Conservative Jews in the U.S. and Israel have accused Israeli President Reuven Rivlin of canceling a bar mitzvah ceremony at the official President’s Residence because one of the rabbis scheduled to conduct the ceremony is non-Orthodox.
The ceremony, for four boys with autism, was scheduled about two weeks ago, after the ultra-Orthodox mayor of the city of Rehovot refused to allow the bar mitzvah, long planned by the Conservative movement, to be held at a Conservative synagogue. The Conservative movement has been running a bar/bat mitzvah program for Israeli children with disabilities for two decades.
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