The Reform Movement has been making headway in Israel in recent months after being victorious in a number of rulings. The Supreme Court has instructed the Beersheva Religious Council to permit a Reform convert to toivel in the mikve with a Reform beis din. The cabinet has decided to establish an egalitarian prayer area near the Kosel and now, it appears the decision by IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-General Gadi Eizenkott to move the Jewish Consciousness Unit from the IDF Rabbinate to the Manpower Branch is also a victory for the Reform.
While it appears the move is due to organizational and budgetary reasons, the Reform Movement is pleased to remove the responsibility for the unit from the hands of the IDF Rabbinate. As such, the Reform Movement is likely to fight chareidi efforts to prevent the implementation of the decision.
A number of weeks ago, a session of the Knesset Foreign Affairs & Defense Committee addressed the planned move of the unit. Among the elected officials invited to the meeting were MK (Bayit Yehudi) Betzalel Smotrich, MK (Likud) Miki Zohar and MK (Yesh Atid) Aliza Lavie. Also invited were former IDF Chief Rabbi Yisrael Weiss and Aaron Karov, who opposed the planned move of the unit. However the list of invited participants does not stop here. Also invited was Rabbi Gilad Kariv who serves as Executive Director of the Israel Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism; a representative of the NGO “Hofesh – Freedom from Religion” and Michal Berman who serves as Executive Director of Panim – The Associating of Jewish Renewal Organizations in Israel.
The latter three view the move of the unit as a positive step, releasing a statement “The takeover of Jewish Consciousness Unit brought serious harm to the basic rights of soldiers equality and freedom of religion. We welcome the decision of the chief of staff to monitor and guarantee the new body to be set up and permit soldiers an opportunity to become familiar with all types of Judaism”.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
5 Responses
If they want freedom of religion we don’t need a Jewish state and no IDF.
The experience of the goyim should warn us. When you have no separation of “Church and state”, the government regards “religion” as an aspect of government policy, and the politicians expect their civil service clergy to do what they are told. That meant, for example, the government telling clergy to preach sermons supporting government policy. Religious doctrine were decided by acts of parliament. Interestingly enough, in European countries with state churches, those official churches have few people attending even though there are large unofficial religious movements.
In America, the “founding fathers” were all deeply religious (extreme fanatics by modern standards), and they wanted “religion” to be free of government interference. The separation of “church and state” was not designed to limit involvement of religion in public life, but to prevent the government from interfering with religious life.
In Israel, the zionists wanted a “state religion”, and it should be no surprise that when halachic matters are decided by the secular majority in Israel, it will vary greatly from what “Daas Torah” supports. If you favor Yiddishkeit based on Torah, you need to opposed having a government that supports, and controls, religion. On this matter, the religious zionists should admit that the hareidim (meaning groups such as Satmar and the Eidis hareidis) are 100% right – you can’t support frumkeit while accepting government money.
THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS! The Reform never used a mikveh for their “conversions” outside Israel –it’s all a scam.How can you call yourself a Reform Jew yet support “freedom from religion”?
Maybe with the Reform trying to get their claws into the IDF,the Dati Leumi will also wake up and pull their kids also out of the IDF before they’re lost to kafirah
It’s very nice to complain about the reforms.
But what about the innovators we have in Halocho right under our nose?
‘reform beit din”-what an oxymoron.How can you have a beit din when you don’t follow Jewish Law or the Torah?