During an emergency meeting called to try to find ways to stop the government from following through on its decision to recognize and fund Reform and Conservative rabbis, one of Israel’s state-funded haredi chief rabbis said non-Orthodox Jewish movements are “poisoning” the Jewish people.
Chief Rabbis Shlomo Amar, left, and Yona Metzger, right
Reform, Conservative Are Poison, Chief Rabbi Says
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
During an emergency meeting called to try to find ways to stop the government from following through on its decision to recognize and fund Reform and Conservative rabbis, one of Israel’s state-funded haredi chief rabbis said non-Orthodox Jewish movements are “poisoning” the Jewish people.
Around 150 rabbis attended today's meeting, which was called by Amar (please see Amar's letter posted below), as did leading haredi politicians including Minister of Housing and Construction Ariel Atias (Shas), Minister of Religious Services Yaakov Margi (Shas). Several Zionist Orthodox MKs also attended, the Jerusalem Post reported.
Non-Orthodox movements “are poisoning the well of holiness and taking people to nethermost pit,” Amar told the crowd and decried the “real halakhic dangers” in the state recognizing non-Orthodox rabbis.
“The most frightening thing, God forbid it should happen, is if we will need to make marriage records and that the Jewish people is split into two because we won’t be able to marry amongst each other any more. For this there is no cure,” Amar reportedly said, calling on the Prime Minister and the High Court of Justice “not to allow Judaism and Torah to be uprooted, [the Judaism and Torah] which has protected us throughout the generations and continues to do so today.”
Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger denied claims made by many secular Israelis and by some Modern Orthodox rabbis, as well, that the state’s haredi-controlled rabbinate – which controls conversions, marriages and burials for all Jews in Israel regardless of religious affiliation of lack thereof – and Orthodoxy in general is not open and welcoming towards non-religious people.
“We are also sympathetic and friendly. Who among us does not want to do outreach [to secular Jews] and does not want to embrace and love all Jews?”, Metzger told the rabbis.
As Amar and Metzger spoke against them and their religious movements, several dozen Reform and Conservative Jews demonstrated outside, calling the emergency meeting “incitement and hateful.”
Rabbi Benny Lau, an influential moderate Zionist Orthodox rabbi, told reporters following the conference that “cursing the Reform and Conservative movements would not save one Jew from assimilation.”
“Delegitimization and war doesn’t work,” Lau reportedly said. “The best way to reach out to people not connected to Judaism is to do what is good and what is right, to be professional, to serve the community, to provide the best possible service and then people will choose those who are good in their eyes.”