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Ralbag GENERAL FOODS .sc: 1986 General Foods Corporation COATS UNLIMITED Stetting Heights Sterling Place 37680 Van Dyke at 16 1/2 Mile 939-0700 Oak Park Lincoln Center, Greenfield at 10% Mile 968-2060 West Bloomfield Orchard Mall, Orchard Lake at Maple (15 Mile) • 855-9955 Kosher For Passover The Best In Gefilte Fish Reg. Whitefish, Whitefish & Pike, Old World 74 FRIDAY, APRIL 14, 1989 SHIRT 30X _ Men's Furnishings & Accessories Always at least 20-35% Off 19011 W. 10 Mile, Sfld. Bet. Slid. & Evergreen 352-1080 Mon.-Sat. 9:30-6 Thurs. till 7 Washington (JTA) — Rabbis from the three major bran- ches of Judaism agreed last week that there has never been, and likely never will be, Jewish religious unity in the United States. But unlike the "Who Is a Jew" controversy, which ex- acerbated strains between Or- thodox and non-Orthodox Jews, the debate, at the an- imal convention of the Rab- binical Assembly, was mark- ed by tension between Reform and Conservative Jews. The debate began when Steven Cohen, visiting pro- fessor at the Jewish Theological Seminary, argued that as a way of solving Con- servative Judaism's identity crisis, it should engage more in ideological conflict with the other two branches. "We have done far too little to differentiate ourselves from Reform Judaism," Cohen said to the applause of many of the 600 Conservative rabbis attending the five-day convention. Conservative Judaism dif- fers from Reform "in the very significant minority of Con- servative. Jews who, though non-halachic, do maintain some attachment to Jewish tradition, as contrasted with the near absence by such in- dividuals in Reform temples," Cohen said. But Eugene Lipman, presi- dent of the Reform move- ment's'Central Conference of American Rabbis, said he was "amused" by Cohen's com- ments about Reform Jews, saying "there are more serious Reform Jews than he thinks there are." Cohen, a sociologist at Queens College, cited a survey that a third of Conser- vative Jews maintain separate sets of dishes for meat and dairy meals, com- pared with 4 percent of Reform Jews. Cohen also said that "just 2 percent of Conservative members have Christmas trees in their homes as com- pared to 9 percent of Reform families." There is "a lot more tension today" between Conservative and Reform Jews than there has previously been, Lipman said. Reform Jews, Lipman said, "have to come to terms with the fact that Conservative people with whom they work, live in the same neighbor- hood, won't come for dinner." On other points, Lipman said there has been "an amaz- ing evolution in the number of Reform congregations that don't have a lunch break on Yom Kippur." And recently, 15 Reform Jewish day schools have been founded, "with more coming" he said. The Reform movement was slow to create such schools, because "one of the great sanctities of American Jewish life for four generations has •been the public school," Lip- man said. "We had to face very, very carefully the fact that the public schools no longer had sanctity for our people." Lipman also conceded that the Reform decision to accept patrilineal descent — A minority of Conservative Jews, though non- halachic, do maintain some attachment to Jewish tradition. recognizing children as Jews if either parent is Jewish — "has caused almost as much fuss in relationships between Conservative rabbis and Reform rabbis and some lay people as it has between us and all of the branches of Or- thodoxy." Rabbi Alexander Schindler, president of the Union of American Hebrew Congrega- tions, "was dead wrong" in thinking the uproar over the policy shift "would go away," he said. Lipman also attacked the Rabbinical Assembly for no longer admitting Reform rab- bis for membership, although previous members have been "grandfathered" in. Rabbi Wolfe Kelman, ex- ecutive vice president of the assembly, who also par- ticipated in the debate, did not challenge Lipman's state- ment. He said differences on patrilineal descent have "forced us to work more close- ly together in areas where we can work together, realizing the areas that we cannot." Rabbi Haskel Lookstein, former president of the New York Board of Rabbis and an Orthodox rabbi himself, said he is "not in favor of conflict right now, because I see a lot of conflict." He said that if the branches of Judaism speak together "with civility," they can set common standards for conversion.