While I would encourage you to view it or read it in its entirety, here are some of the highlights:

Daniel Pipes, an academic known for his hard-line Middle East views, had it right when he said recently “that anyone concerned about the security and welfare of Israel is in the pro-Israel camp.”…

Attempting to delegitimize Israel, on too many college campuses and throughout much of Europe, critics try to portray Israel as though it is some apartheid-like state. It is an absurd assertion. Anyone who knows what apartheid was, and who knows Israel today, is well aware of that.

Critics cite assessments like the Goldstone Report to justify such contentions. When it was first issued I publicly challenged its fatal flaws. The Goldstone Report states that Israeli armed forces “carried out direct intentional strikes against civilians,” a contention, as you know, that Goldstone has now retracted. But the damage has been done, and we’re going to spend years trying to undo that damage. When Rabbi Eric Yoffie excoriated Richard Goldstone and his biased report at the first J Street Conference, some booed him. Rabbi Yoffie was unfazed and went on to say “Anyone who supports a peaceful two-state solution must consider the role of Hamas in destroying such a prospect-and yet, quite astonishingly, nothing of this is discussed in the Goldstone Report.” I applaud Rabbi Yoffie’s independent and clear voice in this and other crucial issues….

And just weeks ago David Saperstein had my full support when he gave his constructively critical keynote address to the second J Street Conference. I agree wholeheartedly with Rabbi Saperstein’s decision to speak at the conference, to assert again how vital movement towards a peace process is to Israel’s security and America’s interests, to offer thoughtful criticism of J Street’s policy making, but also to offer a strong critique of J Street’s stand opposing the recent US veto of the UN resolution condemning Israeli settlements.

Like my colleagues Eric and David, I am unafraid to challenge misguided views regardless of the source….

I also believe that Israel’s security and well-being require that Israel must become a more tolerant and pluralistic society. I have spent over 20 years working to strengthen the Israel envisioned in Israel’s Declaration of Independence:

“THE STATE OF ISRAEL will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture…”

This week our congregation, like many of yours, will hold many events to celebrate Yom Ha’atzmaut. On Erev Shabbat, as we have for the past years, we will host five IDF officers who will share their diverse backgrounds and service in defense of Israel. Last year, our teens were privileged to host 25 elite IDF commanders. Following Operation Cast Lead, it is critically important for these remarkable young soldiers to know that we in America are with them. I know first hand as a senior rabbinic fellow of the Shalom Hartman Institute the kind of ethics training these officers receive because they are taught by many of the same scholars with whom I study.

As I stand with the IDF soldiers this Friday night, I will let them know that my congregation stands in solidarity with them. We admire their courage; we support their abiding efforts to make Israel secure. I am confident that the IDF always aspires to conduct itself according to the highest ethical standards. There will always be lapses and errors in judgment especially in the new unprecedented ways of war confronting Israel, but I believe no other fighting force has more ethical rigor than the Israel Defense Forces….

Despite the expanding sanctions and the undermining of Iran’s technical abilities that U.S. and Israeli joint efforts have achieved, Iran remains determined to move its nuclear weapons program along as expeditiously as possible endangering Israel’s literal existence and U.S. interests throughout the region.

In the UN and around the world, Israel’s enemies have launched an offensive of economic attacks aimed at weakening and delegitimizing Israel that is taking hold in anti-Israel strongholds on and off campuses in Europe and North America. These Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions tactics are destructive and we must do everything in our power to combat these attacks through education, legislative advocacy and good, old-fashioned community organizing. The RAC and ARZA have played a key role in these efforts. But all of us, we’ve got to do our part. I know we can count on each other to get it done….

A very important part of my leadership as the URJ president will be to help all of our congregations become ohavei Tzion-lovers of Israel….

I will never back down from my commitment to a secure Israel.

I will never stop fighting for an Israel that grants all of its citizens, Arabs and Jews, fundamental human rights.

I will never stop working for an Israel that grants equal rights to Jews no matter their spiritual practice or belief.

I will never stop advocating for the US to remain Israel’s staunch ally.

I will not back away from my commitment to a two-state solution living side-by-side in peace and security.

As the leader of the largest Movement in Jewish life, I intend to work every single day to build up the ranks of those who share my Zionist passion. And I call upon everyone in the pro-Israel community to join me in this critical work.

When Israel gets into our hearts, then I know that we will never stop fighting for an Israel that is secure, religiously free, guided by justice and dwelling in peace.

Our hope is not lost-
The hope of two thousand years:
To be a free people in our land,
The land of Zion and Jerusalem.

