Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By simmons on July 16, 2017

The Israeli chief rabbinate says that its list of foreign rabbis has been misconstrued, and that the list does not imply that those rabbis cannot be trusted to vouch for the Jewish identities of their followers.

Last Saturday, JTA reported on a list of some 160 rabbis whose efforts to confirm the Jewish identities of immigrants were rejected by Israels charedi-dominated chief rabbinate. In order to get married in Israel, immigrants must provide the rabbinate proof of their Jewish identity, often in the form of a letter from a rabbi in their home community.

Rabbis from 24 countries, including the United States and Canada, are on the list. In addition to Reform and Conservative rabbis, the list includes several Orthodox leaders. Itim, the Israeli organization that obtained the list, called it a blacklist.

On Tuesday, three days after the list was released, Moshe Dagan, the rabbinates director-general, said that the characterization of it as a blacklist is misleading. In a letter to the Orthodox Rabbinical Council of America, Dagan wrote that the proof-of-Judaism letters were rejected for a range of reasons, and that the list questioned the documentation, not the individual rabbis. Dagan added that these rejections sometimes were temporary.

The list that was publicized is not a list of unrecognized/unauthorized rabbis, Dagan wrote in Hebrew. Rather, he continued, it is a list of rabbis whose letters about marriage were not recognized by the personal status and conversion division of the chief rabbinate of Israel for whatever reason.

Even though the list contained only the rabbis names and did not have any information about any documentation, Dagan wrote in bold type that it is the documents that were presented which are unrecognized, not the rabbis.

He added that I am pained by the anguish caused to the respected rabbis who appear on the list, and will do everything I can to minimize the damage as much as possible and to take care that errors of this kind will not be repeated.

Itims director, Rabbi Seth Farber, who received the list in an email correspondence with the chief rabbinate, called Dagans clarification doublespeak because the list was of rabbis names, not problems with documentation.

The letters were signed by rabbis, he said. If the problem was the documents, why did the rabbinate send me a list of rabbis names? If the problem was the documents, why didnt they just try to clear the documents instead of writing no, unacceptable.

The list contains the names of rabbis whose letters the rabbinate rejected during 2016. Of 66 U.S. rabbis included on the list, at least one-fifth are Orthodox, while almost all of the rest are Reform or Conservative. Among the Orthodox are Avi Weiss, the liberal Orthodox rabbi from Riverdale, and Yehoshua Fass, the executive director of Nefesh BNefesh, a group that encourages and facilitates American immigration to Israel.

Another of the rabbis on that list is Baruch Goodman, who directs the Chabad House at Rutgers University. The other rabbi from this region is Alberto (Baruch) Zeilicovich, who heads a Conservative shul in Fair Lawn, Temple Beth Sholom.

In a separate letter sent on Monday, Israeli Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi David Laus office apologized to Fass for his inclusion. In the letter to Fass, Laus senior aide reiterated that Lau did not know of the list before its publication, and that it does not imply rejection of the rabbis themselves.

[The lists] intention was not to invalidate rabbis, God forbid, but rather [to invalidate] letters that raised doubts and questions, wrote Rabbi Rafael Frank, the aide. The letter, also in Hebrew, said Lau very much appreciates Fass work.

The publication of the list comes on the heels of a clash between American Jewish leaders and the chief rabbinate over how to determine Jewish identity. In June, Israels Cabinet advanced a bill that would give the chief rabbinate authority over all official Jewish conversions within Israel. Following an outcry from Jewish leaders in America, the bill was shelved for six months.

The chief rabbinates distrust of some Orthodox rabbis outside Israel was evident last year, when it omitted several prominent Orthodox figures from a list of rabbis it trusts to confirm the authenticity of Jewish conversions. The rabbinate also has rejected the validity of conversions performed by prominent Orthodox rabbis in New York City and Chicago.

JTA Wire Service

Read the original:

Chief rabbinate says rabbi list is not blacklist - The Jewish Standard

Category: Ashkenazi
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