This Week

Updates

r"

..x;A:AMAAVAA. , ;„WanE'

Thoughts On Pluralism

Israeli Cabinet member Rabbi Michael Melchior discusses upcoming challenges
now that peace in the region seems near.

HARRY KT RSBAUM
Staff Writer

those differences," he said. "I think
we can recognize that the Reform and
Conservative movements are doing
what they can to strengthen Jewish
life and tradition, and fight assimila,
tion."
Once peace is attained in the
region, he predicted that Israel will
find internal conflicts on pluralism,

n the early 1980s, while presid-
ing over 1,000 Norwegian Jews
in Oslo, Rabbi Michael
Melchior dealt with the sur-
vival of Judaism in the diaspora.
Now he's talking about survival of
Judaism within the Jewish state.
The seventh-generation rabbi
and Israeli Cabinet member
told a group of future Jewish
leaders in Detroit about the
new era in his country, one that
includes bridge building within
Israeli society in the form of .
pluralism.
"When we put behind us
wars of religion, then comes the
real challenge," he said June 1
to two dozen members of the
Jewish Federation of
Metropolitan Detroit's Odyssey
2000. "What does it mean to
beJewish, do we have a com-
mon destiny?"
Rabbi Melchior helped
found Meimad, the centrist
Orthodox political party, which
turned into a social movement
Rabbi Michael Melchior
that seeks to separate politics
from religion.
among other issues.
In 1996, he was chosen to chair
"The task is so enormous," he
Meimad's executive committee. In
admitted,
but the purpose is clear:
May 1999, he was elected to the
"To change the level and tone of the
Knesset as minister for Society and
debate, which will lead to a situation
the World Jewish Community, and
where not every disagreement
became Meimad's top candidate in
becomes a nuclear war."
Prime Minister Ehud Barak's One
He said, "My motto is 'We have to
Israel coalition. Though Rabbi
agree
how to disagree.' Israeli society
Melchior made aliya in 1986, he con-
developed
from a society that was
has-
tinues to serve as chief rabbi of
a
very
uniform
society to a pluralistic
Norway, and spends about 18 weeks a
society, which I think is a blessed
year in Scandinavia.
development all in all.
Rabbi Melchior said he has "a nat-
"Years ago, the Knesset was one
ural sympathy" toward the Orthodox
party.
You had to be a member of the
camp, but tries to tell his colleagues
Right,"
he said. "Now the Knesset is
that the fight is not with Reform or
pluralistic,
like Israeli society."
Conservative Judaism.
The
downside
is "sometimes you
"Although we have deep differences
lift
your
own
flag
and forget about
in theology and the question of
what is the common good," he said,
Jewish law, I don't want to wipe out

6/9

2000

38

speaking of all the streams of
Judaism. "Some of them really want
us to find solutions, and some of
them, they want to keep up the battle
because that gives justification for
their existence."
The question of "Who is a Jew?"
should not be discussed in the
Knesset, Rabbi Melchior said. "We
should leave that to discussions in the
synagogue, like it is here [in America]
or anywhere else in the Jewish world."
Instead, he suggested the question
should be "Who is an Israeli?" saying,
there is a "differentiation" between
church and state in his country, but
not the American model of separa-
tion. The rabbi is seeing a more
Jewish model emerging, not in the
sense of "enforcing Judaism, but in
encouraging a Jewish spirit, a Jewish
education, a Jewish morality in public
life."
While the Knesset is still trying to
find its way into the pluralistic light,
the rabbi said the Israeli Supreme
Court isperched on the other side.
The Court "thinks very much in
progressive ways, [such as] allowing
lesbian women to adopt children,
which, in many ways of human
rights' measurement, is very, very pro-
gressive legislation," he said. "But it's
always important to find the balance.
If you exaggerate one way and go too
fast, then you lose the people."
Even though the Conservative and
Reform movements are not well rep-
resented in numbers in Israel, Rabbi
Melchior said he thinks 80 to 90 per-
cent of the people would agree they
are welcome, and should be represent-
ed in religious councils and supported
equally in their schools and educa-
tion.
David Fishman of Franklin, who
attended the talk, said that Rabbi
Melchior brought information to the
group "that people may not know
about. Being in the Knesset, and part
of the political fabric of Israel, he
showed us what's going on inside
closed doors." ❑

Remember
When • •

From the pages of the Jewish News
for this week 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50
years ago.

Bernard H. Stollman was named to
lead Detroit's Operation Aliyah,
the Israel Bond campaign for the
absorption of Soviet immigrants in
Israel.

Louis Horowitz was elected presi-
dent of Young Israel of Oak-
Woods.
Seven women scheduled to be
ordained as Reform rabbis will
bring the total number to 29.
Chaim Herzog, former Israeli
ambassador to the U.N., was elect-
ed president of the World ORT
Union.

A British financier will build a syn-
agogue in Avivim, Israel, the home
of eight Israeli schoolchildren mur-
dered by Arab terrorists.
The Silverman Post of the
Jewish War Veterans presented
copies of the Bill of Rights to
newly naturalized citizens in the
courtroom of Federal Judge
Lawrence Gubow.

„
F\niZ*
,
AANV.- u t;
The West German government
announced plans for compensation
to women of Poland who were vic-
tims of Nazi medical experiments
in Auschwitz and Ravensbruck.
Max M. Shaye was elected the
12th president of the Jewish Family
and Children's Service.
A new Barton's candy store
opened in Oak Park.

„

-

frAWWWWWWM
mWesi*NOkiiiAttiWkA,
David A. Goldman was elected
president of the Wayne University
Alumni Association.
Under the chairmanship of Al
Karbal, Young Israel organized a
Young Men's Minyan for Sunday
mornings during the summer.
Mrs. Norman Kanter became
president of the Detroit Council of
Pioneer Women.

-

— Compiled by Sy Manello,
Editorial Assistant

