Life In Israel

Tali Schools Continue Expansion (Winter Newsletter 2008-2009)

The TALI school network, the system of secular schools providing enhanced Jewish studies, continues its growth with ten new elementary schools joining the network with the start of the academic year. This brings to 83 the number of schools identified with TALI, in addition to 100 kindergartens, with the result that 10% of all Israeli children enrolled in secular public elementary schools study in a TALI framework.

This is a tremendous achievement for Dr. Eitan Chikli, the Director–General of the TALI Education Fund, which is associated with the Schechter Institute in Jerusalem, the Fund's professional staff and its generous donors, including the Jewish Agency's annual stream funding, that over the past twenty years, have helped the system grow from 2,500 children to the current 35,000 children.

While it celebrates its growth, recent legislation proposed by MK Michael Melchior, Chairman of the Knesset Education Committee, and passed by the Knesset to set up a third public education system, has raised a question mark over the future of the TALI network.

The new public education system, is supposed to bring together under one framework, various Israeli educational experiments, including the nearly 200 TALI schools and pre–schools, the 25 institutions in the Meytarim Network for Jewish Democratic Education and a few individual schools, with an enhanced budget from the Ministry of Education.

While agreeing with Dr. Eitan Chikli that the Ministry's funding for the new system is a good start, Dr. David Golinkin, President of the Schechter Institute, has commented: "We are still in doubt as to the law's impact on the TALI school network. The law carefully avoids using the word "pluralism" [in the name of the new school system], which means that this or a future government could put its implementation in the hands of Orthodox political parties that are not pluralistic at all.

[Moreover] the fact that the implementation will be in the hands of a public committee to be appointed by the Ministry of Education means that TALI may not be represented proportionately to its numbers, which currently dwarf any other network of pluralistic schools."

For more information about the TALI schools, contact Schechter Institutes Inc. at 866–830–3321 or visit www.tali.org.il.

Masorti Plays "The Wedding Game" (Fall Newsletter 2008)

Coinciding with the start of the post-Shavuot wedding season in Israel, the Masorti Movement launched in June a successful public relations blitz on the Internet and in broadcast and print media, to challenge the Orthodox monopoly on marriage ceremonies in Israel and to educate the public about Masorti Judaism.

Appealing to Israelis who are increasingly disenchanted with the established marriage system under the auspices of the Chief Rabbinate, the Masorti Movement directed couples to a new online "wedding game" which conveyed the personalized, contemporary approach to wedding ceremonies that Masorti rabbis offer prospective brides and grooms. Go to www.justloopit.com/masorti/index.php?guest=3 to "play the wedding game".

"Our young people are being driven away from traditional marriage ceremonies by the difficulty of dealing with the Office of the Chief Rabbinate," observed Masorti Executive Director Yizhar Hess, "Under the guidelines of the 'Masorti chuppah,' couples may customize their ceremonies to meet their personal needs without sacrificing halakhic requirements and the connection to Jewish tradition. It is important to make all Israelis aware that this religious alternative exists."

Since Israeli law does not allow for civil marriage and defines marriage, like other personal status issues for Jews, as falling under the purview of the Orthodox rabbinate, couples interested in a Masorti ceremony are advised to have a civil ceremony performed outside of Israel to supplement the Masorti religious service so that their marriages will be legally recognized by the State.

Proof of the success of the Masorti Movement' appeal was seen not only in the 25,000 "hits" to the Masorti website but also in the reaction of Shas, the Sephardic ultra-Orthodox party, which petitioned the Israel Broadcasting Authority unsuccessfully to ban the Masorti campaign from the airwaves, on the grounds that the ad's use of the term "masorti", which means "traditional" and which is the official name of the Conservative Movement in Israel, "knowingly misleads and perpetrates a campaign of fraud against many citizens". As MK Ophir Pines-Paz, a leader of the Labor Party and a member of a Masorti congregation, responded, the Shas letter should be buried as "a foolish attempt at censorship."

