Reform Lady Rabbi Seeks Israeli Recognition
The New Israel Fund reports,
Rabbi Miri Gold of the Birkat Shalom congregation in Gezer has petitioned Israel’s Supreme Court to be recognized as a state-paid official ministering to the spiritual needs of the community. Rabbi Gold submitted her petition with veteran NIF grantee Israel Religious Action Center (IRAC) of the Movement for Progressive Judaism in Israel (Reform) and the Gezer Regional Council, which is located midway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
Rabbi Gold told NIF News that she was not a person who normally seeks publicity but that she felt that she was undertaking a sacred mission when IRAC asked her to become a test case for tolerance in Israeli society.
“We do not seek to coerce Orthodox Jews,” Rabbi Gold stressed. “But we feel that taxpayers have the right to choose between the Orthodox, Conservative and Reform streams.”
Born in Detroit, Rabbi Gold’s grandparents were Orthodox and she was raised in a Conservative community. She immigrated to Israel in 1977 and became the community leader of Gezer’s Reform synagogue years before she was ordained a rabbi at Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem in 1999. The story of Rabbi Gold’s petition was widely covered by the media and she received dozens of e-mails of support from friends around the world who read about her on the Internet.
“The media coverage was very important in raising awareness among secular Israeli Jews many of whom are seeking a more liberal form of Judaism,” she added.
Orly Erez- Likhovski, the lawyer representing the petitioners, noted that “There are hundreds of state-paid rabbis appointed to minister the spiritual needs of the residents of cities, towns and districts in neighborhoods in Israel. Every last one of them is an Orthodox male. Not a single one belongs to the liberal streams of Reform and Conservative Judaism.”
“Lady rabbi”?
Jeez, dude, can you get any more patronizing?
geez hypersensitive much what? i down with women rabbis.
That’s much better. ;O)
Shana tova.
U SUCK….why shouldnt women be rabbi’s…we r just as educated and profound as any man-especially people like you who put us down….stupidheads…
Cry cry cry. It’s bad enough Israel is a secular country, they least it can do is continue to support Torah true Judaism, and not some protestant xtianity rip off. Simply because she doesn’t want to follow the rules of the very religion and text she claims adherence to, doesn’t mean she gets the right to sell a mutilated religion.