Conservatives aligning with Reform yet again, want children of non-Jewish mothers to become Jews, (as they welcome gay rabbis).
Epstein: ‘Rethink’ Ban On ‘Patrilineal’ Kids

Stewart Ain
http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/newscontent.php3?artid=13423
Thursday, December 14, 2006 / 23 Kislev 5767

Saying that children of non-Jewish mothers would benefit from a Jewish day school education, a Conservative leader has proposed that such children be admitted to the movement’s Solomon Schechter Day Schools with the understanding that they are expected to eventually convert to Judaism.

“We do not now accept non-Jews, but the practice has been that they are taken in as long as they are converted by the end of the first year,” said Rabbi Jerome Epstein, executive vice president of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism. “I think we need to rethink that. If we want to encourage people to raise a Jewish child, the child has to be exposed to Judaism. If we say beforehand the child has to be converted in a year,” it is too restrictive.

“It may take 18 months or two years [for the child to convert],” Rabbi Epstein argued, “and if we set an arbitrary deadline it might be unproductive.

Rabbi Epstein made his proposal at a meeting of the Solomon Schechter Day School Association’s convention in Boca Raton, Fla. It is seen as part of the movement’s increased effort to reach out to the growing number of intermarried families.

“The whole family will benefit from the child’s education and in most cases it will inspire the children to identify with Jews,” Rabbi Epstein said in a phone interview. “If they have a close relationship with Jewish friends, it would be helpful and their families would benefit too.”

“We need affirmative action to reach out to these children,” he continued. “We don’t want our schools populated by children who are not halachically Jewish [according to Jewish law], but if we say this is the goal and if it takes longer than a year, that should not be the issue. The issue is how you make the school welcoming to them so that they are not pressed the first week to talk about [conversion].”

Asked how the subject should be addressed, Rabbi Epstein said that during a meeting with the child’s parents they should be told that “our school is for Jewish children and this is a conversation we are going to have” until the child is converted. He said that although no time limit should be set, he believed the conversion must take place before the child’s bar or bat mitzvah.

Rabbi Epstein said he hoped this proposal would be positively considered and eventually adopted by the association.

“What we are trying to do is open it more so that we can get people into Jewish life differently than we did in the past,” he said.

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San Francisco Schecter Schools To Admit 'Patrilineals'?

Sue Fishkoff
JTA Wire Service
http://www.jewishtimes.com/News/6143.stm

DECEMBER 13, 2006
San Francisco

The Conservative movement's Solomon Schechter day schools are considering changing their bylaws to admit the children of non-Jewish mothers, JTA has learned. The 76 Schechter schools in the United States and Canada officially only admit children who are Jewish according to the Conservative movement's interpretation of Jewish law, which means children born to a Jewish mother or those who have converted.

Most schools do admit children who are in the process of converting, but they do so quietly, on a case-by-case basis.

The proposed change, which will be circulated in draft format Sunday at the Solomon Schechter Day School Association's convention in Boca Raton, Fla., would permit, but not require, schools to admit such children openly.

The new policy would require that the child convert before bar or bat mitzvah age, but it would be up to individual schools to determine how long that process should take.

The move is part of the Conservative movement's increased efforts to reach out to its growing number of intermarried families.

After years of resisting more inclusive outreach policies urged by its liberal wing, the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism -- the movement's congregational arm -- seems to have taken the reins of a movement in flux and is steering it in the direction of greater openness.

The discussion also comes as the Conservative movement's highest legal authority paved the way for same-sex commitment ceremonies and the ordination of gay and lesbian rabbis.

Movement leaders said the day-school proposal should not be seen as a first step toward accepting patrilineal Jews, which is the term for children of Jewish fathers and non-Jewish mothers.

The Reform movement's acceptance of such children, as long as they were being raised Jewish, set off a furor among non-Reform Jews. Conservative authorities said the decision would lead to further schisms among the movements.

One expert in Jewish education said the proposed change for the Schechter schools would "end the "culture of dishonesty" of the current admissions practice, which "makes the patrilineals into closeted Jews."

The intensified outreach efforts date back to the United Synagogue's Boston biennial in December when Rabbi Jerome Epstein, the group's executive vice president, announced a movement-wide kiruv, or "ingathering" initiative, to make intermarried families more welcome in Conservative institutional life. The ultimate goal is still for the non-Jews in those families to convert, but the initiative signaled the leadership's awareness, in their view, that a welcoming attitude toward such families is needed and proper. "It's part of the broader pattern of nurturing whatever Jewish spark there is rather than inadvertently dampening that spark," said Rabbi Avis Miller of Congregation Adas Israel in Washington, who chaired the Conservative rabbinical association's outreach committee in the 1990s.

