Dozens of haredi Orthodox schoolchildren participated in a Lag b’Omer bonfire in Antwerp that featured the burning of an Israeli flag.
An eyewitness who photographed the event on May 10 said the boys attended a cheder of the Satmar community—an anti-Zionist Chasidic stream of approximately 150,000 adherents worldwide.
The picture, taken in an interior courtyard, shows a middle-aged man burning a handmade Israeli flag as some 30 boys watch.
“This is one of the first times we have seen this sort of thing in recent years,” Michael Freilich, editor in chief of Belgium’s leading Jewish publication, Joods Actueel, told JTA.
According to Freilich, the flag-burning ceremony provoked “a lot of anger” within Antwerp’s haredi Orthodox community. Followers of the Chasidic schools of Lubavitch and Belz spoke out against the burning, Freilich said, but the Satmar leadership in Antwerp remains unrepentant.
The last organized instance of flag burning by Belgian Jews was in the 1980s during a few demonstrations outside the Israeli Embassy.
The Satmar movement opposes Zionism because it believes the establishment of a Jewish state should only come after the arrival of the Jewish Messiah.
“Regardless of the complexities of attitudes to Israel in the ultra-Orthodox world,” Freilich said, “many feel that the political act of burning a flag is wholly inappropriate during a Jewish holiday like Lag b’Omer, which is meant to unite, not divide.”
European Union foreign ministers at a meeting in Brussels slammed Israel for threatening the viability of a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
Their three-page statement released Monday condemned the increased growth of settlement building, and the eviction of Palestinians and demolition of their homes in eastern Jerusalem. It also expressed concern over settler violence.
“The viability of a two-state-solution must be maintained,” the statement said. “The EU expresses deep concern about developments on the ground which threaten to make a two-state solution impossible.”
The statement also indicated that the EU reiterates its “fundamental commitment to the security of Israel, including with regard to vital threats in the region. The EU is appalled by recurring rocket attacks from Gaza and condemns in the strongest terms violence deliberately targeting civilians.” It also called for the prevention of arms smuggling into Gaza.
It also expressed concern about recent reports of the arrests of journalists by the Palestinian Authority and for “recent incidents of incitement in Palestinian media and elsewhere.”
In its response to the statement, Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that “The conclusions of the EU Foreign Affairs Council on the Middle East Peace Process do not contribute to advancing the peace process.”
The statement’s accusations, the ministry said, “include a long list of claims and criticism that are based on a partial, biased and one-sided depiction of realities on the ground. Such a public presentation does not contribute to advance the process.
Two thousand years ago, a mysterious woman who was unable to talk arrived on this island. Every sick person she touched was healed. Although she died when her wooden house caught fire, her body remained intact and did not burn.
That’s a local legend.
Another is that the miracle worker is buried beneath the foundation stone of the El Ghriba Synagogue, one of the oldest continuously used synagogues in the Diaspora and the site of an annual pilgrimage that typically brings thousands to Djerba seeking answers to their prayers.
This year, amid political uncertainty and security concerns, the two-day celebration held last week on Lag b’Omer drew more journalists and police than pilgrims.
“We have about 300 people here from abroad today, but most are locals,” said Rene Trabelsi, a Paris-based organizer of the celebration whose family oversees the synagogue. “What’s important is that we are having this event this year because last year it did not happen. I hope we can slowly increase the number of people attending each year.”
Last year, in the aftermath of Tunisia’s revolution that overthrew the country’s long time autocrat Zine El Abddine Ben Ali and killed more than 300 Tunisians, the Hiloula celebration was canceled.
Pilgrimages in previous years had attracted thousands of visitors to Djerba. After the El Ghriba Synagogue was attacked in 2002, the pilgrimage was vastly scaled back, but the number of pilgrims steadily increased until nearly 10,000 came in 2010.
Heavy security accompanied this year’s event, and those coming by car faced some dozen checkpoints en route.
Elias al-Fakhfakh, Tunisia’s minister of tourism and a member of the center-left Ettakatol political party, attended on the second day. The crowd, which had been singing kabbalistic tunes outside the synagogue, switched to the Tunisian national anthem as al-Fakhfakh approached.
Entering the El Ghriba sanctuary, al-Fakhfakh put on a kabbus, a red traditional Tunisian hat that many Tunisian Jewish men wear as a kippah.
