Meimad's position all the more important as a
message to religious Zionists.