Early this year, Epstein began urging Schechter schools to relax their admissions policy. He plans to address the convention day school delegates in Florida, "passionately urging" them to accept the proposed bylaw change. A final decision will be made after the convention by the association's board of directors.

"Some people say it's a weakening of standards. Absolutely not," Epstein said. "It's counterproductive to say to people who want to raise their children as Jews that they can't come to receive a Jewish education. Studies indicate that people choose Judaism in part because of knowledge and in part because of relationships. What better place to form a strong Jewish relationship than day school?"

Elaine Cohen, United Synagogue's consultant to the Schechter schools, said it's about "reframing current policy in more inclusive language." She said the most substantive change being proposed is an extension of the time a family has to convert the child.

"We think it has to be before bar or bat mitzvah, preferably by age 10, but we're not going to say it has to be done within two or three years," Cohen said. "We'll leave it to the discretion of the school."

Miller questioned whether the lack of a unified national policy would work. She noted a hypothetical case: What if the child of a non-Jewish mother transfers from one Schechter school to another and faces a different conversion deadline?

She also foresees conflicts between day schools and other Conservative institutions that might not accept patrilineal Jews.

"A synagogue might say to participate in our programs the child has to be Jewish," Miller said. Still, she added, "I wish them luck."

Last week, Rabbi Ismar Schorsch, the outgoing Jewish Theological Seminary chancellor, made a similar appeal to the movement's Ramah summer camps, which also do not openly admit children of non-Jewish mothers. Rabbi Mitchell Cohen, director of the National Ramah Commission, said the camps have not yet decided whether to change their admissions policy since Schorsch's appeal, although like Schechter schools, they "work closely with individual families if the children are under bar and bat mitzvah age, and if they agree that camp will be an important part" of their conversion process.

Cohen said the proposed changes to the Schechter admissions policy should not be seen as steps toward recognizing patrilineal descent, although he acknowledged that "some people might see it that way."

The end goal is quite clear, he said -- the child must formally convert to Judaism. It's just the warmth of the initial embrace that is changing. Some Conservative rabbis and Schechter school directors around the country say it's about time for change.

"It's long overdue," said Rabbi Lavey Derby of Congregation Kol Shofar in Tiburon, Calif. "There are a great many religiously committed Jews who marry non-Jews for a variety of reasons and want to raise Jewish children." At least one Jewish education expert outside the Conservative movement warned darkly about "a big backlash" from the movement's conservative wing when the proposed change is announced.

But even those Conservative leaders who are more circumspect note that leaving the decision up to individual schools means no change is required, and certainly not right away.

"I don't see it as changing our admissions policy very much," said Marci Dickman, head of school for the three campuses of the Solomon Schechter Day School of Metropolitan Chicago. Like other Schechter schools, the Chicago school works with children who are "on their way to conversion," but she noted that such cases "don't come up that often, and when they do, we and the family want the child to convert."

Some schools, on the other hand, are going beyond the proposed changes. In St. Louis, the city's 12 Conservative rabbis have been working since September to create a unified policy for their Schechter school "that would be acceptable to us as rabbis and livable for our school," said Rabbi Carnie Rose of B'nai Amoona.

The policy, sent to the school board this week, specifies that the school will accept a child of a non-Jewish mother up to the age of bar or bat mitzvah. The child will be assigned a rabbinic mentor who will work closely with the family, "so it will not come as a surprise" that the child will be asked to convert by age 12 or 13, or else leave the school.

"There's a difference between pre-bar mitzvah, when it's 'all for the sake of hinuch,' " or education, "and post-bar mitzvah, when you take on the yoke of the commandments," Rose said.

The school would also admit children of non-Jewish mothers after bar mitzvah age, with the stipulation that they must convert within a year.

Ultimately, although the focus of this weekend's debate in Florida will be narrow, the conversation goes beyond how many years to allow a non-halachically Jewish child to remain in a Conservative school before conversion, and addresses how the Conservative movement looks at the role of a day school education.

How much, asks the Ramah Commission's Cohen, should a Schechter school be seen "as a subtle inducement to the child and the family" to consider formal conversion, in which case a more open admissions policy is appropriate? Or is it more important to safeguard movement standards unapologetically?

The debate goes to the heart of a Conservative day school's identity, said Arnold Zar-Kessler, head of the Schechter day school in Newton, Mass. While he personally "looks favorably" upon the proposed change to the bylaws, he said that making such a change to the school's admissions policy "might be inconsistent with how we see ourselves within the tradition" of Conservative Judaism.

But pointing to last month's study of Boston's Jewish community, which showed that 60 percent of the children of itermarried families were being raised as Jews, he said, "It may be that we have to reflect a different reality as time goes on.''

