As director of Israel’s largest consortium of non-Orthodox rabbis, the Masorti movement’s Rabbinical Assembly, Rabbi Andrew Sacks has faced his share of uphill battles when it comes to religious pluralism.
Happily for him, occasionally one of those battles picks up downhill momentum.
For example, Masorti (the Israeli branch of Conservative Judaism) will soon send Israel’s first government-funded non-Orthodox rabbi into the field, with the blessing of the Ministry of Religious Affairs.
This as-yet-unnamed rabbi will serve in Israel’s hinterlands, and not in a city. So it’s not total victory over the hegemony of what Sacks calls the “zealously Orthodox,” but he considers it a victory nonetheless. Sacks, after all, is a Kiddush-cup-half-full kind of rabbi.
Ever since the Philadelphia native made aliyah in 1987, he has been pushing for equal rights for women, gays and lesbians, Israeli Arabs and Jews of all denominations.
Sacks will make his case to the Bay Area, when he delivers the USF Jewish Studies and Social Justice Program’s annual Social Justice Lecture on Feb. 6 at the JCC of San Francisco. The event is presented in partnership with the Israel Center of the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation; A Wider Bridge, the Jewish LGBT organization, is a co-sponsor.
The following weekend he will serve as scholar-in-residence at Congregation B’nai Shalom in Walnut Creek.
While here, he will likely be asked about the just-concluded Israeli election and what it portends for issues he cares about. Sacks isn’t sure of his answer just yet.
“I’m trying to figure out what sort of government we will have,” Sacks said by phone from Israel. “Virtually everybody was surprised by the results of the election.”
He thinks the strong showing of former TV newsman Yair Lapid’s centrist Yesh Atid party, which supports national service for ultra-Orthodox Jews, was a good sign.
“I do think Lapid and [his] coalition will certainly keep the issue of pluralism and military service on the front burner,” Sacks added. “It gives some reason for optimism.”
Like Lapid, Sacks is a strong supporter of mandatory national service for the Orthodox. “I don’t feel the rest of the population should cover the financial cost of the haredi world,” he said. “If they feel they can’t serve in the army, then why can’t they serve four hours a day in yeshiva and four hours in a home for the elderly?”
Masorti, like other liberal streams of Judaism in Israel, navigates a narrow path between a secular majority and the Orthodox, who control Jewish religious life in the country.
But Sacks points to his movement’s gains. While the Conservative movement has shrunk in North America, over the last six years, the number of Masorti synagogues in Israel has grown by 50 percent, to some 60 today. Sacks is also Israel’s only non-Orthodox mohel, having performed more than 2,500 ritual circumcisions over the years.
Sacks likes fighting for equal rights, wherever the battle takes him. Some of his current battles include pressing religious authorities to allow for non-Orthodox conversions and for inter-religious gay adoptions.
Though many of his disputes are with the entrenched Orthodox leadership, he does not personalize the fight.
“They can’t all be painted with one brush, which is why I use the term ‘zealously Orthodox,’” he said “I don’t use term ‘ultra,’ because ultra is good. Ultra Tide gets your clothes really clean. It depends on which community. There are now many Orthodox gay organizations [that] are really quite pluralistic and open.”
Sacks’ liberal bona fides, regarding both social and political issues, are well established. He supports LGBT rights as well as left-leaning organizations such as J Street and the New Israel Fund, and has gotten pushback for it.
“While some consider my work left wing, I don’t see it as anything other than part of the mainstream justice Judaism demands,” he said. “All you need to do is look at the list of Israelis on the [J Street] advisory committee and see a litany of former [IDF] generals, Members of the Knesset, the intelligence community. The Zionism of the 1950s was ‘My country right or wrong.’ Today it is far more nuanced.”
Despite conventional wisdom that most Israelis are zealously secular and ignorant of their religious heritage, Sacks feels otherwise.
He says that among those who call themselves secular, the chances are good that they have a mezuzah on their doors, they light Shabbat candles, attend Passover seders and fast on Yom Kippur.
“The line between so-called secular and religious is not as clear as we sometimes think it is,” he adds. “We do see now a generation beginning to look for ways back to their traditional Jewish roots without committing themselves entirely to an Orthodox lifestyle. That’s why you see a growing number of Masorti synagogues.”