Article | Conservative Judaism’s Zionism extends to a presence in Israel

Article by Rabbi Alan Silverstein, Ph.D. MERCAZ Olami, President

Parallel to expanding Zionist activity among America’s Conservative Jews was the effort to establish a Conservative Jewish presence in Israel.

Initially, the movement in Israel was very small, consisting only of Emet V’Emunah, the first Conservative synagogue in the country, established in Jerusalem in the 1930s, and Kehillat Moriah in Haifa, founded in 1955.

In “A Brief History of the Rabbinical Assembly of Israel,” Rabbi Theodore Steinberg’s contribution to “A Century of Commitment: One Hundred Years of the Rabbinical Assembly (edited by Robert E. Fierstien), he traced initial instances of Rabbinical Assembly (RA) members making aliyah, characterizing them as Zionist pioneers for the movement. Among them were luminaries like Max Kadushin and Simon Greenberg, who spent a period time in the 1920s studying in Israel. “The earliest [RA] pioneer of whom we have a record,” wrote Steinberg, “was Rabbi Harry Davidowitz, who reached Palestine [as an oleh] in 1934.”

Rabbi Davidowitz advocated support for Zionism among his colleagues, notably addressing the annual RA convention in 1946, when he urged his peers to spread their traditional — yet modern — religious synthesis inside the Yishuv. He ended his remarks with an invitation to other RA rabbis to become olim and, according to Steinberg, “make their unique approach to Judaism and life.” In February 1948, Rabbi Davidowitz assisted in the initial draft of Israel’s Declaration of Independence. Additionally, RA member Rabbi Abraham Goldberg, after serving four years in the Haganah and IDF, became the head of MACHAL (Mitnadvei Chutz La’Aretz, “Volunteers from Overseas”), coordinating those who came from outside Israel to support the fledgling state.

After the establishment of Jewish sovereignty in 1948, aliyah by RA members slowly increased. Among prominent olim who were RA members was Rabbi Moshe Davis, who in 1958 accepted an invitation from The Hebrew University to found and direct its Institute of Contemporary Jewry. In 1961, Rabbi Jack Cohen came to Jerusalem and directed the B’nai B’rith Hillel Foundation at The Hebrew University. Rabbi Hertzel Fishman, who had served in the Haganah and then the IDF, returned as a permanent Israeli resident in 1971 to serve as editor of “AVAR ve’ATID,” a journal of Jewish education, culture, and thought. In the 1960s, a growing number of RA pulpit colleagues spent sabbatical time in Israel, notably Sidney Greenberg, Myron Fenster, Simcha Kling, and Elvin Kose.

In 1965, the Rabbinical Assembly Israel Committee was established as part of the global RA structure. The increasingly international RA was renamed — from “Rabbinical Assembly of America” to “The Rabbinical Assembly.” Formalizing its presence as RA Israel in the early 1990s, the Masorti movement provided an office in Jerusalem. The energetic Rabbi Andy Sacks assumed the part-time director post and elevated RA Israel into a more effective and activist organization. This development was fueled by increasing numbers of RA members’ making aliyah, along with the first cohort of Israel-ordained RA members. RA Israel became the framework under which a Va’ad Halakha (Law Committee) and Institute for Converts were established, as well as modest efforts to enable RA members to gain access to mikva’ot and, under certain circumstances, to supervise kashrut and officiate at funerals in Israeli cemeteries.

Working on behalf of United Synagogue of Israel, Rabbi Moshe Cohen arrived in Israel in 1964 and spent the next two decades encouraging the formation of additional Masorti kehillot. In the aftermath of Israel’s victory in the June 1967 Six-Day War, a spurt of aliyah by Conservative rabbis, educators, and activists took place, with Rabbi Phil Spectre assuming the pulpit at Netzach Israel in Ashkelon and Rabbi Charles Siegel doing so at Congregation Moriah in Haifa. Other RA members became olim in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Some assumed rabbinic leadership in emerging Conservative/Masorti kehillot. Several unsuccessful efforts were attempted in the early 1970s to create an official “Masorti movement” in Israel. Only in 1978-79 was success achieved, due to the leadership and energy of Rabbi Michael Graetz, president of RA Israel and the rabbi of the Conservative synagogue in Omer, just outside Be’er Sheva.

As noted by Rabbi Harvey Meirovich in “The Shaping of Masorti Judaism in Israel,” Rabbi Graetz’s approach in Omer — building upon successes by Rabbi Spectre in Ashkelon and Rabbi Siegel in Haifa — became a blueprint for other Conservative/Masorti communities. “From the outset, the Omer synagogue served as both a place of worship/study and as a community center offering a variety of activities, including a summer camp, to the community at large,” wrote Meirovich. “Over the years hundreds of unaffiliated residents availed themselves of Rabbi Graetz’s services to celebrate or commemorate family life-cycle events. Consequently, the congregation’s impact was felt well beyond its walls, to the point that many Omer residents came to see the Masorti operation as ‘their’ synagogue even though they had no formal membership connection.”

