Though on a six-month sabbatical, Oakland Rabbi Steven Chester helped make international headlines this week by defiantly praying in Jerusalem in the name of religious pluralism.
Chester of Temple Sinai joined 45 North American Reform rabbis — both male and female — who took part Sunday morning in a Shacharit service in the center of the Western Wall plaza outside the men’s and women’s areas. It was the most dramatic event of a weeklong lobbying effort for non-Orthodox religious rights in Israel.
Surrounded by a dozen Israeli police officers and the international media — both waiting for trouble from ultrareligious Jews — the rabbis wore kippot and prayer shawls. Eight or nine laid tefillin.
“As we were starting the service, we felt tense. We didn’t know what was going to happen,” Chester said.
“We were ringed by police. That was the saddest statement — that we had to be protected by the police in the Jewish state.”
In violation of the Orthodox ban on men and women worshipping together at the Wall, the rabbis then began to audibly pray and chant the all-Hebrew service in the chilly morning air.
“It wasn’t to be confrontational,” said a jet-lagged Chester on Tuesday morning after returning home from Israel the previous day. “But there’s no question. It was making a statement…The wall doesn’t belong to only one group of Jews.”
Four or five ultrareligious Jewish men, as well as a handful of Japanese tourists, watched the service. As soon as it ended, one of the Jews in his 40s confronted New Jersey Rabbi Shifra Penzias.
“One of them said to her: `You’re profaning God by wearing a kippah,'” recalled Chester, who joined the group following his work on a three-week archeological dig at Ein Gedi near the Dead Sea.
After 10 to 15 minutes of confrontation, another ultrareligious Jew in his 20s spat at Penzias. He missed, then started to scream and laid face-down on the stone plaza until friends carried him away.
In a less dramatic but potentially more significant move, the 45 rabbis representing the Association of Reform Zionists of America met with a handful of top Israeli political and religious leaders during their weeklong mission.
The rabbis primarily focused on lobbying against a proposed bill that would officially affirm the Orthodox chief rabbinate’s control over all conversions in Israel.
They also became the first official Reform group to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu since he came to power last year.
Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch, executive director of ARZA, said the half-hour meeting Sunday afternoon with Netanyahu was “in itself significant.”
Bobby Brown, the prime minister’s adviser on diaspora affairs, said the meeting went well.
“The rabbis understood the depth of the problem the prime minister is facing,” said Brown, referring to Netanyahu’s attempt to please both his Orthodox coalition partners and American Jews.
“At the same time, the prime minister understood how deeply the rabbis felt about this issue and how the conversion bill could affect the rabbis and their communities back home.”
Netanyahu seemed to hear the rabbis’ concerns, Chester agreed. But the prime minister “overall talked about maintaining the status quo…I can’t say it wasn’t expected. I’ve known his stand. I’ve heard it before.”
The Reform lobbying effort came as the Israeli Cabinet is close to action on the so-called “Rabbinical Court Conversion Bill.” If the Cabinet approves the measure, it will go to the Knesset.
The bill aims to plug a hole in Israel’s Orthodox monopoly over religious affairs. Israel’s Supreme Court ruled in late 1995 that there was no legal reason why non-Orthodox conversions should not be recognized in Israel. But the court did not explicitly recognize such conversions, leaving such a move up to the Knesset.
The latest bill would give the Orthodox-ruled Rabbinic Court authority over conversions in Israel. Many Conservative and Reform U.S. leaders say the bill would symbolically delegitimize their movements worldwide.
“I think there is a growing realization in the government of the potentially catastrophic consequences if the bill passes,” said Hirsch.
“Our official position will be to continue our support for Israel, and funding on behalf of Israel,” he added.
But Hirsch warned that unless non-Orthodox Jews receive legal recognition of their rabbis and institutions in Israel, their diaspora counterparts might decide to “disengage” from the Jewish state.
“Israel’s leadership must understand that if 80 percent of American Jews are not Orthodox, then at least 80 percent of federation members are not Orthodox.”
According to Hirsch, there is a growing feeling in the United States that Israel is saying: “We’ll take your money, your political support, the foreign aid you helped produce, but don’t even think of bringing your religious sensibilities here.”
Though Chester anticipated Netanyahu’s response, he was disillusioned by a meeting with Israeli Cabinet minister and former Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky.
Chester, whose protests for Soviet Jews’ freedom included an arrest outside the Soviet Embassy in San Francisco in the 1970s, said he hoped his hero would fight for the rights of all Jews.
But Sharansky told the rabbis this wasn’t the right time to push for non-Orthodox religious rights.
“To have this person turn around and not fight for the rights of everyone and to become a `party’ man was extremely disappointing,” Chester said.