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I didn’t exactly blend in as I walked into the Tel Aviv Museum of Art with my Central Conference of American Rabbis nametag hanging around my neck. This huge badge, which swayed side-to-side with each step, showed whoever passed that I was a Reform rabbi.
I had spent the last week of February as part of a worldwide delegation of Progressive and Reform rabbis that had been traveling throughout Israel, garnering a significant amount of press along the way. Reporters covered our efforts to bring Progressive Judaism to Israel, from our candlelit march for religious tolerance, to meetings at the Knesset, to our prayer service — men and women together, at the new egalitarian space of the Western Wall.
This last event caused the biggest ruckus of all. The reaction from the Orthodox world was furious, with public statements and signs in ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods denouncing us.
As I stood by the Wall, surrounded by rabbis from all over the world, my mind began to wander. I asked myself, did this matter? Did anyone outside of the Orthodox community really care? Or was this just a bunch of Reform rabbis fighting a fight while the rest of Israel shrugged their shoulders, because the Wall is seen as just another Orthodox synagogue that most Israelis are disinterested in?
But later, when I walked into the museum, an old woman keeping an eye on the exhibit looked down at my swinging badge and then up into my eyes. She approached, grabbed my hands and thanked me. “We need you here. Don’t back down,” the woman said. She went on to urge “us” to keep up the pressure from around the world, to help bring a more progressive Judaism to Israel.
I felt the hair on my neck rise and shivers go up my spine as the doubts I’d felt earlier at the Wall were erased. Throughout the week we rabbis had taxi drivers, merchants, waitresses, people passing in the street, runners in the Tel Aviv marathon thanking us over and over again for being there and helping bring about change in our land.
For 2,000 years, every type of Jew from every corner of the world dreamed of praying at those worn and polished stones, interlacing their fingers with Jews who had come before and those who will follow. But until recently, only one group in Israel set the rules for what type of Judaism is allowed at the Wall.
Even though it is historic that all types of Judaism can now be expressed at the Wall, this effort was never just about attaining an egalitarian prayer space. This is just the beginning. Israeli Jews are opting out of Judaism because they don’t want to be told who can and cannot officiate at the most sacred occasions in their lives. An increasing number of Israelis are no longer getting married, because they do not want to have an Orthodox wedding. An entire generation is missing out on the sacred tradition of the chuppah. Numerous members of the Knesset angrily told us that it is a shanda (shame) that Israel is the only country in the world where non-Orthodox practice is not recognized as authentic Judaism. We must continue working until every Jew is treated equally in Israel.
To be honest, I am not a “Kotel person.” I don’t rush to the Wall when I visit Israel. But I am a Jew who believes it is equally important for an Orthodox Jew to have a mechitza as it is for a liberal Jewish man to be able to pray next to his mother.
What has made our tradition vibrant and strong throughout the generations is the multiplicity of our views and practices. The Talmud was written in a way that every view is included, both the majority and minority. It is all of our jobs to ensure that this millennial-old tradition of pluralism, which has always been the foundation of Judaism, continues to thrive for our generation and the next.
Rabbi Ryan Bauer is a member of the clergy team at Congregation Emanu-El in San Francisco.