The official incorporation of the Masorti Israel Movement occurred in 1979. By then, after 15 years of organizational efforts, Moshe Cohen had organized new Masorti kehillot in Ashkelon, Ashdod, Be’er Sheva, Ramat Zion (French Hill) in Jerusalem, Omer, Ra’anana, and Safed. These affiliates augmented previous kehillot of Haifa and Emet V’Emunah in Rehavia (Jerusalem). Within two years, additional communities entered the movement — in Arad, Carmiel, Kfar Saba, Netanya, Rehovot, Tel Aviv, and Kiryat Hayovel (Jerusalem). In 1981 Rabbi Spectre accepted the role of first executive director of the Movement for Conservative Judaism in Israel, a position he held for the next 16 years. Rabbi Spectre continued to build the movement until he retired and was succeeded in 1997 by Rabbi Ehud Bandel, a graduate of the first cadre of rabbis ordained by the Bet Midrash L’limudei Hayahadut in Jerusalem.

The Bet Midrash to train Israeli Masorti rabbis reflected a goal of JTS Chancellor Gerson Cohen. In 1982, he had set that process into motion, with the 1984 opening of the Bet Midrash, later renamed The Seminary of Judaic Studies and then The Schechter Institute. Dr. Cohen assembled a talented group of advisers for this ambitious project: Ray Arzt, Moshe David, Seymour Fox, Moshe Greenberg, Reuven Hammer, Lee Levine, and Eliezer Schweid.

The JTS offered an initial setting, first at the Schocken Institute for Jewish Research and then at Neve Schechter (which housed the JTS student dorm and classrooms). JTS also provided a stipend of funding and enabled the Bet Midrash to hire a dean — first, Reuven Hammer (1984-87), then Lee Levine (1987-94), and then Benjamin Segal. During subsequent decades, the number of Schechter-ordained rabbis has grown to nearly 100. Gradually the Schechter Institute added educational programs in teacher training, outreach to Jews within the FSU, publications, and the TALI schools.

The TALI (“Enriched Jewish Studies”) program, offering supplemental education in Israel’s state-run secular schools, has been an enormous success. Dr. Meirovich reported that “in the two years following the 1973 Yom Kippur War, a core group of Conservative rabbis, recent olim, and a contingent of native Israelis… developed [in French Hill, Jerusalem] an alternative educational format that might bridge the growing rift between Israel’s religious [Orthodox] population [25 percent of the total] and the secular majority. The TALI founding rabbis included Raphael Arzt, Reuven Hammer, Lee Levine, Moshe Tutnauer, and Joseph Wernik. Israelis were Immanuel Etkes, Zvi Gal-On, Gershon Kravitz, Moshe Samet, and Yehezkel Wollman.” The first TALI school opened in the fall of 1976, with 33 students registered for grades one-three. Over the next three years, TALI schools arose as well in Kfar Saba-Hod Hasharon, Ramat Gan, and Be’er Sheva, with extensive parent participation.

Growth of the TALI network continued in the following years under the leadership of Barbara Levin. From 1981-86, TALI experienced yet another period of growth, with the encouragement of Minister of Education Zevulun Hammer. In the mid-1980s, still more TALI-affiliated schools emerged in Haifa, Netanya, and the Gilo neighborhood of Jerusalem. With effective lobbying, TALI tracks were extended from preschool all the way through grade 12. TALI kindergartens arose in a number of settings, often connected to a local Masorti kehillah. To stabilize TALI for the future, the TALI Education Fund arose, thanks to the Samuel Bronfman Foundation and the Jewish Pluralism Committee of the Jewish Agency for Israel. Schechter also provided TALI curricula and teacher certification. TALI had a large impact upon thousands of otherwise secular Israeli youngsters and their families.

Among other effective Masorti Movement ventures were Kibbutz Hannaton in the Galilee and Moshav Shorashim, in the Galil: the NOAM youth movement, serving a couple of thousand youngsters; Camp Ramah-NOAM summer camp; and opportunities for RA Israel members to preside over certain weddings and other life-cycle ceremonies, as well as bar/bat mitzvah ceremonies for hundreds of children with special needs around the country. Aliyah of RA members from North America, Latin America, Europe, and elsewhere elevated the number of RA olim to nearly 180, approximately 10 percent of the overall RA membership. Retirees purchased apartments and began to spend a portion of their year in Israel even without obtaining formal Israeli citizenship. Sizable numbers of adult sons and daughters of RA members became olim, thereby increasing the movement’s presence in other ways as well.

Originally published on The Times of Israel