Israeli Conservative Movement Will Ordain Gay Rabbis

[cbayer]

http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/sexandgender/5912/israeli_conservative_movement_will_ordain_gay_rabbis

By JAY MICHAELSON




Six years after its American counterpart, the Conservative movement’s Israeli rabbinical school voted last month to admit gay and lesbian students. It’s one small step for LGBT people, one foot-dragging schlep for the Jews. As progressives celebrate this milestone, many not connected to the debates have asked: What took them so long?

In ascending order of interest, the answer has to do with personalities, social contexts, and crises of legitimacy. First, and least interesting to non-insiders, a very small handful of individuals have personally stood in the way of this progress for years. (As a semi-insider myself, I know who they are, and who the activists are, and who the folks in the movable middle are.) One person really can make a difference—especially when he or she is resistant to change.

More interestingly, though, are the different social contexts of Israeli Conservative Jews and American Conservative Jews. The label notwithstanding, most Conservative Jews in America are relatively progressive. They vote Democrat, support gay rights, and don’t keep kosher—at least not in the traditional way. Many are Conservative Jews for social reasons: it’s how they grew up, it’s where their friends are, it’s the better (or closer) synagogue. Most lack a strong ideological commitment to the movement, which has been a problem in recent years as an older generation of philanthropists disappears.

In Israel, on the other hand, you have to work to be a masorti Jew. (The word masorti means traditional, but the Conservative movement has coopted it. Confusingly, it also applies to Sephardic Jews who are not conventionally religious but who observe some of the traditional norms for cultural or spiritual reasons.) There are few such Jews around, masorti institutions are not supported by the state, and if all you want is to be culturally Jewish, there’s no reason to affiliate at all. Israeli masorti Jews are Jews by choice.


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