The law that every Israeli child is supposed to be given 10 swimming lessons by the time they reach fifth grade has never been implemented in the Bedouin community in the Negev desert. Whenever the Bedouins think about water, it’s in the context of not having enough fresh water to drink or for agriculture. They certainly don’t think about a swimming pool, or the ocean.
To Bedouin children, the idea of learning how to swim is just a dream. Which is why the Israel Religious Action Center is helping make it happen.
“The Bedouins are considered ‘unrecognized’ in Israel,” said Anat Hoffman, executive director of IRAC and herself a former swimming champion, from her home in Jerusalem. “A child who can swim feels confidence, and a sense of achievement. This will allow Bedouin children to dream.”
Hoffman will be the featured speaker at the Paul J. Matzger Young Leadership Fund lecture Wednesday, March 22 at Congregation Emanu-El in San Francisco.
This project with the Bedouin — which will happen with financial help from San Francisco’s Rabbi Brian Lurie and the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation through its grants to the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee — is just the latest example of Hoffman’s long history of fighting for the rights of minorities in Israel.
Hoffman first learned about Reform Judaism while attending UCLA. She has been active in the Reform movement in Israel ever since, cofounding Women at the Wall and participating in women’s prayer services at the Western Wall, where it was forbidden for women to pray in tallits. She served on the Jerusalem City Council for 14 years, representing the Meretz Civil Rights and Peace party, fighting for the residents of Arab East Jerusalem to get the same services as the Jews in West Jerusalem.
And during her last four years at IRAC, she has been fighting to ensure that Reform and Conservative Jews are considered just as legitimately Jewish as the Orthodox. But it is a long, uphill battle.
“People from all over the world come here to learn about their Judaism, and the different expressions it can have,” she said. “But the situation is that there’s one way determined by the state how to be Jewish, and that’s Orthodoxy.”
The question of “Who is a Jew,” Hoffman said, is often being disputed now in the form of “Who is a rabbi.” When Rabbi David Ellenson, president of the Reform movement’s Hebrew Union College met with Israeli president Moshe Katzav, Katzav called him “professor,” not rabbi, and this is typical, she said.
In September, IRAC brought a case to the Israeli Supreme Court petitioning that Miri Gold, an American immigrant to Israel who was ordained a Reform rabbi at HUC in Jerusalem several years ago, be recognized as a rabbi so she can get the same financial benefits other rabbis in her area receive.
Gold lives and conducts services at Kibbutz Gezer, a kibbutz founded by American immigrants.
“There are 15 other rabbis in that region and all of them get paid by the state,” said Hoffman. “They all sit on a regional council together, but only one of them on the council who is fully employed does not get paid.”
Gold is that one rabbi, she said, though she does receive a salary from the Israeli Reform movement, and from donations from Reform Jews abroad.
“The council voted they want her on the council, but the chief rabbis are not willing to recognize her,” she said.
This will be a landmark ruling in Israel, if they win, Hoffman said, because “right behind Miri Gold, there are others.
“If she is recognized, there are many other Reform and Conservative rabbis behind her who will be recognized as well.”
Anat Hoffman will speak 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 22 at Congregation Emanu-El, 2 Lake St., S.F. Free. Information: Mollie Schneider at (415) 751-2541 ext. 124 or [email protected].