Minister of Religious Services (Shas) David Azoulai told Galei Tzahal (Army Radio) on Tuesday, 20 Tammuz that in his eyes, members of the Reform Movement are not Jews. Azoulai explained these people do not follow Yiddishkheit and therefore he does not view them as being Jewish.
He admits that while he would like to see people return to Judaism, most Reform Jews living in the Diaspora erred as they “made a wrong turn”, comparing them to tenokos shel beis raban.
He stressed there are halachos pertaining to giyur and halacha must be adhered to, reminding listeners his ministry is not responsible for giyur as the authority for state giyur was moved from his ministry to the Prime Minister’s Office.
The decision by the cabinet in its weekly meeting on Sunday 18 Tammuz has sparked anger and protest among rabbis affiliated with a more liberal hashkafa, as the cabinet eliminated the giyur reforms implemented by the previous administration. Azoulai cited that rabbonim favoring a liberal giyur planned to convert thousands of people who wanted to be “Jewish”, highlighting the need of giyur in absolute adherence to Halacha.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
14 Responses
Hashem should bless you Mr. Azoulay!
Someone finally is standing up for Hashem’s Torah.
Authentic Judaism means you believe in the Divine Origin of the Torah and adhere to it’s tenets.
There is no such thing as “branches”. Conservative and Reform are not Judaism, although a lot of their adherents are Jewish halachically.
But without the non-orthodox, Eretz Yisrael, even in the “small” 1949-1867 borders, is overwhelmingly non-Jewish. While hareidim, who don’t accept the legitimacy of the medinah, have no problem with this (they hold one shouldn’t have used armed might to take control of Eretz Yisrael from the goyim) – for someone who supports the existence of the medinah it is a problem. If you consider the non-frum to be goyim (or even safek goyim, which they increasingly are and will be more so in the future) – how can you support having a state run by them and whose existence depends on their armed might. The reality is that without the secular Jews, there would be no possibility of an independent medinah, and the Jews in Eretz Yisrael would have to content themselves with being a minority group in a non-Jewish state (which is how hareidim see matters to being with).
If your mother is jewish, then you are jewish no matter how much Pork you ate on Yom Kippur than occured on Shabbos
Quite impolitic perhaps, and maybe it’s technically inaccurate since there are still those in the movement who are born of a legitimately Jewish mother. However, having been brought up in Reform I can say unequivocally that it is not Jewish. In fact, the nationwide problems with morality recently endorsed by the U.S. Supreme Court got their start in the Reform movement. I know that because I was in the audience when Reform broke ground in accepting perverted lifestyles as legitimate.
This is a tremendous chilul Hashem. Kiruv professionals and indeed all frum Jews will need to work on damage control for many years to come because of this thoughtless inane slip of the tongue. How often do we need to explain to non-frum people the we DO consider them Jews, just as much as us. It is the ideology that we disagree with (obviously disregarding conversions done by Reform rabbis). Is it my imagination or is davka during the 3 weeks some public figure makes a comment that causes sinchas chinam because he was not careful with his words. All Jews, especially frum Jews, need to understand the concept of a Jew is a Jew is a Jew.
I have heard countless times from non religious Jews that they have the impression that Orthodox Jews hate them. They (the Orthodox) do not even think the non -Orthodox are Jewish. This comment (as it has already hit the US secular media) will surely pour gasoline on that horrible damaging misconception.
A few facts would help here:
1) Reform conversion is invalid because not only do the converts never keep Shabbos (even once), the reform “rabbis” don’t either.
2) Reform say that if the father is Jewish, it doesn’t matter if the mother is Jewish, the child is Jewish.
Therefore, from the Orthodox perspective, many reform congregations are majority goyim. And even the ones who aren’t are headed in that direction.
Mr. Azoulai is just trying to stop the same thing from happening in Israel.
comparing them to tenokos shel beis raban.!?!?!?
I’m sure you mean tenoks sh-nishba…!
People in religious garb that steal or cheat may not be considered Jewish either since they also deny the divinity of the Law
An embarrassment and absolute chillul Hashem. Those that are halachicly Jewish are viewed by HKB”H as being Jewish, just not by some foolish politician. Shameful. He should be immediately removed from office.
Reform Rabbies and Reform leaders are the horrific cancer of the jewish people.
The State Department Archives released prove that the reform leaders and rabbis sent several letters during the war to The State Department Demanding that no jewish Refugees be allowed to come to the USA,they wanted the jewish women and children to be burned in Auschwitz .If pressure would have been put on the State Department to save jews,the
train tracks would have been bombed and most of the 550,000
Hungarian jews could have been saved.I lost my grandparents and more than 30 uncles ,aunts and first cousin,who were killed in Auschwitz,
After the war the reform leaders and rabbis should have been put on trial for crimes against the jewish people and
hanged like the nazis who were hanged after the Nuremberg
trial Today’s reform leaders are the same they want Israel to go back to the 67 indefensible border so HAMAS
can shoot rockets at Ben Gurion Airport 1 km from Hadera.they want to destroy Israel
Every single Reform Rabbi and leader is an enemy of Israel like Hamas, Hezbollah and Khomeni .EACH of them are
like Sheik Yassin, each of them must be hunted down and destroyed like sheik Yassin.
I suspect something has been lost in translation, as well as numerous other obvious errors in this article.
What he probably meant is that ‘Reform Judaism’ is not a valid form of Judaism, any more than a toy aeroplane is a valid form of transport.
Members of reform are being missold. They pay the price for being Jews but get none of the gishmak of Yiddishkeit!
Children born from a Jewish mother are JEWIS, period!
Cowdoc should change his name to cow manure.
Just because a person is nichshal in one or two areas doesn’t mean he denies HKBH. It means they have a strong yetzer hora.
No comparison to a reform jew.
Wow once again. Maybe a person can be nonreligous but have orthodox haskafa. For example if they were Crum they would be orthodox. There are many secular people who believe in the right way of things just have their reasons for not doing it but if they then they would do it right. What he says is not a contradiction if hypocracy to 1948 Mr kno.kuparman especially since the jews that were while they may not have been frum they were not reform or conservative and his words do not contradict nor do they insult nonfrum people as a whole. Maybe some reform and maybe some conservative but any one of those people who are even attempting orthodox already know what he is saying is right and the secular jews in Israel probably don’t have any problem with what he’s saying except for ignorant ones….BOTTOM LINE SECULAR AND REFORM/CONSERVATIVE ARE NOT THE SAME THING! WHAT HE SAID AND DID TO PROTECT THE FUTURE OF JUDAISM SHOULD BE APPLAUDED NOT JUDGED BY PEOPLE WHO THINK THEY HAVE A LICENSE TO CONDEMN.