Judaism and Jews must stand for tolerance

Considering Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu

By Robert Horenstein

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Having endured centuries of anti-Semitism, we Jews have long stressed the importance of respect for other faith and ethnic groups and have taken on a moral obligation to combat hate. That’s why it’s troubling whenever it’s one of our own—in this case, a prominent figure in Israel—who is the purveyor of intolerance. And it’s even more troubling when that intolerance is directed at other Jews.

Last month, during one of his weekly Torah lectures, former Sephardi Chief Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu declared that Reform and Conservative synagogues “reek of hell” and that it’s therefore forbidden to enter them. The disparaging remarks were later reprinted in Eliyahu’s Shabbat newsletter, Kol Tzofayich, which is distributed in synagogues throughout Israel.
   
This was no one-time, out-of-character attack on the non-Orthodox streams of Judaism. Speaking on an Orthodox radio program the day after Yom HaShoah in April, Eliyahu suggested that Reform Judaism was to blame for the Holocaust. “The Reformers started in Germany,” he said. “Those redactors of the Jewish faith began in Germany. We learn from [the Holocaust] that it’s forbidden to attempt to change Judaism.”
   

It would be bad enough if such outrageous statements were the rants of a fringe crackpot. Eliyahu, on the other hand, served with his Ashkenazi counterpart (Avraham Shapira) as the official state rabbinate of Israel from 1983 to 1993.
   
In that capacity, Eliyahu was not only a representative of the Israeli government but, in effect, an ambassador for Judaism to the rest of the world.
   
To this day, he’s still a public figure of great stature. (Ironically, as chief rabbi, he reached out to secular Israeli Jews who were generally much less observant than Israelis affiliated with the Reform and Conservative movements.)
   
At precisely the time that Eliyahu was preaching intolerance and sowing divisiveness in the Jewish world, here in Portland, by contrast, I was attending the funeral of Rabbi Yonah Geller, a leader of great stature in his own right.
   
Geller, who was Congregation Shaarie Torah’s head rabbi for over 40 years, was eulogized as a “unifier” and an “all-inclusive rabbi,” having served as a bridge between Orthodox and non-Orthodox Jews (he was Orthodox, but over the years his synagogue became traditional, similar to what the Conservative, or Masorti, movement in Israel is today).
   
Not surprisingly, many hundreds of people, representing a cross-section of local Jewry, came to pay their respects.
   
Even more impressive was the presence of a majority of Portland’s rabbis, from the most liberal to the most fervently Orthodox, instilling, at least for the moment, a sense of shared community, or klal yisrael—for me, a powerful antidote to Eliyahu’s impudence.
   
True, skeptics might argue that as an Orthodox rabbi who was willing to partner with his liberal counterparts, Geller was an anomaly. After all, they emphatically point out, until this year, he had been the only Orthodox voice ever to serve on the Oregon Board of Rabbis.
   
That there are irreconcilable theological differences between the progressive and Orthodox streams of Judaism, however, isn’t the issue raised by the former chief rabbi’s offensive remarks. Two local Orthodox rabbis I spoke to—neither of whom would ever pray at a synagogue without a mechitza (partition) separating men and women—characterized Eliyahu’s comments as hurtful and beyond the pale. Said one of them, “The only statements I’ve made from the pulpit about Conservative and Reform Jews have been positive and affirming.”
   
Indeed, mutual affirmation is the key. And while we cannot stand silent when a part of our community is being denigrated, merely speaking out isn’t enough. The most constructive response, I believe, is to strengthen our resolve to work together on a common agenda, such as supporting Israel, combating anti-Semitism, protecting the environment, and confronting poverty.
   
Each spring, for example, the Passover Food Box Project organized by Kesser Israel, a modern Orthodox congregation, and the non-denominational Jewish Family and Child Service brings together Jews of all streams and generations to ensure that low-income families all over town have kosher food for the holiday. A deeply rewarding experience, this mitzvah incorporates Jewish values with which all of the participants, regardless of level of observance, can identify.
   
Another example of collaboration is in the area of public affairs. The Jewish Federation of Greater Portland’s Community Relations Committee (CRC), which includes a representative of every local congregation, seeks—and often achieves—consensus positions on a wide range of issues, from healthcare and civil rights to energy independence and divestment from Iran.
   
It’s unfortunate that the former Sephardi chief rabbi has chosen to disregard the forward-thinking dictum of the first chief rabbi (of Palestine), the late Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook: “That which unites us is greater than that which divides us.”

To put it more pointedly, we mustn’t let our theological differences create the sort of barriers to meaningful interaction that are self-imposed by the most close-minded among us.

Robert Horenstein is the staff director of the Jewish Federation of Greater Portland Community Relations Committee.