Before cameras from almost every Tunisian television station, al-Fakhfakh viewed both the sefer Torah and holy area where the foundation stone is believed to be.
“It is great that Muslims and Jews can celebrate this occasion together,” he told a cheering crowd before heading off to a meal with local Jewish community leaders. “After the Tunisian revolution we adopted new democratic values. We have a new country with a deep heritage that accepts people with different cultures and religions.
“As a government,” he said, “we want to embrace good relations between Jews and Muslims in the new free Tunisia.”
During the pilgrimage, El Ghriba’s sanctuary becomes a holding place for people’s wishes, which are written on paper and placed inside cracks of the wall—similar to the Western Wall in Jerusalem. Coins are placed inside oil lamps for tzedakah, charity.
Women seeking to marry or have children visit El Ghriba and write their wishes on boiled eggs, symbolizing life. Candles are lit for those asking for good health and a long life.
A door to the foundation stone, which is beneath the ark, is opened during the pilgrimage, so the candles and eggs may be placed on the stone.
Newlywed Vanessa Mamou, whose father is from Djerba, traveled from Paris for the celebration.
“I put an egg in the synagogue because I am married and want to have a baby,” she told JTA. “My sister is here because she wants to meet someone and get married.”
The El Ghriba legend is important not only for Tunisian Jews but for Muslims as well.
“This is a holy place for all Djerbians, not just the Jews,” a woman named Khalija said as she was leaving the sanctuary. “I came to light a candle with my Jewish friend.”
Unlike previous years, when the celebration attracted Tunisians and non-Tunisians from abroad, nearly all of this year’s pilgrims were Tunisian.
Many were local Djerbians; others came from Tunis. The remaining were Tunisians visiting from Europe, although the visitors included a couple of French pilgrims.
“My family left Tunisia when I was 10 years old, but I spent almost every summer growing up in Tunisia,” said Isabel, who came with her husband and daughter from Paris. “No one will scare me away from coming here because this is my country. I am Tunisian and will never be afraid of my country.”
Adjacent to the synagogue is a building that once served as an inn housing visitors, primarily Libyan Jews visiting El Ghriba. With the growth of the tourism industry and the establishment of vast hotels in recent years, the building is mostly abandoned year-round.
But during the two-day Hiloula, the inn becomes a center of celebration. Live traditional Tunisian music, in Hebrew and Arabic, is sung to the beat of the darbouka drum.
The smell of fried brik—a flour envelope of potatoes, Tunisian hot sauce known as harissa, parsley and egg—is present in the air. Families sit together on benches and munch on fresh almonds, apricots, oranges, cantaloupe and mulberries that are sold in nearby stands.
For some Tunisians who have been abroad for many years, the celebration is a chance to reconnect with Tunisia. On sale are CDs of famous Tunisian Jewish singers from the community’s past as well as DVD collections of recent Tunisian sitcoms.
Previous celebrations have attracted many Israeli pilgrims, but this year Israel issued a travel warning advising its people not to attend.
Perez Trabelsi, El Ghriba’s president, criticized the Israelis in the local French language Tunisian newspaper, Le Press, for not attending this year.
According to some foreign attendees, many foreign visitors canceled after the Islamist Tunisian party Ennahda invited Youssef Al Qaradawi, a Qatar-based Egyptian sheik well known for his endorsement of suicide bombings, on a multi-city speaking tour of Tunisia in the week leading up to the Hiloula.
Israel’s security technologies were on display as the country hosted two separate international contingents.
An Interpol European Regional Conference brought 110 senior law enforcement officers from 49 countries to Tel Aviv, while a homeland security conference drew 37 mayors from two dozen worldwide cities to sites throughout Israel last week.
“Israel has been forced to overcome difficult circumstances, including war and terror, in order to survive,” said Alfred Vanderpuije, mayor of the Ghana capital of Accra, following a visit to Elbit Systems, a defense electronics company based in Haifa. “And this has put the Israelis in a unique situation to develop security technologies.”
In the decade following the terror attacks of 9-11, Israeli security exports rose from about $2 billion a year to more than $7 billion, according to data supplied by SIBAT, Israel’s Defense Export and Defense Cooperation Agency. Part of the rise was attributed to the growing international demand for more effective homeland security systems.
