VV15 1-1 NEW

Israel

Reform, Conservative
Gain Ground In Israel

Court opens door to non-Orthodox participation
on religious councils; closes another for
women at the Wall.

INA FRIEDMAN ISRAEL CORRESPONDENT

T

he Masorti (Conservative)
and Reform movements
scored a modest but ex-
hilarating victory last
week as another brick was
knocked out of the wall of Or-
thodox hegemony over religious
life in Israel.
The victory came in the form
of a High Court of Justice nil-

WHAT'S NEW • • •

satisfaction to the communities
that Orthodox spokesmen have
repeatedly stigmatized as "goy-
im."
The fact that the five-judge
panel arrived at its judgment
unanimously prompted Rabbi
Uri Regev, head of the Reform
movement's Israel Religious Ac-
tion Center, to call it a "historic

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Anat Holman Is the leader of 'The Women of the Wall.'

ing that the practice of dis-
qualifying members of the two
movements from serving on the
country's religious councils vi-
olates the "principle of equali-
ty" and is thus null and void.
The ruling came in response
to an appeal, lodged in 1989, af-
ter non-Orthodox candidates
were barred from joining both
the Jerusalem and Tel Aviv re-
ligious councils. An earlier High
Court ruling had stipulated that
candidates for religious-council
membership must be "religious,
or at least not anti-religious."
By determining the right of
Conservative and Reform Jews
to serve on these bodies, the
court, therefore, characterized
them as meeting that standard
— which was a source of great

decision" that has broken the
"Orthodox monopoly."
Strictly speaking, that may
be true. Yet it is also important
to see the ruling for what it is
and what it is not.
First, the term "religious
councils" is somewhat mislead-
ing, as these boards are actual-
ly civil, administrative bodies
— extensions of the local gov-
ernment, to be exact, that are
responsible for providing cer-
tain religious services. Their
mandate includes administer-
ing budgets for the construction
and maintenance of syna-
gogues, ritual baths, and the
like. It does not cover such ser-
vices as registering and per-
forming marriages, granting
divorces, conducting religious

