Texas Jewish Post (Fort Worth, Tex.), Vol. 46, No. 30, Ed. 1 Thursday, July 23, 1992 Page: 2 of 24
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Feature 2
TEXAS JEWISH POST, THURSDAY, JULY23, 1992-IN OUR 46tTH YEAR!
Merger Between Right-Wing
Conservatives and Left-Wing
Orthodox Rabbi’s May Be Formalized
By Jonathan Mark
The New York Jewish Week
NEW YORK (JTA) — An interde-
nominational merger of two rabbinical
groups, uniting several hundred right-
wing Conservative rabbis and leftwing
Orthodox rabbis, will soon be formalized
under the umbrella of the Union for Tra-
ditional Judaism, according to a union
official.
Rabbi Ronald Price, executive vice
president of the IJTJ. said at the group’s
recent conference in Mount Vernon, N. Y.,
that an agreement to bring the Fellowship
of Traditional Orthodox Rabbis into the
UTJ will be announced shortly.
iCWe have to do something
that indicates we are will-
ing to step out of our politi-
cal boundaries ” he said,
“to embrace Jews ” that are
“philosophically, virtually
indistinguishable from
Although it was the group’s ninth con-
vention, it was only its second since as-
serting its 1990 declaration of indepen-
dence from the Conservative movement.
The theme of the gathering was best
expressed by Rabbi David Novak, a UTJ
vice president. “We have to do some-
thing that indicates we are willing to step
out of our political boundaries,” he said,
“to embrace Jews” that are “philosophi-
cally, virtually indistinguishable from us.”
Some members of the forthcoming rab-
binical association said it will be a home
for those who are committed to halacha
(Jewish law) but remain frustrated by
denominational politics, extremist trends
and the collapse of the center within
Orthodox and Conservative Judaism.
“Our spiritual center has shifted to a
new location,” said Novak, who was or-
dained as a Conservative rabbi. The “rem -
nants” of right-wing Conservatives and
left-wing Orthodox Jews “realize that
their spiritual home now has to be in a
new place that they have to begin, with
God’s help, to construct themselves.”
According to Price, the UTJ has 8,000
family memberships and 350 member
rabbis; the FIUR has between 50 and
100 rabbis.
The Union of Traditional Conserva-
tive Judaism was founded in 1983 by
rabbis and scholars seeking to be a con-
servative influence within the Conserva-
tive movement. Ihe founders were par-
ticularly dismayed by what they said was
the steady erosion, laxity and democratiza-
tion of the Conservative halachic process,
particularly regarding the ordination of
women.
In the spring of 1990, the union dropped
the Conservative label and established a
new seminary, the Institute for Traditional
Judaism, that only ordains men.
The institute is led by Rabbi David
Weiss Halivni, the internationally renowned
talmudic scholar, who is the spiritual men-
tor of the union. Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel
and Harvard University Yiddish Professor
Ruth Wisse are among the institute’s aca-
demic advisers.
There are 17 rabbinical students at the
ITJ, which just concluded its First year of
operation.
The UTJ is in the process
of re-examining such long-
time Conservative innova-
tions as driving to syna-
gogue on the Sabbath and
mixed seating in syna-
gogues. _
The institute is intended not only for
those seeking to enter the rabbinate but for
those who already have ordination from
the Jewish Theological Seminary and wish
to study further or obtain a second ordina-
tion.
“The observant Jewish
community can*shreigevalt’
(wring its hands) over the
religious polarization beset-
ting it, ” UTJ Executive Vice
President Price told the con-
vention. “Or like-minded,
clear-thinking Jews like us,
regardless of label, can
stand up and say *ad kanf”
up to here and no further.
The UTJ is in the process of re-examin-
ing such longtime Conservative innova-
tions as driving to synagogue on the Sab-
bath and mixed seating in synagogues. The
union has also developed new guidelines
for a “living will” and has undertaken a
considerable number of outreach initia-
tives.
The Fellowship of Traditional Orthodox
Rabbis was founded in 1987 out of what
members said was their “frustration” at the
failure of liberal Orthodox rabbis to be
given a voice within the Modem Orthodox
organizational mainstream.