At Elbit and other security firms such as Magal Security Systems and Elta Group, a subsidiary of Israel Aerospace Industries, Vanderpuije and the other mayors saw presentations on defense technologies.
Originally developed for the Israel Defense Forces to fight wars and terror, many of the systems are being modified for civilian use, such as securing large cities.
Called the “digital army project,” Elbit’s technology connects all military forces to a single communication network that enables the free transferral of audio and video information.
“From the individual soldier to entire divisions on the land, in the air and on the sea, all our forces are interconnected,” said Dalia Rosen, Elbit’s vice president of corporate communications.
“In the past few years we have begun adopting the tools we have developed and applied on the battlefield for use in a civilian context to create what we call ‘safe cities.’ “
The basic tools that are used to fight terrorism can be used to fight crime and help officials react more efficiently to natural disasters, said Amnon Sofrim, who heads Elta’s homeland security projects.
“Instead of endless patrols, we can use strategically placed cameras or electronic devices connected to a situation room to detect the beginning of a robbery or a fire,” said Sofrim, former chief of the IDF’s intelligence corps. “And this allows us to use a limited amount of security forces or firefighters only where they are really needed.”
There were signs that the meetings between mayors and Israeli security experts might lead to business ties.
“I was very impressed with what I saw and am even thinking about bringing some of these ideas back to Ghana,” Vanderpuije said.
While private Israeli firms were showing the mayors homeland security technologies, a similar show-and-tell was taking place in Tel Aviv at Interpol’s 41st regional conference, the first time Israel has hosted such a conference since it joined the international police organization in October 1949.
Among the Israeli innovations on display were the “skunk,” a liquid with a putrid odor, and the “screamer,” a hand-held device the size of a bullhorn that emits a sound so loud that it can paralyze.
Israeli police developed both as non-lethal means of crowd control in the wake of the October 2000 riots that left 12 Arab Israelis dead.
The Or Commission, an Israeli panel of inquiry set up after the riots, criticized the police for being unprepared and possibly using excessive force to disperse the mobs.
“The skunk and the screamer are more ethical than your average police baton since they don’t cause long-term injuries,” said Cmdr. Oded Shemla, who heads research and development for the police technology division. “They also happen to be more effective.”
An interactive simulator capable of constructing realistic scenarios, from soccer game riots and violent demonstrations to kidnappings and sniper attacks, also was on display.
“What is unique about our technology is that it is developed by policemen for policemen,” said Shemla, who previously was a police helicopter unit pilot.
Interpol officials were not authorized to comment on Israel’s innovations vis-a-vis other member countries.
Shemla said, however, that senior police officers from Europe were particularly impressed that the Israeli technologies presented at the conference already were in use and had proven to be effective in real-life situations.
“We were not showing them an abstract concept,” he said. “We were showing them things that actually work in the field.”
Jake Rosen, who chairs the American Council for World Jewry that organized and sponsored the international mayors’ conference, said there is room for more security export growth.
“One of the goals of this year’s conference is to break down prejudices [toward Israel] and overcome feelings of hesitation about doing business here,” Rosen said. “We have to be proactive in allowing access to Israeli know-how and in countering anti-Israel sentiment.”
Rosen said that political leaders such as Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who has claimed that Israel plans to “terminate” the Palestinian people, are “obstacles to openness” when it comes to economic ties with Israel.
However, Rosen noted that Venezuela should be seen as monolithic. Antonio Ledezma, who beat a pro-Chavez candidate to become mayor of Caracas, attended the conference.
Otto Perez Leal, the mayor of Mixco, Guatemala, and son of Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina, said his municipality already was implementing security cameras and other technologies developed in Israel.
“Our army and police use this equipment to integrate our forces and improve our ability to respond to natural disasters and other challenges,” Leal said.
“It’s not just about training people and it’s not just about technology. It’s about combining them both. And that is something that we are learning from you.”
EMC Corp. acquired the Israeli storage systems start-up company XtremIO for more than $430 million.
The sale completed last week is EMC’s sixth and largest acquisition in Israel. Senior executives from EMC had been in Israel in recent months holding acquisition talks with XtremIO, the Israeli daily Globes reported.
Xtremlo, which has offices in Herzliya and San Jose, Calif., was founded in 2009 by a group of Israeli high-tech veterans. It has raised $25 million in two venture capital financing rounds.