Ken yehi ratzon.

 

 

The Reform and Conservative movements want to obtain official status in Israel, alongside Orthodoxy. I support this. It is this desire that is the true reason for their outcry. But even if the High Court grants their wish, their status will remain unchanged. There are fewer than 100 congregations in Israel that describe themselves as Reform or Conservative, and most are small; compare that to thousands of active and growing Orthodox congregations. Only spiritual influence, not High Court rulings, can fill their ranks – and influence legislation.

Harel is correct that the Reform and Conservative movements should have official status alongside Orthodoxy in Israel, but he is, and frankly most Israelis are, grossly incorrect about why they do not already have such status and therefore his conclusions are totally incorrect as well. The lack of affiliated Reform and Conservative Jews in Israel is primarily due to systematic discrimination against non-Orthodox Jewry in Israel that has existed for decades.

Just for starters, Orthodox synagogues are funded by the state, their rabbis paid by the state. Reform and Conservative Jews are forced to pay all of the expenses for their synagogues and pay 100% of the compensation for their rabbis. It is much like Public vs. Private schools in the United States. Israelis have already paid for the Orthodox institutions and have to pony up additional funds to attend and support Reform and Conservative ones. To argue that the playing field is in any way fair, one must be wantonly ignorant. Did I mention that only Orthodox rabbis can perform marriages approved by the state? People wishing Reform or Conservative ceremonies must leave Israel, get married elsewhere, and then return to have a religious ceremony after the fact.

One must wonder whether or not absent these facts there would already be hundreds of thousands of Reform and Conservative Jews in Israel if the state would ALLOW them! How many of those 300,000 Russian Olim would be in Reform and Conservative congregations??? Unfortunately for the Reform and Conservative movements in Israel, only the High Court has had the sense to recognize that a Democratic country should not discriminate on the basis of religion!!!

If the playing field were remotely level, if the laws and funding were remotely fair and the situation remained one in which Reform and Conservative Jews failed to obtain adherents, we could then realistically talk about the “spiritual influence.” But right now, Orthodox leaders may threaten to disallow marriages, prevent conversion to Reform or Conservative Judaism, and the cost of being a Reform or Conservative Jew in Israel is  hundreds or even thousands of Shekels per year over the cost of being Orthodox in Israel because the Orthodox institutions are paid for by the state!!! It is an outrageous misrepresentation to argue that “if only more Reform Jews came to Israel” as some do or “if only they worked harder to reach out with spiritual influence” Reform and Conservative Jews would be treated fairly and equally. In a Democracy, in a Democratic Jewish state, equality should be law and fact. It is one of the greatest failings of the Jewish state that this is not the case and as a devoted lover and defender of Israel, it is terribly painful for me to see this occurring. The problem is with institutionalized and legal discrimination against non-Orthodox Judaism. We need to stop pretending that further strengthening or consolidating power in a system that is anti-Democratic and discriminates against Jews will somehow strengthen Israel as a Jewish state and benefit the Jewish people. It does neither.

On the other hand, it does jeopardize the vital relationship between Israel and America. America’s Jews are overwhelmingly from those movements whose adherents are discriminated against in Israel. If Israel does not solve its discrimination problem, in the long run, the vital relationship will deteriorate. The Conversion Bill is a giant leap in the wrong direction. Thankfully it has been tabled for six months so that saner heads might prevail.

PM Netanyahu said:

The changes in the conversion laws should be reached through broad understanding, to prevent a schism in the Jewish people. Unity is a primary national interest, and I am determined to preserve it.

The Jewish Federations of North Americaâ€s President and CEO Jerry Silverman welcomed the agreement as “significant” and said in response to Netanyahu’s announcement:

We truly support this process of a dialogue table, which allows the participants time to discuss this important issue appropriately and reach a solution that protects the bonds between Israel and the Diaspora. We are also thrilled that Natan Sharansky will be leading the process.

There are 300,000 Russian Olim who are not Jewish. Last year, there were 2,000 conversions performed in Israel. Two thousand, not 20,000, not 50,000, not 100,000. Two thousand.  One of the major complaints, even from Orthodox rabbis, about this bill is that it would not significantly increase that 2,000 number. Even if it doubles, it would be a far cry from addressing the needs of 300,000.  Orthodox conversion is simply not the answer. Perhaps, just perhaps, Reform and Conservative Judaism can help. By the way, of the 2,000 conversions performed in Israel last year, 200 were Reform and that was without a dime of help from the government.