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REFORM, MASORTI MOVEMENTS WELCOME DECISION
by Amiram Barkat and Shlomo Shamir
Haaretz, October 9, 2003
Leaders of the Reform and Conservative movements
both in Israel and abroad welcomed yesterday's
decision to transfer the rabbinical courts from
the Religious Affairs Ministry to the Justice
Ministry.
Anat Hoffman, head of the Reform Movement's Israel Religious Action Center, said that this
step was "necessitated by the [rabbinical] courts'
inefficiency and the harm they do to tens of thousands of litigants, especially women,
every year."
Rabbi Ehud Bandel, president of the Conservative
Movement, added that he "regretted" Sephardi
Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar's statement that the
move was a declaration of war against religious
institutions. "These crude, unbridled remarks
prove that it is not halakha [Jewish law] that
guides the Chief Rabbinate, but the desire to
maintain its monopoly on power and authority,"
he said.
Hoffman added that the National Religious
Party's opposition to the move proved that it,
too, deemed considerations of political power
more important that doing justice and solving
the citizenry's problems.
In America, Rabbi Ami Hirsch, executive director
of the Association of Reform Zionists of
America (ARZA), termed the decision a "victory
for Israeli democracy," as well as a victory
over the Orthodox establishment's monopoly over
religious affairs in Israel.
"The decision is a significant turning point in
the struggle to create a pluralistic society in
Israel that is based on sensitivity to matters
of religion and state," he said. "That is a
goal the Reform Movement has aspired to further
for two generations."
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