This article appears courtesy of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, at www.jta.org

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Background: Interesting times ahead for the Conservatives

Matthew Wagner,
THE JERUSALEM POST
Dec. 7, 2006
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1164881836637&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Doomsayers will argue that Wednesday's Committee of Jewish Law and Standard's decision is the beginning of the end for the Conservative Movement.

They predict that the Dorff, Nevins Reisner decision, a legal motion which gave full normalization of the status of gay and lesbian Jews - which means they can be ordained as clergy and their committed relationships may be recognized, although not as sanctified marriage - will split the movement into two distinct groups consisting of liberals and conservatives.

The liberals will eventually join the Reform Movement, while the conservative arm will band together with modern Orthodoxy.

However, this pessimistic prediction ignores basic theological differences among the three streams of Judaism. Fundamental issues such as patrilineal descent (accepted by Reform Judaism) and a radically different understanding of the role of halacha (Jewish law) in Jewish life create distance between the Reform and Conservative movements.

A great divide also separates modern Orthodoxy from Conservative Judaism. Except for Orthodox thinkers such as Rabbi David Hartman, the vast majority of Orthodox rabbis view halacha in a radically different way than do their Conservative counterparts.

In fact, the same sort of doomsday conjecturing, which never materialized, went on during the debate over the ordination of women two decades ago. Then too conservative elements argued that the ordination of women would be the demise of the Conservative movement.

In contrast, more liberal elements within Conservative Judaism argue the exact opposite. They say the CJLS decision to recognize the Dorff, Nevins Reisner opinion is Conservative Judaism's saving grace. It brings the movement up to date with developments in the secular world.

Over the past several years, there has been - as a recent Los Angeles Times op-ed put it - a "global warming" to gay commitment ceremonies. South Africa recently joined the Netherlands, Belgium, Canada and Spain in opening civil marriage to same-sex couples, allowing them equal economic benefits, legal rights and social status as families. In Israel, the Supreme Court recently recognized same-sex civil marriages performed abroad.

Within the Conservative movement, there are strong forces advocating change. Large numbers of Conservative Jews, especially among the younger generations, want a more progressive approach to homosexuality. The popularity of Keshet, a pro-gay rights movement within Conservative Judaism, is a sign of this sea change in the movement.

Wednesday's verdict will have ramifications on different levels. The decision regarding ordination relates to the institutional level.

Each of the Conservative movement's rabbinical schools will have to decide admission policy. Will "out" gays and lesbians be accepted to their schools? These institutions have the option, in accordance with Conservative practice, of choosing one of the two more conservative opinions that reject the ordination of homosexuals or opting for the more liberal opinion.

One of these rabbinical schools, the University of Judaism in Los Angeles, has already announced that if the CJLS approves the Dorff, Nevins, Reisner opinion, it would immediately open its doors to homosexuals. In contrast, the Jewish Theological Seminary will take a more cautious approach. It said it would begin a decision-making process to determine admission policy.

Meanwhile, on the community level, each Conservative rabbi will have the freedom to decide whether or not to conduct same-sex commitment ceremonies.

For Israel, the CJLS's decision has set the ball rolling. Leading members of the Masorti Movement have already announced that they would not be bound by the CJLS's decision.

"The US has completed a process and we are just beginning ours," said Rabbi Barry Schlesinger, president of the Masorti (Conservative) Movement's Rabbinic Assembly Wednesday evening.

"We cannot simply accept the US decision. Everybody here wants a separate, transparent and serious halachic effort here in Israel. We have to be honest with our constituency."

Nevertheless, the fact that the CJLS approved a more progressive opinion has put more pressure on Israel. If the CJLS had simply upheld the status-quo, Israel, which is perceived as more conservative than the US, would probably not have been expected to be on the cutting edge of change. But now Israel will be forced to formulate an opinion.

Most of the leading figures in the Masorti movement oppose change. People like Rabbi David Golinkin, president of the Schechter Institute, and Rabbi Einat Ramon, dean of the Schechter Rabbinical School, are strongly opposed to change. Schlesinger is also for maintaining the status-quo, as is Moshe Cohen, head of the Masorti movement.

In theory, Israel could decide to reject the normalization of homosexuality like it rejected the US Conservative practice of driving on Shabbat.

But no one knows yet how many of the members of the Israeli Rabbinical Assembly are for change. Only a few, like Rabbi Andy Sachs, director of the Rabbinical Assembly and Rabbi David Lazar, who heads the Tiferet Shalom congregation in Ramat Aviv, Tel Aviv, are outspokenly in favor of change. Lazar has been conducting same-sex commitment ceremonies for over six years.

In the coming months, both the Rabbinical Assembly and Schechter are planning conferences that will focus on the issue of homosexuality as preparation for a final decision-making process. In the meantime, a heated debate will be launched in Israel the outcome of which is still unknown. But it is safe to say that interesting times await the Masorti Movement.
- posted by Izak @ 5:56 PM