Coinciding with the Masorti marriage campaign is a new government initiative being proposed, which would turn Israel into a single marriage registration zone. By this change, couples wishing to get married under the auspices of the Chief Rabbinate would be able to use the services of the rabbinate bureau of their choice, as opposed to the office that oversees their residential area.

Since it is well known that some marriage registrars are more strict than others in requiring proof of Jewishness, a requirement that often becomes burdensome to Jewish immigrants and particularly to those who have converted to Judaism, giving couples the right to choose their rabbinate bureau would help ease the process for those who opt for a recognized Chief Rabbinate ceremony.

Though attacked by many Orthodox rabbis as "encouraging assimilation," Cabinet Secretary Oved Yehezkel defended the change saying "I'm sorry to learn that people who have been properly converted by the religious establishment are so poorly treated in some places. If by chance, the proposed change will fix this problem as well, it would be a blessing."

Banner Year for Ramah Israel Programs (September E-letter 2008)

Ramah Programs in Israel enjoyed a banner year in 2008, with well over 1,000 participants in its various programs, including those for middle school and high school students and their families.

Among the programs reaching new heights was Ramah Israel Seminar, which sent over 320 participants to Israel this past summer. Together with USY Pilgrimage, there were more than 660 high school students in Israel this summer for Conservative Movement-sponsored Israel experience programs.

Other Ramah programs that saw increases in 2008 included T.R.Y. (Tichon Ramah Yerushalayim) and USY High, as well as Ramah's family trips and Solomon Schechter and other day school 8th grade trips.

Masorti Rabbi at Qatar Interfaith Meeting (September E-letter 2008)

Rabbi David Lazar, rabbi of the Masorti congregation "Tiferet Shalom" in Tel Aviv, was among a delegation of more than a dozen rabbis, including two from Israel, who attended this past spring, an interfaith dialogue in the Persian Gulf state of Qatar.

While the talks were not entirely smooth and politics and disputes over the Palestinian issue did inevitably intrude, the meetings were useful, as Rabbi Lazar remarked, in enabling the Arab and Muslim participants "to hear, not only an Israeli but to hear a Jewish rabbi speak . . . and so one of my responses [was] trying to tell them the story of the Jewish people, which often they [had] not heard [including] the Holocaust".

Ramah Experience Touches Israeli Staff (Summer Newsletter 2008)

For the past sixty years, the Ramah Camps have been employing Israeli staff to work during the summer season. Now, as both Israel and Ramah celebrate their sixtieth anniversary, one can look at the positive influence of this encounter between the Israelis and the North Americans as a two-way street.

This summer, more than 200 Israeli shlichim, are working at the various Ramah camps. As Rabbi Mitchell Cohen, Ramah's National Director, writes: "The presence of shlichim add tremendously to Ramah's Zionist mission. [They] give our campers and staff a personal connection to Israel, heightening our awareness of the real issues that face Israeli society today, and become extended family for 'Ramahniks' who visit Israel."

At the same time, however, Ramah has had a profound influence on the Israeli visitors. As Cohen notes: "Having been exposed, sometimes for the first time in their lives, to the powerful message of Conservative Judaism, many shlichim return to Israel after a summer at Ramah inspired in a new way Jewishly, often seeking deeper connections with Jewish religious life in Israel."

"As hundreds of Ramah shlichim experience the joy and beauty of Jewish religious life at Camp Ramah and return to Israel each year, we believe that their impact on Israeli society can be substantial, contributing to a more pluralistic view of Judaism and bringing more young men and women closer to Torah."

Neve Hanna Children Say "Todah" (Summer Newsletter 2008)

Earlier this year, MERCAZ members and supporters were encouraged to participate in the annual American Zionist Movement's Purim Campaign, which this year included among its beneficiaries the Masorti-affiliated Neve Hanna, a residential village for children from troubled family backgrounds located in the Negev city of Kiryat Gat. Donations received provided "mishloach manot" gift packages, delivered by a group of USY NATIV students, to the more than one hundred children living and studying at the institution.

