Roberto Graetz has it good, and he knows it.
As one of two senior rabbis at Lafayette’s Reform Temple Isaiah, he has earned respect within the local Jewish community and beyond. The denomination he represents enjoys great prestige and influence in American Jewry.
But back in the day, when he was a rabbi in his native Argentina, his brand of liberal Judaism struggled for acceptance. It still does.
That’s where the World Union for Progressive Judaism comes in.
Graetz is a longtime member. He will be part of the WUPJ’s upcoming 35th biennial conference, “Connections 2011,” which takes place Feb. 7-13 in San Francisco.
“The moment you leave the United States, you sense the power and purpose of the World Union,” Graetz said. “Most [Reform] communities, except Israel and in some parts of Europe, feel isolated. The World Union is their conduit to the rest of the world.”
Reform Judaism reigns supreme in North America, claiming more affiliated Jews than any other denomination. Beyond these shores, though, Reform and its allied movements often contend with suspicious Orthodox majorities and anti-Semitism.
The WUPJ’s mission is to turn that around.
Founded in London in 1926 and headquartered in Jerusalem, the World Union is the international umbrella for the Reform, Liberal, Progressive and Reconstructionist movements. It serves 1,200 congregations in 45 countries, with more than 1.8 million members on its rolls.
This is the first World Union biennial held in California, and only the second ever held in the United States.
That means the Bay Area Jewish community will play host to the world, with hundreds of delegates coming in from Latin America, Britain, South Africa, Germany, France, Australia, New Zealand, the former Soviet Union, Canada and Israel.
They will see firsthand how Reform Judaism flourishes here.
As a synagogue-based organization, the World Union seeks to strengthen congregations and Reform communities, develop leaders and nurture youth. It also weighs in on social justice and religious rights issues in Israel and around the world.
Mostly, the WUPJ unites the various affiliated denominations (called Reform, Progressive or Liberal, depending on the territory) into a single voice. All share a belief system of equality, social justice and openness to new interpretations of Jewish law and tradition.
But the state of the World Union is not all sweetness and light. Rabbi Stephen Pearce of San Francisco’s Congregation Emanu-El worries about the movement’s impact in key areas, such as Europe and the former Soviet Union, where other denominations have filled the vacuum.
“In Germany, Chabad controls the rabbinate,” Pearce says. “Indigenous Reform Jewry there has given up. In Eastern Europe, Reform Judaism is hanging by a hair. The biggest issue is funding. The movement does a very poor job of raising funds and enabling people to be more empowered, the way Chabad is able.”
The World Union must also confront increased resistance from aggressive ultra-Orthodox political moves in Israel, including arrogating the power to oversee all Jewish conversions and issuing decrees that Jews cannot rent to non-Jews (read: Arabs).
But for openers, convention organizers want an upbeat message.
Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, will give one of the keynote speeches. He’s eager to break bread with representatives of Reform Judaism from across the globe.
“Building relationships and getting an in-depth understanding of what happens around the Reform Jewish table: That’s why we need these meetings, and that’s more important than the formal agenda,” Yoffie said.
In some ways, the biennial will resemble similar gatherings, with breakout sessions, keynote speakers and plenty of time for shmoozing. The opening ceremony at the Herbst Theatre features young people carrying in the flags of the nations represented.
But in other ways, it will be the most unconventional WUPJ convention yet.
For starters, 11 local Reform synagogues will serve as host congregations, meaning visiting delegates will get out of the “bubble” of San Francisco’s Westin Hotel and attend Kabbalat Shabbat services all over the Bay Area.
That same evening, local families will invite delegates into their homes for Shabbat dinner.
On Feb. 10, delegates will put the shmoozing on hold, when for the first time the WUPJ biennial sponsors a volunteerism project called “Community in Action.”
Delegates will sign up to stuff grocery bags at the San Francisco Food Bank, sort donated clothing at the St. Anthony Foundation (a social service agency in the Tenderloin), or serve meals at the Glide Memorial Church food kitchen, among several options.
“Even though our culture is very heavy on volunteerism, worldwide that is not so,” said Diane Marcus of San Mateo, a longtime WUPJ lay leader and Bay Area co-chair of the 2011 biennial. “We wanted to demonstrate one of the strengths of our Jewish community, which is tikkun olam.”
Then there is the business of convening. The biennial features scores of workshops, panel discussions and study sessions, spanning the wide world of Reform Judaism and its multiple challenges.
Topics include interfaith marriage, anti-Semitism, Jewish education, Middle East peace, outreach to unaffiliated Jews, Israel-diaspora relations, social networking and patrilineal descent.
Highlighting regional concerns, some panels address the state of Progressive Judaism in Latin America, Russia and Israel. Workshop leaders and panel participants hail from around the world, but many are homegrown.
