Orthodox Rabbi Naftali Rothenberg, one of Israel’s vocal advocates for tolerance among Jews, will gladly sit down and talk with his non-Orthodox counterparts.
Rothenberg, however, draws the line at legal equality for the Reform and Conservative movements, such as letting their rabbis perform marriages or conversions in Israel.
“Of course, I don’t support Reform and Conservative performing actions that I believe are against my principles,” he said late last month during a visit to San Francisco.
But he offers another way to satisfy these demands, including such solutions as civil marriage.
“Today, loudly and very strongly, a lot of rabbis…in Israel — what you call Orthodox — are calling for more separation between religion and state,” he said.
Rothenberg, the head rabbi for the Jerusalem suburb of Har Adar and a leader in an Israeli think tank called The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, came to the Bay Area as part of an international tour sponsored by the New Israel Fund.
Though it is a progressive, money-raising group that backs legal equality for non-Orthodox movements in Israel, the U.S.-based NIF sponsored Rothenberg’s visit. “He is one of the leading advocates in Israel of dialogue between Orthodox and non-Orthodox,” NIF communications director Gil Kulick said.
Rothenberg was not specific about the type of religion-state separation he envisions, though he knows it wouldn’t mirror the American model.
Still, he knows the status quo isn’t working.
Right now, life-cycle events in Israel such as weddings and burials must be marked by a religious rite performed by officially sanctioned clergy. There is no such thing as a civil ceremony.
Yet hundreds of thousands of foreign workers and immigrants — such as those from the former Soviet Union — who are neither Jewish, Christian nor Muslim have moved to Israel in the past decade. The state must do something to accommodate their needs, Rothenberg said.
“The situation has changed. We as the rabbis know it,” he said.
Many couples who wish to sidestep religious requirements for marriage visit the nearby island of Cyprus, for example, wed there and return with a marriage certificate that Israel will recognize officially.
But Rothenberg said this situation cannot go on indefinitely, especially as the ranks of non-Jews — and Jews who aren’t considered Jewish by Orthodox standards — continue to climb.
“The state can’t tell them all: `Buy a ticket to Cyprus.'”
One of the possible models for change, he suggested, would be retaining the Orthodox rabbinate’s current powers but adding the option of civil marriage.
His call for change has little to do with Reform or Conservative cries for legal equality. But Rothenberg said that once the situation is solved for non-Jews, Reform and Conservative Jews would benefit as well.
Though Reform and Conservative Jews have tried working through the Knesset to gain equal legal footing with the Orthodox, Rothenberg is convinced that this tactic won’t work. Politicians, particularly those from the secular left and the religious right, will never solve the problem because the status quo works to their advantage, he said.
“We have to find other ways.”