Israel Leans Closer to Ultra-Orthodox Jews, Upsets U.S. Groups Prime Minister Netanyahu suspends plan to let Reform and Conservative movements of Judaism help administer the Western Wall shrine By Rory Jones see note please
https://www.wsj.com/articles/israel-leans-closer-to-ultra-orthodox-jews-upsets-u-s-groups-1498681750
I am not orthodox and I totally support Netanyahu on this issue. Given culture trends if the sacred Wall is “secularized” they would host pagan picnics and chants. And the ultra liberal Union of Reform Judaism doesn’t like it? Too bad. Their support for Israel stops at the so called West Bank, and their US national policies are a disgrace…..rsk
JERUSALEM—Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has shifted closer to his ultraorthodox coalition partners on a controversial religious issue, sparking fresh tension with more liberal American Jewish groups that accuse the leader of putting his political survival before their interests.
Mr. Netanyahu earlier this week suspended a previously agreed plan to allow Reform and Conservative movements of Judaism to help administer the religion’s Western Wall shrine. Members of his government also proposed a bill in parliament that would allow only Israel’s ultraorthodox-dominated Jewish authority, known as the Chief Rabbinate, to administer and determine who can convert to the religion.
The moves have rekindled longstanding strains between Israel’s rabbinate and the Reform and Conservative movements in the U.S. that take a more progressive approach to interpreting Judaism’s laws and want equal standing in administering the faith and its holy shrines. Some American Jewish groups are now threatening to cut donations and investment to Israel that could amount to billions of dollars.
“If you cause Jews in the diaspora, particularly Jews of the United States to feel alienated…it has a strategic impact that should be of great concern to all the leaders of Israel,” said Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism in North America, in a broadcast Wednesday on Israel’s Army Radio.
His group, which represents roughly 2 million American Jews, canceled a planned Thursday meeting with Mr. Netanyahu in protest over the Israeli government’s position on the religious conversion bill and the Western Wall.
The shrine is one of Judaism’s holiest sites and the last of the four walls that abutted the Temple Mount compound in Jerusalem’s Old City, where an ancient Jewish temple once stood. The Temple Mount, known as Haram al Sharif to Muslims, is now the location of the Al Aqsa mosque, one of Islam’s holiest sites.
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