“This is an inspiring event, as it shows once again that Israel has the skill set and drive to create exceptional cutting-edge companies,” Erel Margalit, founder and chairman of Jerusalem Venture Partners, which owns up to 30 percent of XtremIO, told JTA in an e-mail.
EMC also operates an Israel R&D center with 700 to 800 employees, according to Globes.
Michael Wear, a 23-year-old executive assistant in the White House, has been picked to lead the Obama campaign’s faith outreach. RNS reports, via ” title=”the suspicions I have” target=”_blank”>the suspicions I have when political ” title=”during the 2008 presidential election” target=”_blank”>during the 2008 presidential election season. And my concerns have not changed, though I think that four years with President Obama have shown us that it’s not too prone to religious pandering (see the ” title=”church for his family” target=”_blank”>church for his family).
Rabbi Mark Diamond is Executive Vice President of The Board of Rabbis of Southern California. In that position, he directs a multi-denominational organization of 330 rabbis, and serves on the senior management team of The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles. As the Board’s senior professional, Rabbi Diamond has developed innovative programs of continuing education, social justice, healing and spirituality for colleagues and the community. The rabbi is quoted frequently in local and national media and is the host and executive producer of One Community, a weekly television show on Jewish Life Television Network.
Rabbi Diamond is a leader in collaborative interfaith projects and serves as president of the Los Angeles Council of Religious Leaders. He headed an interreligious delegation of Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders on a January 2008 mission to the Vatican and Israel, highlighted by an audience with Pope Benedict XVI. Later that year Rabbi Diamond created the Jewish Federation’s Interreligious Action Center to promote Israel education and awareness in non-Jewish faith communities.
Rabbi Diamond received his Master of Arts degree in Jewish studies, rabbinical ordination and Doctor of Divinity (honoris causa) from The Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York. The rabbi is a Magna cum Laude graduate of Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota. Rabbi Diamond also studied in the Rabbinic Management Program of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, and the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, where he is a senior rabbinic fellow. He is married to Lois and the father of Adina, Ariella and Jeremy.
As the minutes on the clock tick away, the chefs run about their kitchens furiously trying to complete their Taj Mahal-themed desserts.
“What have I got for you now?” booms the thickly accented master pastry chef Ron Ben-Israel as he overlooks the chefs’ workstations. “Another mandatory ingredient—tahini paste!”
This is “Sweet Genius,” the hit Food Network show that recently began its second season.
Chefs compete to earn the coveted title, win $10,000 and impress Ben-Israel, the show’s host, judge and original sweet genius, who often asks competitors to include ingredients not typically found in desserts.
“When you talk about a level of skill and craftsmanship, the other cake purveyors in the city are in awe of Ron’s work,” says Ashlea Halpern, New York Magazine’s strategist editor. “He’s one of the best in New York. He’s perfected the model.”
Ben-Israel doesn’t like to focus on the genius moniker, however, and he was even a bit intimidated by the idea when Food Network proposed it, he told JTA in an interview at Ron Ben-Israel Cakes, his New York bake shop. He prefers to concentrate on the “sweet” part of the title and considers himself more like a guide to the show’s contestants.
For the few who impress Ben-Israel enough to also earn the title, the recognition—and prize money—can be a career booster.
When pastry chef Amos Hayon competed on “Sweet Genius” last season, he was on the verge of returning to his native Israel, having failed to make a living in the United States. After Ben-Israel crowned him a sweet genius and awarded him $10,000, things began to pick up.
Story continues after the jump.
In addition to traveling to food festivals nationwide, Hayon is a pastry chef at a restaurant on Long Island in suburban New York.
He calls Ben-Israel an inspiration both for his accomplishments as a baker and as a gay Israeli who realized his dream.
“He’s my guru,” Hayon says. “He gave me a lot of energy, power to do this. Somebody came before me, and I know I can do this also.”
Ben-Israel’s confections can be seen on the pages of Martha Stewart Living, People, New York Magazine and Vogue, and they are staples at such establishments as the Waldorf-Astoria, Four Seasons and Ritz-Carlton.
Cakes have always been popular, says Ben-Israel, 54, but television has given bakers permission to make them the main attraction.
