Posted on 11/30/2006 8:58:17 AM PST by Alouette
Conservative rabbinical assembly to rule on gay rabbis issue
Reuters Published: 11.30.06, 18:15
The Conservative Jewish movement, the faith's American-based middle ground between liberalism and orthodoxy, is nearing a leadership decision that seems likely to permit openly gay rabbis and same-sex unions.
The Rabbinical Assembly Committee on Jewish Law and Standards which last tackled the issue in 1992 meets in New York next week, its 25 members reviewing an issue that has already rent many Christian churches and simmers across Judaism.
"The way it looks, it will be decided on a more liberal understanding of the law," Rabbi Irwin Kula, president of the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, told Reuters. "It would be a very big, big surprise if that's not the case."
Rabbi Joel Meyers, executive vice president of the Rabbinical Assembly, said: "I really don't know what will happen. Many of my colleagues are betting they will have two opinions at the end - that rabbis can maintain the prohibition on homosexual behavior and another that says it normalizes homosexual behavior."
The assembly said in announcing the December 5-6 meetings that the committee's function is to advise rabbis on Jewish law affecting Conservatives, who number two-million of the world's 13-million Jews. The rabbis are not bound by its statements which in the past have sometimes offered multiple interpretations on issues.
While the topic may be couched in gay rabbis and same-sex unions, the crux of the issue really is "how one views homosexual behavior," Meyers said in an interview.
That is the subtext of the committee's 1992 statement which welcomed homosexuals to congregations, youth groups, summer camps and schools but prohibited same-sex commitment ceremonies and the knowing admission of "avowed homosexuals" to rabbinical or cantorial schools.
'Not Jewish enough'
"That is cowardice," says Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum of New York's Congregation Beth Simchat Torah, whose 800 members comprise what is called the largest gay synagogue in the world.
"They have dragged their feet on this for many years. They look over their shoulder toward orthodoxy worried about not being called Jewish enough and I consider that cowardice," said Kleinbaum who left her roots in the Conservative movement for the liberal Reform wing.
At the other end of the spectrum ultra-Orthodox Jews condemn homosexuality, taking their text from Leviticus 18:22 - "Do not lie with a male as one lies with a woman. It is an abomination."
There are perhaps six-million Jews in the United States, only about a third of them affiliated with a congregation. Of those who do attend synagogue 38 percent are Reform, 33 percent Conservative and 22 percent Orthodox, according to one survey.
Rabbi Gerald Zelizer of Neve Shalom, a Conservative congregation in Metuchen, New Jersey, a former president of the Rabbinical Assembly who is a contributing columnist for USA Today, said in an essay in that newspaper this year that he backed the 1992 position but now had a different view.
"Conservative Judaism has always taught that we must upgrade our biblical understanding with new scientific knowledge. Contrary to the biblical assumption that gayness is a sinful choice, our best knowledge today indicates that it is as determined and irrevocable as blue or brown eyes ..." he wrote.
Warning! This is a high-volume ping list.
homo agenda ping
Heblews?
Alouette, you (or somebody) need a new headline writer!
This was my own experiance in the Anglican church which led me to Orthodox Judaism.
Thank God.
This is why I don't belong to a synagogue. LOTS of money to be paid to institutions I don't fully believe in. Thank G-d for the Torah - who needs synagogues if this keeps getting worse? I don't even like the women rabbis.
you dont need a synagogue. you NEED a Shul (and a Rav)
That is the original headline that appeared in YNet and Reuters. FReepers are not supposed to change titles, in order to avoid duplicate posts.
Hrmm...Might be time to switch congregations.
I will never get why people fall for that idiotic claim. Hello? Check out your body parts people. You were not born that way.
As a non-Jew I have to scratch my head whenever I read anything about 'conservative' Jews. How are they conservative? Can you post a thumbnail of the different denominations and what exactly distinguishes them? Ty.
It's too bad that people in Joshua's day didn't know that Canaanite ethnicity is determined and irrevocable rather than a sinful choice. Those poor Canaanites! [/sarcasm]
Conservative Judaism has always taught that we must upgrade our biblical understanding with new scientific knowledge.
Everyone these days says that, regardless of religious affiliation. Then they blame it all on "those ignorant rednecks." I guess, unlike "gayness" and "Canaaniteness," "redneckery" is a sinful personal choice.
"Conservative" in this sense isn't so much a descriptive adjective as the formal name of a "branch of Judaism." "Conservative Judaism" is like "Reform Judaism" or "Reconstructionist Judaism" or "Secular-Humanistic Judaism." It's the name of a religion posing as a "branch of Judaism."
They adopted the name "Conservative" because they seceded from the more liberal Reforms in the nineteenth century but didn't return to Orthodoxy. They are "conservative" only as compared to the "branches" on their Left, but since they reject the fundamental doctrine of the Torah being from Heaven their religion is not a form of Judaism at all.
Barney!
heh
DNC poster boy
He'll be another clown soon, only a stuffed one.
excellent!
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