The Movement for Reform Judaism

Justice Minister Friedmann poised to cancel rabbinic court appointments By Yair Ettinger and Yuval Yoaz, Haaretz

Attorney General Menachem Mazuz yesterday directed Justice Minister Daniel Friedman to cancel the appointments of the 15 rabbinic court judges selected six weeks ago, because of irregularities in the appointment process.

Organizations that had petitioned against the appointments - the modern Orthodox rabbis' group Tzohar, women's groups including the Orthodox organization Emunah, the Israel Bar Association and the Israel Religious Action Center - welcomed Mazuz's decision. However, they noted that judges still had to be chosen who would reflect a spectrum of opinions, and not only those who met certain technical criteria.

The organizations that support Mazuz's move are concerned that any new rabbis who may be hurriedly appointed will not meet these criteria any more than did the earlier appointees.

The groups also worry that the ultra-Orthodox parties will now do everything in their power to prevent the appointment of the three NRP candidates who were appointed in the first round.

A long-awaited agreement between America's centrist Orthodox rabbinical group and Israel's chief rabbinate on standards for conversion to Judaism remains fragile and may still be scuttled.

While many of the RCA's 950 members support the organization's desire to have the Israeli rabbinate's approval for conversions, some find repugnant the notion that Israel's rabbinate - a powerful, government-funded institution renowned for its rigidity - would be in any way involved in U.S. conversions. Off the record, several rabbis said it would be a major mistake for the RCA to give in to the chief rabbinate's demands.

Rabbi Marc Angel, a former president of the RCA and spiritual leader of Congregation Shearith Israel on the Upper West Side called the proposed agreement "an entire capitulation to the most extreme haredi view."

"Those rabbis [in Israel] don't seem to care about the hearts and souls of these people who want to have Jewish families, to have Jewish children. What they're interested in saying is 'we have standards, either you make it our way or not at all.' It's an ugly face for Orthodoxy, and a shame for Orthodoxy," said Rabbi Angel.

The problem "is that the chief rabbinate is seeking to exert its authority over diaspora Jewry without a full understanding of the evolution and character of that community," said Rabbi Seth Farber, the director of ITIM, an Israeli organization that assists people there with their religious needs.

(photo: Israel Chief Rabbis Metzger and Amar)

A 28-year-old religious female lawyer recently forced the Civil Service Commission to cancel a rabbinical court job tender on the grounds that it discriminates against women. Naama Safrai-Cohen says she intends to open the rabbinical court system to women employees.

"It is unacceptable for the State of Israel to issue a tender that bars women from applying," Safrai-Cohen, who defines herself as a religious feminist, told Haaretz.

"My knowledge is comparable to that of any rabbi or rabbinical judge, whereas most of them lack my legal education. The state should prefer aides who are knowledgeable both on religious and secular laws," she explains. "After all, the rulings of the rabbinical court must agree with the laws of state."

The sight of an ultra-Orthodox woman lawyer is still not at all common, and in the heart of Kiryat Belz in Jerusalem, a neighborhood with a large concentration of Hasidim, considered a very closed community, Rabinowitz-Naftalin's presence is provocative.

When she drives her car on the streets of the neighborhood wearing her black robes, as frequently happens when she is rushing to court, she is followed by an invisible trail of gossip and glances.

Her father, Rabbi Haim Yehuda Rabinowitz, is the head of the rabbinical court in Jerusalem. Her eldest brother is the rabbi of the Western Wall. Another brother is certified as a dayan in rabbinical courts.

Although she doesn't appear before her father, she says that people come to her because of the family reputation.

In her family, she says, they always analyzed legal cases and various halakhot (religious laws) at the dinner table. "I would like to be a judge," she says. "After all, I can't be a dayan."

Rabbis, IDF clash over segregation

Hesder soldiers will stop serving in Golani and paratrooper brigades after religious Zionist yeshiva heads clashed with an IDF general over the right to keep their soldier-students in segregated, religious- only platoons.

Chief Rabbinate Nixes Christian- Jewish Conference

Participation in the "Woman to Woman" Conference in Jerusalem next week, sponsored by the Christian "Bridges for Peace" organization, has been banned by the Chief Rabbinate of Israel.

How to become a IDF rabbi in 6 weeks

Application criteria for military rabbi training course published by IDF missing one requirement: Rabbinic ordination

Q & A on aliya and absorption

Ask Minister of Immigrant Absorption Ze'ev Boim about moving to and living in Israel. Answers will be published in JPost.com on May 16, 2007.

[Why not ask Minister Boim about the recognition of non-Orthodox streams of Judaism in Israel. jk]