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Will mission trips be curtailed?

NECHEMIA MEYERS
Special to The Jewish News

S

upporters of religious plural-
ism in Israel are at wit's end.
Unable to ensure the defeat of
the Conversion Bill and the
Religious Councils Bill -- both
designed to disenfranchise Reform and
Conservative Jews — they hope that
their brethren in the Diaspora will
come to their rescue.
The passage of those bills, they
argue, would not only be a blow to
democracy in Israel, but would also
mortally wound the United Jewish
Appeal, undermine the Jewish lobby
that fosters congressional support for
Israel and substantially reduce the
willingness of overseas Jews to invest
in Israel or even visit it.
Though the pluralists knew that
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
is politically beholden to the
Orthodox, they thought that his pro-
found knowledge of the American
scene, and the fact that he was previ-

Israeli Reform and Conservative
activists urgently hope for
Diaspora support.

ously married to a woman converted
to Judaism by a non-Orthodox rabbi,
would have influenced him.
But he is only thinking about his
political future, as is the wavering
leader of the Labor Party, Ehud Barak.
So unless the Neeman Committee, by
some miracle, comes up with a corn-
promise acceptable to all concerned,
the bills will probably pass.
The pluralists are, therefore, hoping
that Diaspora Jews will flex their polit-
ical and economic muscles, to coun-
terbalance threats from the Orthodox.
To be sure, American Reform and
Conservative rabbis have already
declared that any Knesset member
who supports the two pieces of legisla-

tion will be boycotted by their congre-
gations.
But that threat lies in the future,
and what the pluralists demand is
action now, before the bills are voted
upon. They believe that there would
be a major impact on public opinion
and politicians in Israel if the Council
of Jewish Federations were to with-
draw its invitation to Prime Minister
Netanyahu to speak at its meeting in
Indianapolis next month.
Also likely to be effective, say the
pluralists, would be a declaration by
10 or 20 of the leading contributors to
the UJA that they would make no
contributions this year or any other
year should the bills be passed. Strong

statements on the issue from Jewish
congressmen and senators would be
effective as well, according to Reform
and Conservative activists. They
assume that even the most obtuse
Israeli politician will eventually grasp
the consequences of alienating
Diaspora Jewry, but by then it will be
too late.
But after the UJA and Jewish polit-
ical support for Israel are destroyed —
as with Humpty Dumpty — it won't
be possible to put them together
again. This dilemma reminded a local
Reform rabbi of an incident that took
place in Tel Aviv last week, when an
elderly couple wrote to several of their
friends that they were planning a dou-
ble suicide.
"Unfortunately," said the rabbi; "by
the time those friends reached the
couple's apartment they were both
dead. As I see it," he added, "the two
bills are no less a suicide note, and I
only hope that Israel's friends will act
to torpedo them before irreparable
damage has been caused." El

10/31
1997

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