Thursday, December 12, 2013

Religion and State in Israel - December 12, 2013

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


REFORM AND CONSERVATIVE JUDAISM IN ISRAEL
By Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie

The Israeli Reform movement is indeed small, and its penetration into Israeli society has been limited. 

But Reform Judaism has not failed in Israel; in the ideological realm, it is a spectacular success. Institutional growth will come with time, but for now, Reform Judaism in Israel has dared to offer an audacious and radical challenge to the principles of mainstream Zionism.

By Rabbi Avi Shafran

Until fairly recently, the “highest common denominator” standard has always been halakha – “Orthodoxy.” At present in Israel, it still is.

But should the pluralism push there make inroads, what would result – even from a disinterested, strictly sociological perspective –would be nothing short of Jewish societal disaster.


The Israel Democracy Institute in Jerusalem has been following shifting trends in religious affiliation in Israel for more than 20 years now, and its findings would seem to bear out what is happening on the ground in Modi’in – that a small but growing percentage of native-born Israelis, overwhelmingly from secular backgrounds, are embracing either Conservative or Reform Judaism.

Its most recent survey, published in June of this year, found that 3.2 percent of Israelis see themselves as affiliated with the Conservative movement, and 3.9 percent with the Reform movement (more than 7 percent combined). 


It’s an almost unthinkable hypothesis, but what if Ben-Gurion and his colleagues had embraced progressive Judaism as an alternative to the clerical orthodoxy early on and if Begin had not made his pact with the religious parties?







HAREDI COMMUNITY


















RABBINATE

By MK Moshe Feiglin





IDF AND HAREDI DRAFT












JOFA CONFERENCE/ORTHODOX FEMINISM




RELIGION AND SOCIETY









ISRAEL AND DIASPORA RELATIONS
Natan Sharansky: Israel's future president?

The struggle to succeed President Shimon Peres is so far being waged far from the media. A week ago, this column reported that leaders of the American Jewish community who were in Israel for the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations, contacted the Prime Minister’s Bureau to ask for Netanyahu’s backing for Jewish Agency chairman Natan Sharansky.
At the moment, Netanyahu’s favored presidential candidate is not known, though he is undoubtedly looking for someone who will be both worthy of the office and stand a good chance to win a majority among the 120 members of the Knesset, who elect the president.

This week, it turned out that Sharansky has another supporter: Habayit Hayehudi leader Naftali Bennett, who is economy minister as well as minister for Diaspora affairs, Jerusalem and religious services.



GAY/LGBT COMMUNITY








KOTEL/WESTERN WALL




BEIT SHEMESH MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS





CHRISTIANS AND ISRAEL



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

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