"We Wanted Our Children A Seat At The Table To Believe In Themselves. T That's Why We Joined The Birmingham An American immigrant struggles to take her passion for Reform Judaism and women's rights to Israel's religious councils. ERIC SILVER ISRAEL CORRESPONDENT The Birmingham Temple teaches taking responsibility for your own actions. And that's some- thing you're never too young to start learning. PHOTO BY MEDIA/E. BARON he atmosphere in Joyce Brenner's two-story apart- ment building near the sea in Netanya, Israel, is pret- ty strained these humid summer days. Brenner, a 57-year-old, New York-born social worker, Reform Jew and feminist, is at the epi- centre of the latest Halachic earthquake shaking Israel. Her downstairs neighbor is Dov Dum- brovich, the Orthodox chairman of the local religious council, who is defying a Supreme Court rul- ing and refusing to let Brenner take her seat on the council. The court recently ordered Dumbrovich to admit Brenner, who had been nominated to the council by the local branch of the THE BIRMINGHAM TEMPLE A Congregation for Humanistic Judaism Call 248-477-1410 for more information or registration. A woman prays at the Western Wall. www.shj.org Join the Birmingham Temple between now and Yom Kippur and enroll your children FREE in the Sunday School program (K-4, 11-12). SAVE YOUR CHILD CHILD-PROOF YOUR HOME Drawer, Cabinet $ Potty Locks • Closing Outlet Plates; LEXAN Stair Guards Padded Fireplace Guards Wide Mounted Stairgates RECOMMENDED BY PEDIATRICIANS -r+15 TLC! 51LCAX c_ COVERINGS CASUAL FURN/SHINGS 4 v411142 HOME EVALUATION & INSTALLATIONS PERFORMED BY A STATE LICENSED MEDICAL FIRST RESPONDER. 6465 Dixie Hwy., Clarkston (810) 354-5969 • 625-3322 • VISIT OUR NEW STORE Mon., Thurs., Fri. 9-9 Tues., Wed. 9-6 Sat. 9-5 (810) 738-6554 2380 Orchard Lake Road just E of Loading Dock Plaza, Sylvan Lake Get Results... Advertise in our new Entertainment Section! Call The Sales Department (810) 354-7123 Ext. 209 THE JEVJEgH NEWS militantly anti-clerical Meretz. Religious councils are not rab- binic bodies. Their role is to me- diate, between the religious bureaucracy and the citizen, who has to turn to the rabbinate for such services as marriage, divorce and funerals even if he or she is not an observant Orthodox Jew. Members are chosen by the polit- ical factions represented at city hall. Orthodox politicians accused the justices of turning the Supreme Court into "a branch of a political party" and vowed to force legislation through the Knes- set barring Reform Jews from re- ligious councils. The deputy religious affairs minister, Arye Gamliel, threatened to resign rather than publish Brenner's ap- pointment in the official gazette (a legal requirement). In the con- voluted world of Israeli theo-poli- tics, Gamliel is the de facto head of the Religious Affairs Ministry. Joyce Brenner is an improba- ble cause celebre. Her late father, Eli Rothman, was an Orthodox rabbi with a small congregation in Brooklyn and a deep commit- ment to Zionism. Brenner, now divorced and a mother of three daughters, took her masters and doctorate at that pillar of Ortho- doxy, Yeshiva University, where she is still a visiting lecturer. She made aliyah in 1976. But she was a child of the re- bellious 1960s as well as of the rabbi's study. She turned to Re- form Judaism as a young married woman starting a family. "It was the women's issues," she recalls. "I wanted full equality in all as- pects of expressing my religiosity. It couldn't happen, it \Nrasn't hap- pening, within the Orthodox com- munity." She settled in Netanya "be- cause it's pretty. Here children walk everywhere, they take their bikes, and there's the beach. What could be nicer?" It was her feminism that brought Brenner into politics, one that in macho Israel had a pio- neer taste to it. She helped found an English-speaking women's psychotherapy center in Netanya that now has offices in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. "Israel," she explains, "gave those of us who came in the '70s a chance to express ourselves in a full and exciting way because these services didn't exist here... These were the issues that gave us a sense of contributing to Is- rael and of fulfilling- ourselves." In Netanya she is just a reg- ular member" of a small Reform community. She became involved with Meretz on the local level "be- cause they are the voice of the is- sues I want people to pay attention to." Why, with all this, does Dr. Joyce want to serve on the town's religious council? "There's a lot of money dis- bursed," she replies, "10 million shekels (about $3 million) in a town with almost 200,000 people. Most of it is city money, and peo- ple don't even know how it gets di- vided. `Td like to be the address for the people who may need these ser- vices and may not know how to approach them, or are turned away by official rabbinical ser- vices," she adds. She would also, however mod- estly, like to be the women's voice. "I can't presume to speak for Or- thodox women," she admits, "but