This Week
Washington Watch
Mixed Summit
Sharon to visit U.S.; boost for the WRFA;
foggy church-school rulings; the Lieberman watch.
JAMES D. BESSER
Washington Correspondent
I
sraeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's visit to
Washington next week will mix equal portions
of substance, symbolism and solidarity.
The Israeli premier will go over all the big
items on the U.S.-Israeli joint agenda in meetings
with President George W. Bush, Secretary of State
Colin Powell and Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld. That includes the fragile cease fire with
the Palestinians and the possibility that, if it holds,
the parties could move on to implementation of the
Mitchell Commission recommendations.
Also on Sharon's to-do list: Israel's request for
$800 million in supplementary military aid. On that
issue, there is less agreement; the Bush administra-
tion has signaled that it's in no rush to propose the
aid, and Congress is content to wait until the White
House makes the first move.
But the real impact of next week's visit could be
symbolic. The real meaning: as the two governments
work to bolster the shaky cease fire, Washington and
Jerusalem are reading mostly from the same page,
while Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat remains in the
diplomatic doghouse.
Arafat continues to angle for an invitation and
continues to be rebuffed, while Sharon is stopping by
for his second Washington visit since taking office.
Israeli sources say that's one reason Sharon refused to
allow Foreign Minister Shimon Peres to meet with
Arafat this week — a meeting that would undercut
efforts to keep Arafat far from the White House.
Sharon will start his visit in New York, meeting
with several Jewish and pro-Israel groups and, in
particular, attending a dinner sponsored by the
America-Israel Friendship League with media
moguls and high-tech industry leaders — a favor to
Mort Zuckerman, the incoming chairman of the
Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish
Organizations and the head of the league.
Sharon was preceded this week by Knesset
Speaker Avraham Burg, who met with Powell and
National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice.
Although he is a candidate for leadership of the
Labor parry, Burg — in both public and private ses-
sions — offered strong support for the policies of
Sharon's unity government.
Speaking to the Washington Institute for Near
East Policy on Tuesday; Burg referred to a "total con-
sensus" between Washington and Jerusalem on
efforts to preserve the cease-fire and move toward
resuming the peace process.
Boost For WRFA
A number of commentators have said that last week's
court decision awarding $100,000 to a Florida
The Power Of Ritual
Continuing the turn to tradition,
Reform set to approve conversion guidelines.
JULIE WIENER
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
I
New York
n another break with its past, the Reform move-
ment is poised to adopt new guidelines that
endorse traditional rituals such as immersion in
a mikvah (ritual bath) and at least a symbolic
circumcision for people converting to Judaism.
Two years after the Central Conference of American
Rabbis' "Statement of Principles" reversed the historic
1885 Pittsburgh Platform — a strident rejection of
tradition and ritual — the Reform group is expected
to overturn an 1893 resolution that described conver-
sion rituals as unnecessary and meaningless.
The new document is to be voted on June 27 at the
CCAR convention in Monterey, Calif. The suggestions
for practices such as the mikvah, circumcision and
appearing before a beit din, or panel of rabbis, have
6/22
2001
18
become increasingly common in Reform conversions,
particularly those overseen by recently ordained rabbis.
While Reform mik-viot (ritual baths) remain rare,
three have been built in North America in recent years,
including at Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, and oth-
ers are planned. In addition, communities in New Jersey
and the Denver/Boulder area, among other areas, have
created Reform rabbinic panels to oversee conversions.
While there is little hard data about conversion,
anecdotal reports describe a significant increase in
the number of people undergoing Reform conver-
sions, something Reform leaders attribute to out-
reach efforts targeting spiritual seekers as well as gen-
tiles married to Jews.
With growing interest in conversion putting
increased demands on rabbis' schedules, the Reform
movement recently began training volunteers to
work with prospective converts, said Dru
Greenwood, director of the Reform movement's
phone company employee allegedly fired because of
his Orthodox observance could boost the long-
stalled Workplace Religious Freedom Act.
In reality, WRFA could be ready to roll for a differ-
ent reason: the change in control of the U.S. Senate.
The defection of Sen. Jim Jeffords, I-Vt., from the
Republican ranks removes a key committee chair-
man who was cool to WRFA — and elevates a sena-
tor who is expected to be much more supportive.
Jeffords headed the Health, Education, Labor and
Pensions committee in the last Congress, when
WRFA languished. Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.,
who has been highly supportive of various religious
liberty initiatives in recent years, is replacing him.
"What's really happening is an effort to see if the
new lay-of-the-land in the Senate will open new
opportunities to move the bill," said Nathan
Diament, director of the Orthodox Union's Institute
for Public Affairs, a key WRFA backer. "There's a
feeling Sen. Kennedy will exert some real leadership
on the issue."
WRFA made its Capitol Hill debut in 1997, but
similar measures were introduced early in the
decade. The legislation would force bosses to make
reasonable accommodations so employees can meet
their religious obligations — including Sabbath
observance.
But small business groups opposed \X/RFA because of
claims it would unfairly burden employers. And it has
been repeatedly shunted to the side as lawmakers deal
with other, higher priority religious liberty matters.
Foggy Church-School Rulings
6
The legal wrangle over the proper place for religion
in public schools produced a flurry of new Supreme
Court rulings this week, but little new clarity.
The justices seemed to offer a little something for
Union of American Hebrew Congregations' outreach
and synagogue affiliation department.
The new guidelines are not obligatory. According to
the introductory document, however, they aim to allow
Reform rabbis to "speak as a community with a unified
voice on matters so crucial to our self-definition."
While promoting ritual, the guidelines reiterate the
Reform movement's longstanding rejection of the tradi-
tional notion that conversion should be discouraged.
Instead, they call for an attitude of "joy and encourage-
ment" while urging rabbis to ensure that prospective
converts are aware of the challenges of being a Jew.
The guidelines also urge congregations to welcome
and integrate prospective converts, calling for con-
version to be seen as a long-term process involving
study, participation in synagogue life and commit-
ment to certain observances.
"It is essential that" conversion "involve more than
simply graduating from an 'Introduction to Judaism'
course," the document's preamble says.
Drafts Widely Shared
In contrast to the CCAR's 1999 Statement of Principles
— which spurred rabbis to months of e-mail comments
and debate about the soul of Reform Judaism — the
conversion guidelines are generating little controversy.
The relative quiet stems, in part, from the fact that