The growing rift between liberal American Jews and the Israeli government was exacerbated this week when the newly-appointed Minister of Religious Affairs, David Azoulay, referred to Reform Judaism as “a catastrophe for the people of Israel.”
The liberal Reform movement is important in the United States, but relatively insignificant in Israel, where the ultra-Orthodox Rabbinate is a branch of the government. Most Israeli Jews are either Orthodox or completely non-observant. But the majority of American Jews identify with the liberal Conservative and Reform movements, and this fact has become enormously divisive—particularly as the Rabbinate becomes ever more radically right-wing in its religious rulings and political pronouncements.
Read Full Article »