“In a bar mitzvah you do the candle-lighting ceremony with the cake. Every birthday the cake is the big moment,” he says. Now because of the growing pop-culture spotlight, “every cake-maker knows how important they are. I always knew it.”
The Food Network studios are a long way from Ben-Israel’s beginnings in Tel Aviv, and even further from his original career as a dancer.
He attended a Tel Aviv high school that focused on the arts, and then while he was serving in the Israel Defense Forces in the late 1970s, a friend got him interested in ballet. After completing his mandatory army service, he joined Bat Dor, an Israeli dance troupe.
Ben-Israel then began studying dance techniques across Europe, Canada and the United States. When he arrived in New York City in the mid-1980s, he says he knew he was there to stay.
“I really feel Tel Aviv has a lot, but everything in New York is just more,” he says.
In between applying for grants to fund his dance studies, Ben-Israel began picking up odd jobs designing store window displays and working in bakeries.
“Toward the end of my career, grants were drying up and I needed to support myself,” recalls Ben-Israel, who had grown up watching his Viennese mother make fantastic desserts. “I was able to come in [to bakeries] and observe—and with my ego, tell them how to do it better.”
At the age of 36, after 15 years as a professional dancer, he began baking full time. In 1996, while on display in the windows of Mikimoto on Fifth Avenue, his cakes began grabbing national attention and Ben-Israel soon started receiving commissions from De Beers, Bloomingdale’s and Bergdorf-Goodman.
The New York Times dubbed Ben-Israel “the Manolo Blahnik of cakes.”
In 1999 he opened Ron Ben-Israel Cakes in New York’s SoHo neighborhood with one oven and one mixer. As people fled downtown New York after the 9/11 tragedy, he was able to capitalize on lower rents and expand his operation.
Coming from a secular Israeli upbringing, Ben-Israel wasn’t ideologically interested in making his shop kosher, but for a caterer for some of New York City’s biggest hotels, it was a prudent business decision.
He chose OK Laboratories, the Chabad-affiliated kashrut organization headquartered in Brooklyn, which now certifies his shop’s pareve cakes.
The Chabad rabbis, Ben-Israel says, have a certain spirit that has ignited his own passion for Judaism. He never thought about owning separate Passover dishes while living in Israel, but now he owns a set, as well as a dozen Haggadahs, a shofar and a menorah.
“I became more sentimental,” he says. “It’s a matter of age, but also not being in Israel on a regular basis, I miss a lot of the traditions that are just natural in Israel and you don’t even think about it because you’re surrounded by Jews. So I had to distinguish myself.”
Jewish and Israeli cultures have certainly influenced the master baker. Challah, he says, is one of his favorite things to bake—but he doesn’t do just any challah.
“My version has olive oil, semolina flour, honey, and I make six braids,” he says. “It takes the whole day.”
As the son of Holocaust survivors, being Israeli and Jewish are sources of pride for Ben-Israel.
A “textbook second-generation survivor,” Ben-Israel remembers listening to his parents’ stories and realizing an emptiness within them that has trickled down to him. The creativity of baking helps fill that emptiness, he says.
“My parents were artists, so my salvation was to make pretty things—and ultimately delicious things at the same time,” he says.
In 2007, Ben-Israel designed a cake celebrating the 100th anniversary of New York’s Plaza Hotel, which the Israeli conglomerate Elad Properties had purchased earlier in the decade. The connection quickly raised his profile in his homeland. The chef tries to return to Israel at least once a year, and he would love to do an Israeli version of “Sweet Genius.”
While Ben-Israel no longer votes in Israeli elections—he doesn’t believe it’s right for him to vote if he doesn’t live in the country—he maintains a strong sense of pride in Israel and its accomplishments, especially in women’s and gay rights.
Still, he says, there is a long way to go.
“I always admire people in Israel who come out because it’s such a small place and everybody’s looking at you,” Ben-Israel says, noting that while he himself came out in Israel, being openly gay was common at the art school he attended.
Between running his cake shop, hosting “Sweet Genius,” and teaching at The International Culinary Center, founded as The French Culinary Institute, Ben-Israel appears to have time for little else. Still, he continues to seek new challenges.
Perhaps peacemaker?
“The Palestinians do cakes with the same products,” he says. “I’d be open to bridge the gap with sugar and cake.”
A bill aimed at applying Israeli law on West Bank settlements was rejected by a Knesset committee.
