Thursday, June 13, 2013

Religion and State in Israel - June 13, 2013

Editor – Joel Katz
Religion and State in Israel is not affiliated with any organization or movement.
Special edition on Women of the Wall coming soon



Non-Orthodox Movements

The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected a petition that sought to speed up the process whereby local communities could choose Reform and Conservative rabbis funded by the state.
The court had heard a petition by Reform and Conservative Jews seeking state recognition of their movements and public funding. But the petition for a temporary injunction, filed by attorney Orly Erez-Likhovski, failed.


Some 7.1 percent of Israeli Jews define themselves as Reform or Conservative, according to the soon-to-be-released Israeli Democracy Index for 2013.

This figure might sound surprisingly high, considering that there are only 110 Reform and Conservative synagogues in Israel. But it is actually slightly less than the figure found by a different survey published last year: In that survey, 8 percent of Israeli Jews considered themselves Reform or Conservative.

By Shmuel Rosner



Religious pluralism

JJ:
The Kotel was one of the first places you went to when you first arrived in Israel. How do you describe it? As a place of prayer?

NS:
That’s what people don’t understand; they try to make the Kotel much less than it is. Many in American Jewish federations will say, “Why don’t we have this problem at the Lincoln Memorial?” Or, to the contrary: “Nobody will think to try to change the prayer in the Vatican, so why are we trying to change it here?”

The Kotel is not the Lincoln Memorial; it’s not the Vatican. There is no other civilization that has such a symbol, which at the same time is the central symbol of their national identity, the central symbol of their historical redemption and at the same time the most important religious place, the closest to God.







Marriage



Gender discrimination




LGBT, Gay community











Rabbinate











By Barbara Sofer

In Israel, locales with high concentrations of Anglo immigrants such as Beit Shemesh, Efrat and Ra’anana have led the way in establishing community synagogues that employ their own rabbis.







IDF and Haredim









Haredim















Kashrut






Diaspora, Aliyah






Editor – Joel Katz
Religion and State in Israel is not affiliated with any organization or movement.
All rights reserved.

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