U.S. Leaders Urge Israel to Make No Change : Law on Converts Splits Orthodox Jews

The leadership of the Rabbinical Council of America has broken with its Orthodox brethren in Israel, urging the government there not to work toward a controversial change in the law governing Jewish immigration and thereby threaten relations between Israel and U.S. Jewry.

Rabbis Max Schreier and Binyamin Walfish, president and executive vice president, respectively, of the largest national body of Orthodox rabbis, sent a telegram Tuesday to Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir saying that the “Rabbinical Council supports removal of this issue from the political agenda” for the sake of unity in the American Jewish community and its support of Israel.

After four Orthodox religious parties made crucial gains in the Nov. 1 elections in Israel, Shamir promised them he would seek an amendment to the so-called Law of Return that could deny citizenship to Jewish converts who had not undergone conversion by Orthodox rabbis. Under the Law of Return, anyone born of a Jewish mother or who converts to Judaism is granted immediate citizenship in Israel.

U.S. Reform and Conservative rabbis, as well as much of organized American Jewry, have objected strongly to steps that they said would “delegitimize” non-Orthodox Judaism.

Statement Praised

Rabbi Alexander M. Schindler, president of Reform Judaism’s Union of American Hebrew Congregations, on Wednesday praised the “courageous statement” issued by leaders of the 1,000-member Rabbinical Council--mostly rabbis who hold pulpits in Orthodox synagogues.

“The leaders of main-line Orthodoxy in America appreciate the value of religious pluralism,” Schindler said. “They also know the devastating effect that a change in Israel’s Law of Return would have on the unity of the Jewish people.”

But a California Orthodox rabbi said Wednesday that he and “many rabbis of the Rabbinical Council are diametrically opposed” to the newly announced stance.

Rabbi Eli Hecht of Lomita, immediate past president of the 40-member Rabbinical Council of California, said he was “caught by surprise” when he heard of the action. “Rabbi Schreier can’t speak for the whole board,” Hecht said.

Neither Schreier nor Walfish was available for comment Wednesday.

Their telegram said the standards for conversion to Judaism belong “in the hands of the rabbinate and not in the secular Knesset”--the Israeli Parliament.

Had Urged Moderation

In a statement issued two weeks earlier, Schreier limited himself to urging moderation by both non-Orthodox American Jews and the religious parties in Israel. “This is not a time to cause divisiveness in world Jewry; rather a time to come together,” he said.

A check with three other Orthodox synagogue rabbis in the Los Angeles area Wednesday showed that they were unaware of the telegram sent in the name of the Rabbinical Council of America and were reluctant to comment.

However, one of them, Rabbi Marvin Sugerman of Shaarey Zedek Congregation in North Hollywood, said: “The critical issue at this moment is not whether we support the amendment. I think we all support the amendment. The issue is whether it is wise at this stage to put that No. 1 on the agenda or perhaps put it on the back burner because of the intense feelings of many Jews.”

The Rabbinical Council’s message was not welcomed by the Lubavitcher Hasidim of Brooklyn, N.Y., an ultra-Orthodox branch of Judaism that has been lobbying for the change in the law for a decade. Rabbi Yehudah Krinsky, a spokesman for the Lubavitchers, said the Rabbinical Council leaders “don’t understand the issue” and added, “Of course, ‘Who is a Jew’ doesn’t belong in the Knesset. But since it is there, it should be written properly.”