I want to introduce you to my friend, Miri Gold.
A gentle, unassuming lady, you’d never know to look at her that she’s at the centre of a landmark legal case that could change the face of Israeli society. Rabbi Gold is the beloved spiritual leader of Kibbutz Gezer, but is the only one of seventeen rabbis in the region not recognized or paid for her services by the State—because she is not Orthodox, and not a man. Through her formal challenge to the entrenched Orthodox monopoly of “Official” Judaism in Israel, Rabbi Gold has become a true champion for justice. I am proud to add that she became my mentor during my first year in Rabbinical School.
Rabbi Gold is the main protagonist in a dramatic petition to Israel’s Supreme Court demanding equal footing with the Orthodox for Reform and Conservative rabbis. Astoundingly, only Orthodox rabbis are currently recognized by the Jewish State; Progressive rabbis have no civil authority. Israel is the only country on earth in which a Jew’s own rabbi may be barred from performing his or her civil marriage. Orthodox interpretation of Jewish law holds sway in matters of “personal status” such that Non-Orthodox Jews who wish to marry must leave the State to have their relationships recognized by a civil authority. Orthodox rabbis are paid by the State; Progressive rabbis are not.
Rabbi Gold, and her husband, David Leichman, made aliyah to Kibbutz Gezer in 1977. She has served as the rabbi of Birkat Shalom, the congregation there, since her ordination by the Hebrew Union College in 1999—when she become only the third female rabbi in the State of Israel. Currently, the sixteen other local rabbis who serve the area of the Gezer regional council receive a State salary. Rabbi Gold, the recognized rabbi of her community, serves the entire region but is discriminated against by the State because she is a Reform rabbi. In fact, there is not a single Reform rabbi recognized by the State of Israel out of the thousands of recognized rabbis!
Rabbi Gold remembers several years ago when “the secretary of the Gezer Regional Council listed me, in the spirit of protest, as the rabbi of Kibbutz Gezer. He insisted, saying, ‘You are the rabbi and I’m putting your name on the council’s website.’ At that point in time, we were very cautious and told him, ‘Write M. Gold, not Miri Gold,’ and he said, ‘No way!’”
The significance of Rabbi Gold’s case was identified by the Israel Religious Action Center (IRAC), the arm of the Progressive Movement fighting for religious pluralism and equality, social justice, civil rights, and the rights of the Olim (New Immigrants) in the State of Israel. IRAC asked Rabbi Gold if it could make her case a test of the conflict between Israel’s stated standard of non-discrimination and its policy of Orthodox monopoly. For Gold, the battle is not about compensation, but about fairness and the Jewish State’s ideals. “Israel has to be, has to exist, but not just in any old way. Israel has to exist as a democracy, as a place where Judaism can flourish in many different ways. A place that Jews around the world can consider a beacon, a State to be proud of.” (www.rac.org)
Judaism has never been monolithic. In fact, there has always been a range of ways to be Jewish. We all know that Sephardic, Ashkenazic, and Mizrachi Jews live and practice differently from each other—and that there are wide ranges of practice even within these traditions. Even when the Temple stood, the Pharisees, Sadducees, Essences and others believed and practiced Judaism differently. Indeed, diversity is a hallmark of a strong community. The modern State of Israel is strong enough to recognize that a range of legitimate Jewish practice exists.
Thanks to the appeal brought by IRAC and the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism, the Israeli Supreme Court has ordered the State to present the criteria whereby rabbis are recognized. Although it has not yet replied, we hope that, for the first time in its history, the Jewish State will be a true haven for all forms of Judaism and all kinds of Jews, and will adopt a set of criteria that the Supreme Court will find just and equal. Now that is something worth hoping—and fighting—for.
Although we are far away, we can support Rabbi Gold. IRAC has created an online petition where the Jews of the world can register our support for Rabbi Gold and, indeed, religious pluralism and equality in the State of Israel. I urge you to visit www.irac.org/petitionsign.aspx and join me in making your voice heard. Rabbi Gold personally asked me to invite the Beth Shalom community to support her cause, and I hope you will find a moment to support her cause. After all, it is our own.
The petition will be delivered to President Shimon Peres and reads as follows:
A call for the State of Israel to officially recognize Rabbi Miri Gold.
We the undersigned believe the time is long overdue for our nation to recognize that there is more than one way to practice Judaism and to acknowledge the value and importance of supporting spiritual leaders of all denominations to the stability and growth of our communities and our quality of life.
WHEREAS
1. Despite being the most popular and effective rabbi in the Gezer region, Rabbi Miri Gold is the only one who does not receive a salary from the State;
2. Rabbi Gold is denied equal status solely because she is female and Reform;
3. In 2005 Rabbi Gold, along with the Israel Religious Action Center, petitioned the Supreme Court for recognition, however the Court has repeatedly delayed making a decision;
4. Though only 17% of Jews in Israel identify as Orthodox and 12% as traditional, Orthodox rabbis are the only ones recognized, and therefore, funded by the government; and
5. The spiritual needs of 71% of Israelis are going unmet and even being denied, a form of brazen discrimination against liberal Jews.
THEREFORE – We urgently call on you to recognize immediately Miri Gold as an official rabbi of the Gezer Community and apply government funding to support the work of Rabbi Miri Gold and her peers, and to equally support all streams of Judaism in the spirit of Klal Yisrael, thereby fulfilling the religious pluralism and freedom that should be the hallmarks of the only Jewish and democratic state.
Ken y’hi ratzon—may this be God’s will.
