Who Makes Reform Judaism Real?

     We Reform Jews may be major players in North America, but we’re not major players in Israel, where our rabbis cannot officially do marriages, divorces, burial services, and conversions.  The Israeli rabbinate does its best to delegitimize our movement.

     There is one problem in their program of delegitimization: the Law of Return.  The Law of Return requires Israel to recognize converts of rabbis from outside the Land.  The Interior Ministry, controlled by an Orthodox political party, decides who is accepted as a Jew from outside Israel.  If it can block American, Canadian, and other Reform converts from recognition, the ministry advances its desire to marginalize us and ultimately to force the Jewish world to see us irrelevant, even heretical.

     We draw the line of battle for Reform (and Conservative) converts at the Israeli Supreme Court.  That’s why I betook myself at 9 AM one February morning to sit in Courtroom Gimel waiting for 3 judges to hear the case of one Reform convert to Judaism defended by Nicole Maor, Director of the Israel Religious Action Center’s Legal Aid Center for Olim (Immigrants). 

     I wanted to see and hear Nicky in action.  Yes, I admire her work, but also, I owe her.  No, we owe her.  She and her team of lawyers have gone to bat for at least 3 Jews who studied and became Jewish in Montreal, and she won their aliyah each time.  I expected the same for a woman who converted in New York, whose case was before the court.  I wanted to be present as a statement: Nicky, we support and honor your work.

     Nicky Maor and the legal squad at IRAC have winning ways.  The law is on our side, and our movement is not frivolous about conversion requirements, but to defend us, IRAC deploys top-notch legal minds like Nicky Maor.  The court listens to her and endorses our pleas. 

     I waited 3 hours for our case to come forward, but because of an Israeli general strike, the case was delayed.  The experience of our own Montreal converts tells that waiting and patience are part of the game.  I believe that Nicky will win the case for us, and I wish I could be there to see the smile on one New Yorker’s face. 

     By winning Jewish status for Reform converts who make aliyah, IRAC legitimates our movement world-wide and makes it real to Israelis and non-Israelis alike.  Do every-day Jews really care if an Orthodox rabbi recognizes Reform converts as Jewish?  I don’t’ think so.  They want to know if Israel recognizes them, and that’s what Nicky Maor makes happen.

     There’s a thank-you we can give to Nicole Maor, to her legal staff, and to IRAC executive director Anat Hoffman, who so capably supervises Reform’s legal defense of our movement in many Israeli spheres.  That thank-you is to support and sustain their work of assuring that the full acceptance of the Israeli government goes to all of us Reform Jews, including those who have chosen Judaism, including our Israeli rabbis.          

    If we’re not real in Israel, in today’s Jewish world, we’re not for real.  IRAC fights for our legitimacy, fights all the way to the Israeli Supreme Court, and IRAC is winning.  In effect, they legitimate our congregations, our rabbis -- and the congregations and rabbis of all other non-Orthodox movements.  That’s why I focused my sabbatical volunteer work on IRAC and that’s why I believe IRAC must be strengthened.