Interfaith outreach activists Rosanne Levitt and Karen Kushner will speak on the subject of interfaith marriage. Congregation Emanu-El scholar-in-residence Rabbi Lawrence Kushner will teach a beit midrash session, while Congregation Sha’ar Zahav’s Rabbi Camille Angel will take part in a panel on “The Spirituality of Welcoming.” Graetz will co-officiate at a multilingual Shabbat service.
Marcus says she looks forward to exposing delegates to the Bay Area’s robust Reform community. But while delegates may have much to learn here, Marcus admits there is no one right way to build the Reform movement worldwide.
“Every community has a strength to bring and a weakness to be addressed,” Marcus said. “We need each other.”
Marcus had two co-chairs helping her put the biennial together. One of them, Phyllis Dorey, ran point on assembling panels and speakers. She was always just a Skype call away from Marcus. Good thing, too, because Dorey lives in Melbourne, Australia.
Dorey is a former president of the Union for Progressive Judaism, the WUPJ-affiliated arm in Australia, New Zealand and Asia. She’s an old hand at WUPJ biennials, having attended many (every other biennial event is held in Israel, alternating with various World Union territories).
“It’s emotionally fulfilling,” she said of her involvement. “Reigniting peoples’ Jewish lives, helping them understand they are Jewish, and giving an opportunity to express that Judaism: That is relevance. We’ve seen an incredible renaissance [in Australia], especially with youth camps, leadership programs and trips to Israel.”
While upbeat about the status of Progressive Judaism down under, she recognizes the challenges the movement faces elsewhere, especially in Latin America, the former Soviet Union and, ironically, Israel.
In South America, there are 10 Reform-affiliated congregations. In the former Soviet Union, there are 34, and in Israel, 24. That’s tiny compared with the 893 Reform synagogues in the United States and 144 in Europe.
“It’s safe to say we are the most important Jewish community [outside Israel] by virtue of our numbers,” added Yoffie, “but at the same time we are the only [Reform] Jewish community where we constitute the majority by significant numbers. That doesn’t exist anywhere else in the world. Everywhere else we’re smaller.”
That statement even applies to Britain, which has long had a sizeable and outspoken Jewish community — just not one with a Reform majority.
London-based Rabbi Tony Bayfield, who will deliver one of four keynote speeches, recently retired as head of the Reform movement in England. He said it has been a decades-long struggle to bolster the movement in the U.K.
Though England’s first Reform synagogue opened in 1841, the movement experienced little growth until after World War II. Since then, it has faced an entrenched Orthodox majority as well as a kind of inertia Bayfield hopes to reverse, especially after what he hopes will be an inspiring San Francisco experience.
Bayfield added that for biennial attendees representing “the only Reform community for umpteen miles and living an embattled life, coming to the States enables you to find out what could be, what might be. It opens your eyes to a range of new possibilities.”
Graetz remembers having his eyes opened when he came to Temple Isaiah more than 20 years ago. The contrast between the Reform movement here and in his native South America could not be greater.
“In Latin America, the greatest challenge is the sense of isolation,” he said. “Communities are very far apart, and the movement is very small. The Conservative movement is much stronger there. They occupy the space of non-Orthodox Judaism by and large.”
Throughout his tenure as a rabbi in Argentina and Brazil, Graetz maintained close ties with the WUPJ. For a few of his early years, the World Union paid his salary.
While isolation is the challenge in South America, in Israel the WUPJ faces a different problem: a Jewish majority that largely chooses either Orthodoxy or secularism. Having the Orthodox monopolize the government’s religious affairs doesn’t help the cause either.
Graetz does cite a few signs of progress, with the WUPJ’s involvement with the Women of the Wall movement (which seeks greater religious rights for women at the Kotel) and the pushback against a proposed Knesset bill, which would grant the ultra-Orthodox dominion over all conversions in the military and elsewhere.
But he wants more.
“The movement in Israel is growing slowly,” Graetz noted. “Always slower than we want it to. It’s not a significant presence in the country, and that’s why its voice is not heard as loudly.”
Noted Yoffie, “The great challenge, particularly now, is how we pursue our own values as Reform Jews, with a liberal approach to Judaism, and at the same time strengthen our deep commitment to the safety and security of the State of Israel.”
Organizers hope this biennial, held in the region that harbors America’s third-largest Jewish population, will be an eyeopener for both the home team and the visiting teams.
“Yes there is a touch of occasional insularity about American Jewry, and a lack of awareness of the rest of the world,” Bayfield said. “But the flip side is that some of the negativity you sometimes experience about American Jewry is jealousy. This exposure to what is going on [in the Bay Area] is incredibly important.”
The 35th World Union for Progressive Judaism Biennial Conference, “Connections 2011,” takes place Feb. 7-13 at the Westin St. Francis in San Francisco. Day registration is available. Information: www.wupjconnections.org.