The bill proposed to the Ministerial Committee on Legislation by Likud lawmaker Miri Regev would have removed Israeli settlements from military rule and effectively annexed them.
In Sunday’s vote, nine lawmakers opposed the bill—including most of the committee’s Likud members—and five abstained in an unexpected turnaround of several members who had originally said they would support the bill. They reportedly changed their votes after Justice Minister Yaakov Neeman asked Regev to postpone the vote, and after learning that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu planned to vote against the bill.
Netanyahu reportedly did not want to go head to head with the Obama administration over the settlements at this time.
But as for thee, stand thou here by me, and I will speak unto thee all the commandments, and the statutes, and the judgments, which thou shalt teach them, that they may do them in the land which I give them to possess it.
Ye shall observe to do therefore as the Lord your God hath commanded you: ye shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left.
Deuteronomy 5:31-32
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The recent decision by the Schechter Rabbinical Seminary in Jerusalem to admit gay and lesbian students is about the best example of Mormon/Jewish divergence that can be found in contemporary Judaism. The Conservative seminary’s statement affirmed that it is “bound by Halacha [Jewish law], whose inclusive approach allows for a variety of halachic opinions.” In other words, Schechter considers itself bound by Jewish law, which for millennia has condemned homosexual behavior, while also considering itself free to invent new Jewish law to which it will be bound. Mormonism and contemporary Conservative Judaism diverge widely on this issue, which highlights the role of continuing revelation (or the lack thereof) in the development of a religion’s theology.
To begin with, let us state the obvious: Schechter is free to make whatever admissions and ordination decisions it wants. It’s not for me to say whether the seminary should admit gay Jews, pork-eating Jews, or atheist Jews. Some of the most energetic and passionate rabbis whom I have met are gay, and I have no doubt that they will make significant contributions to Jewish life wherever they serve. I write a blog about religion, and am primarily concerned about the theological justifications used to back the change. In this case, I was very disappointed.
A recent interview conducted by Jewish Journal writer Shmuel Rosner with Professor Hanan Alexander, the chair of Schechter’s board of trustees, is very revealing. When asked how exactly the seminary’s decision is compatible with “religious Jewish law,” the professor inexplicably (and inaccurately) states that “Jewish law has always allowed for the possibility that more than one interpretation is correct.” Alas, this principle is completely absent from the Hebrew Bible, where prophets were the only ones authorized to declare God’s word. No authoritative dissenting interpretations of Jewish law are recorded from Genesis to Malachi. From the time of Moses (~1400 BCE) until at least the time of the Mishnah (200 CE), halachic pluralism did not exist. By way of example, the Pharisees and Sadducees may have promoted contradictory halachic interpretations, but they viewed the other movement’s views as erroneous and even heretical. It is correct to say that Rabbinic Judaism has always allowed for halachic pluralism, but it is erroneous to assert that Jewish law has always done so.
For Mormons, the question for Conservative rabbis who support the liberal shift on issues related to homosexual conduct is whether they claim that God has inspired the movement to do this. Is it God’s will that Conservative rabbinical courts approve gays and lesbians for ordination? If the answer is yes, then there’s nothing more to say. However, to my knowledge no Conservative rabbi has made this claim. Unlike Mormons, Jews don’t believe in continuing revelation – for them direct revelation from God to prophets stopped over two thousand years ago. While I understand this, it’s still hard to understand why a Conservative seminary professing fealty to Jewish law would claim the right to override a biblical prohibition on conduct that Leviticus called an “abomination” that defiled nations and the land itself. Many years later rabbis would put homosexual conduct in the category of “gilui arayot,” sexual acts that are forbidden to both Jews and Gentiles.
The Conservative movement has adopted two responsa, or rabbinic onions, on homosexual conduct: one upholds the traditional ban in Jewish law, while another overrides it by claiming that all male homosexual conduct except for a specific sexual act were not prohibited by the Bible but by rabbis. The responsum goes on to argue that a rabbinic, though not a biblical, ban can be trumped by consideration for “human dignity” and “respect for others.” This mirrors the evolution on gay issues in the Reform movement, whose leading rabbis wrote opinions opposing gay marriage until the 1990s, when they stopped citing Jewish law and began appealing to justice and equality (please see Gay rabbis, God’s will, and Conservative Judaism Read More »
