This week the Conservative movement announced its hiring practices would no longer exclude gays and lesbians.
You could say the statement came as music to David Stein’s ears — but it’s music he’s been waiting so long to hear he’s not exactly thrilled to hear it anymore.
In a news release, USCJ Executive Director Rabbi Jerome Epstein wrote: “As a movement that has always integrated our commitment to halakhah — Jewish law — with our desire to see the spirit of God in all people, we are glad to be able to take this step.”
Stein, the executive director of Berkeley’s Congregation Netivot Shalom, laughs good and hard.
“Now he says, OK, he sees the spirit of God in all people. On Monday morning, I guess, he put on a different set of glasses. Thank you very much, rabbi!”
For Stein, who is openly gay, the Conservative movement’s softening stance on homosexuality has been a welcome development. But the accompanying acrimony and bureaucratic pace of the changes have been difficult to bear.
Late last year, Netivot Shalom launched an online petition to end discrimination against homosexuals in USCJ hiring practices. Not long after, the Conservative movement’s Law Committee approved a teshuvah — a position paper on Jewish law — that offered a halachic argument for the ordination of gay and lesbian rabbis. Los Angeles’ University of Judaism immediately announced it would do so and, following a series of extensive polls and meetings, the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York opted to do the same.
So when Stein and other synagogue executive directors received an e-mail a few months back from Epstein urging patience in changing Conservative hiring policy, he was, to put it mildly, peeved.
“Oh, let me tell you!” said Stein, who referred to Epstein’s letter as “a delaying tactic.”
For Stein, the idea of altering hiring practices wasn’t simply an abstract concept. He has several gay or lesbian acquaintances he claims were summarily dismissed from their positions at Conservative summer camps when their sexual orientation became known.
The paranoia surrounding the idea of allowing homosexuals to work with children is still prevalent, Stein believes. A number of otherwise rational, open-minded folks still harbor suspicions that gays and lesbians will somehow “infect the children” — or perhaps even worse — and Stein feels this may have caused the Conservative movement to drag its feet.
But, this week, things may have started to change.
“This battle, at least having to do with the national movement, has settled down. But I think it will be a difficult time for some very conservative Conservative synagogues to implement this on a local level,” said Stein.
“Hopefully gay and lesbian rabbis can come out of the closet and be hired by any congregation and will be taking an active role in decision-making at the Rabbinical Assembly. There’s a lot of work that needs to be done by United Synagogues to turn it into a 21st-century service organization.”