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CONSERVATIVE CANDIDATES COMPETE IN RECORD NUMBERS
by Hilary Leila Kreiger
Jerusalem Post, October 23, 2003
The Masorti (Conservative) Movement is fielding a record number of city council candidates in next Tuesday's municipal elections, with six hopefuls - two of them rabbis - participating in races from Eilat to Upper Nazareth.
"This is a phenomenon that symbolizes the penetration of the Masorti Movement into Israeli society and the growth and maturity of our movement," said Rabbi Ehud Bandel, president of the movement in Israel.
Rabbi Shmuel Shaish, at the top of Eilat's Meretz list, has the best chance of winning, according to polls. He would be the first Conservative rabbi elected to a city council, Bandel said. Fellow rabbi Yosef Kleiner is running in Rehovot, while lay members are vying for office in Ra'anana, Ramat Yishai, and Upper Nazareth.
Until now, Conservative-identified individuals have only run for office sporadically, with Jonathan Rimon of Kochav Yair the first to become mayor. He is currently completing his term in office and running on the local party's number two slot this time around.
Rimon's success coupled with the short-lived appointment of Conservative Rabbi David Lazar to the Jerusalem City Council last year made the movement realize that "if we want to compete and have our voice be heard and reach out to Israelis, we have to make our presence felt at a city level on the city councils," Bandel said.
He described that voice as one advocating religious pluralism, tolerance, and the separation of church and state while emphasizing Jewish education and identity.
One of Shaish's aims is to end the religious monopoly of the Orthodox on local religious councils and what he considers their corrupt modus operandi. Such corruption, he claimed, alienates the public from Judaism.
Christina Mosso, who is number five on Shinui's Upper Nazareth list, described her two priorities as advancing the status of women and helping immigrants. She said the Conservative Movement does the later by "offering the opportunity for women to be a part of religious life." She herself is a role model for the latter, having made aliya from Argentina - as did Shaish and the other female Conservative candidate.
Bandel said it's not surprising that Conservative candidates affiliated with national parties come predominantly from left-wing organizations, since they're the ones that advocate religious pluralism. He stressed, though, that the Conservative Movement doesn't affiliate with any party or behave as a political entity itself - and is proud to count members spanning the political spectrum.
Indeed, the movement sees itself appealing to the approximately 60 percent of the Israeli public that considers itself masorti, or traditional, Bandel said. He noted, however, that only 50 congregations comprising 30,000 members currently exist in Israel.
He attributed this in part to its relative youth - a group of American Jews founded Israel's Conservative Movement in 1979 - but added that the growing numbers of higher-ups who are sabras like himself as well as this new push to join the political scene point to an "Israelization" of the movement.
"It is a sign of maturity and the movement being rooted in Israeli society and having an impact. We realize it's not enough to sit in the synagogue and wait for Israelis to enter. We need to go out and reach out to them... and through this maybe widen the doors of our synagogue and have more Israelis entering," he said.
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