The FTOR has taken stands such as
approving women’s prayer groups and urg-
ing halachic elasticity for synagogues strad-
dling the Orthodox Conservative fence. It
strongly supported CL AL President Rabbi
Irving Greenberg when he fended off an
attack by some Orthodox rabbis against
CLAL’s attempts at interdenominational
detente.
“The observant Jewish community can
‘shrei gevalt’ (wring its hands) over the
religious polarization besetting it,” UTJ
Executive Vice President Price told the
convention. “Or like-minded, clear-think-
ing Jews like us, regardless of label, can
stand up and say ‘ad kan,”’ up to here and
no further.
Over the last several years the Rabbinical
Yuter, a former Conserva-
tive rabbi who became Or-
thodox, said: “I believe in
Torah, not turf. The leader-
ship of the UTJ are shomer
Torah and mitzvot (obser-
vant Jews) and are going in
the right direction.”
Council of America, an Orthodox group,
has suspended rabbis holding dual RCA-
FTOR memberships, removing their RCA
imprimatur for performing marriages, con-
versions and divorces. The suspensions were
overturned and the FTOR rabbis restored to
“good standing” at the RCA’s 1991 general
convention.
Rabbi Alan Yuter of Springfield, N.J.,
one of the RCA’s more vocal opponents of
the FTOR, came to the UTJ convention and
taught a class there. Yuter, a former Con-
servative rabbi who became Orthodox, said:
“1 believe in Torah, not turf. The leadership
of the UTJ are shomer Torah and mitzvot
(observant Jews) and are going in the right
■direction.”
Rabbi Avi Weiss, the activist from the
Riverdale section of the Bronx, and the
most prominent FTOR rabbi, presented an
address at the convention in which he noted
that Orthodoxy was not only”circling the
wagons” and moving inward, but that there
has been a surge of belief in the doctrine of
Daas Torah. This doctrine holds that Torah
sages acquire “quasiprophetic” insight into
all problems — leading to an Orthodoxy
that is more “absolutist,” said Weiss.
On the other hand, Weiss predicted that
the non-Orthodox movements will merge,
adopt the doctrine of patrilineal descent and
create “a new definition of Jewish nation-
hood” that will be rejected by traditional-
ists.
“It is clear to me,” said Weiss, “that
Modern Orthodoxy stands as a distinctive
movement, with its own ideology, although
sharing fundamental halachic commitments
with the Orthodox right. You (the UTJ) will
need to define precisely where you will
stand in the configuration of ideology and
halacha as they are evolving.”
Price said the new rabbinic group in
formation will be a subgroup within the
UTJ and not an independent organization.
“We are not interested,” Price said, “in
creating more institutions aside from the
institute.”
Price explained that the UTJ could not
yet vouch for anyone’s rabbinic creden-
tials.
“Eventually we will have a process in
which a rabbi who will want to be validated
through the union will have to submit an
application and take a test on practical
halacha,” he said, to determine that a UTJ
rabbi is up to certain standards. Otherwise,
rabbis will be eligible for general member-
ship.
Price indentified several problems in the
Conservative movement that the UTJ will
attempt to avoid.
“What has happened (at the Jewish Theo-
logical Seminary) is the incorporation of
secular values into what they would like to
For us, halacha still has
veto over secular values. We
don% and we won% pretend
that halacha is democratic.
“Additionally, the laity
were never taught that
halacha has that veto. ”
think is a Jewish lifestyle,” he said. “The
secular values have a veto rather than a
vote. For us, halacha still has veto over
secular values. We don’t, and we won’t,
pretend that halacha is democratic.
“Additionally, the laity were never taught
that halacha has that veto,” he said. “For
example, the Conservative movement has
avoided the whole issue of taharat
hamishpacha (marital purity) for decades.
They led people to believe that it was not
really an important part of halacha, that it
was not as crucial, valid and valued as
Shabbat or kashrut.”
Price reports that a growing number of
synagogues and day schools are approach-
ing the UTJ for help in finding rabbis and
principals.
“We’re not advertising our services,”
said Price. “Yet these schools and syna-
gogues are finding us because there is a
desperate need.”
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Wisch, J. A. & Wisch, Rene. Texas Jewish Post (Fort Worth, Tex.), Vol. 46, No. 30, Ed. 1 Thursday, July 23, 1992, newspaper, July 23, 1992; Fort Worth, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth755427/m1/2/?q=%22%22~1: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; .