GAY MARRIAGE page 9

Jewish Life Moves
In The Fast Lane.

dox or Conservative rabbis come
out against masturbation?"
In 1972, he said, when the first
woman was ordained as a rabbi,
the "Orthodox rabbis went
berserk. Conservative rabbis con-
demned it.
"Now, 40-50 percent of (the Re-
form) Hebrew Union College is
women." Rabbi Albert Lewis of
Temple Emanuel in Grand
Rapids agreed that some aspects
of old Jewish law — including
proscriptions against homosexu-
ality — have become outmoded.
Jews "seem to be backing off
certain things," he said. "Lots of
people eat whatever they want
to eat whenever they want to eat
it, and we don't throw them out
of the congregation for doing
something horrible.
"This issue of homosexuality
forces each of us to look at our
own sexuality and come to some
resolution about how we feel as
sexual people," he said. "If people
are comfortable with their own
sexuality, that individual will be-
come more open to the way an-
other person expresses his or her
sexuality."
Not all Reform rabbis, though,

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Meimad Leader
Calls For Dialogue

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two,

are willing to participate in gay
or lesbian ceremonies, however
sympathetic they may be to the
right of homosexuals to marry
civilly.
Rabbi Hertz, of Beth El, said
individual rabbis will eventually
have to make their own decisions
about what ceremonies they are
comfortable performing. For
years, he noted, he declined to
marry couples of different faiths.
"It soon came to a point where
I realized I wasn't saving a sin-
gle marriage from happening and
that if I myself didn't participate,
they would just go elsewhere."
Rabbi Hertz said he has not
yet reached that same point with
gay couples. About presiding over
same-sex ceremonies, he said,
"I'm not temperamentally suit-
ed."
But Rabbi Schwartz predicted
such events will one day become
routine, and that time is on his
side.
Homosexual marriage, he said,
"is an issue we're going to have
to start dealing with, and soon
enough the Conservative and Or-
thodox movements will have to
deal with it, too." ❑

4

AD395

morm

5 ee .

n a sea of dissenting voices,
Rabbi Mosheh Lichtenstein is
asking Israelis to listen, stop
doubting and end their hate
for one another.
A religious Zionist with the
group Meimad, the rabbi directs
his message mainly toward Is-
raelis on opposite ends of the po-
litical spectrum — citizens who
want peace now versus those who
oppose the process altogether.
"We can disagree from A to Z.
We can deny. We can debate.
However, we have to accept the
fact that people (for or against the
peace process) are doing what
they're doing because they think
it's good for Am Yisrael (the Jew-
ish people)," he says.
Currently, the rabbi's fear is
that Jewish extremists will alien-
ate themselves from other Jews,
thus making peace between Arab
and Jew — to say nothing of
peace between Jew and Jew —
all the more unlikely.
"The alienation is what's dan-
gerous, religiously, morally and
practically," he says.
The 34-year-old rabbi last
month traveled here from his
home in the West Bank territories
to talk with local Jewish leaders
and educators about the rift. He
was hosted by the Jewish Com-
munity Council at the behest of
the Israeli Consulate in Chicago.

"Here, people are more out-of-
touch with the situation in Is-
rael," he says. "Here, the
opposition to the peace process is
stronger because people don't live
with reality, the tension — polit-
ically and socially."
In Israel, the situation is dif-
ferent. Even citizens decrying ne-
gotiations with Palestinians must
face, in close range, the fallout
from unrest. Therefore, he says,
they should all have a keen in-
terest in sticking together and
working toward some common
goal.

Meimad has
endorsed the
candidacy of Peres.

As part of Meimad — mem-
bers of which ran for Knesset
seats in 1988, but lost — the rab-
bi suggests an approach to the
peace process that incorporates
the worries of many divergent
Jewish groups.
The idea, he says, is first to
talk: religious Jew to secular Jew.
All concerns must be addressed,
halachic and strategic. He called
the exchange of land for peace a
religious issue that should be
MEIMAD page 12