Yoav Ende, a Schechter Institute rabbinical student and the Masorti counselor at Neve Hanna, writes: "The mishloach manot visit was a great success. The 'Nativnikim' came on Sunday which was the first day after our kids came back from their Purim holiday, helping the kids feel special and loved as they came back to the children's home. The mishlochey manot looked beautiful and were rich with sweets and games. Thank you - AZM, WZO, MERCAZ and NATIV - for making our kids feel special!"

For more information about the children's home, contact the American Friends of Neve Hanna: 212-533-2061, board.america@nevehanna.org, www.nevehanna.org.

JAFI Receives Israel Prize (Summer Newsletter 2008)

In recognition of the importance of the bond that the Jewish Agency for Israel (JAFI) has succeeded in building between Jewish communities around the world and Israel and the contribution that JAFI has made over its nearly 80 years to the creation and development of the Jewish state, the State of Israel chose to honor the Jewish Agency at this past Yom HaAtzmaut with the Israel Prize, the country's most prestigious award.

The Jewish Agency was established in 1929 by the World Zionist Organization as a partnership between the WZO and non-Zionist Jewish leaders, such as Louis Marshall, Leon Blum, and Felix Warburg. The Agency was set up in accordance with the stipulation in the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine (1922) that a "Jewish agency" comprised of representatives of world Jewry assist in the "establishment of the Jewish National Home . . . in Palestine."

As the de facto government of the state-on-the-way, JAFI was recognized as the official representative of the Jewish community and world Jewry vis-a-vis the League of Nations, the British Mandate government, and foreign governments. The Jewish Agency was also responsible for the Yishuv's internal affairs: immigration and resettlement of new immigrants, building of new settlements, economic development, education and culture, hospitals and health services.

Reorganized after the '67 Six Day War as a 50-50 partnership between the WZO and the Jewish community fundraising apparatus (the UJC in the United States and Keren HaYesod elsewhere), JAFI, with its annual budget of approximately $300 million, is the largest global Jewish partnership in existence, officially representing the Jewish community in Israel, together with the million or more Jews around the world who belong to Zionist organizations and/or contribute to the annual Jewish federation campaigns.

Ironically, the announcement of the Israel Prize came at the same time that rumors began circulating about impending reorganization plans at the Agency to deal with a $25 million deficit, about 10% of its budget, plans that could lead to a revamping of its aliyah operations and the merging of the Aliyah and Education Departments into a single "Diaspora operations" division.

Over the past decade, JAFI has been dealing with a slow but steady decline in revenues, a consequence primarily as American Jewish federations have shifted the ratio of funds from overseas needs towards local Jewish concerns. However, the current crisis has arisen suddenly as a result of the U.S. dollar's decline of nearly 20% in just one year against the shekel, from 4.2 NIS to $1 in April '07 to under 3.5 NIS to $1 today.

Discussions on restructuring the Aliyah Department also come at a time when the traditional "aliyah from necessity" from such places as the former Soviet Union and Ethiopia, an aliyah which saw tens of thousands of new immigrants needing to be moved and settled at once, ends and is replaced by a slower and smaller "aliyah from choice" from countries in the West, including the United States, Canada, Latin America and Western Europe.

As those in the field have contended, this latter type of aliyah requires a different kind of investment of resources, with greater attention to strengthening Jewish education and encouraging positive short and long-term Israel experiences as necessary stages towards eventual aliyah. Nevertheless, whatever restructuring may occur, the Agency is firmly committed to maintaining aliyah as one of the key pillars of its operations.

top of page

MERCAZ USA
820 Second Avenue, New York, New York 10017-4504
tel 212.533.2061 | fax 212.533.2601
info@mercazusa.org | www.mercazusa.org