Understanding Israeli Reform and Conservative Movement

The biggest advantage of getting in touch with other communities and ways of thinking that it challenges your familiar ways of perceiving your home reality. Upon return, one might want to change the home reality or at least to find the islands of comfort that he or she encountered abroad.

The Reform and Conservative Judaism - which, according to a poll by the Israeli Democracy Institute do enjoy the support of 7% of the Israeli population - are gradually entering the religious scenery, where the main actors are the Orthodox and Haredi representatives. The orientation of secular, kibbutz-born Israeli towards those movements are part of a larger return to religiosity, but in a way which turns it back definitely to the 'all-or-nothing' mainstream. 

The Israeli Reformation, a publication by Haaretz offers a good introduction into those relatively new religious trends, through article written mostly by regular journalists at the publication, among which Anshel Pfeffer.

Although the Reform and Conservative Movements are active in Israel for decades, in the last years, there is an increase of its presence, in places like Modi'in, Beer Sheva, or the newly privatized kibbutzim. In comparison to the US-breed movement, it has a predominant Zionist orientation, and does not receive any state support - as in the case of the 'official' Judaism represented by the Rabbinat. There are synagogues whose conversion programs are certified by the Ministry of Interior but still because of the Rabbinat, it does not allow the new converts to marry in Israel - which means that they can do a civil marriage in places like Czech Republic or Cyprus. Partnerships were created with non-religious schools and many Israeli with a secular background, prefer to attend the religious service by them, instead of the other gender-separated alternatives. It speaks English and Hebrew, but also the Spanish of Latin American countries, such as Argentina, whose recently emigrated to Israel Jews are largely secular.

The booklet it is a good overview of the main trends and includes those movements into Israel's bigger religious picture. It does not approach directly the frequent conflicts such as the issue of the Women of the Wall (WOW) and other administrative and political problems. But the reader can have a good start for a further investigation into the main actors and the current religious debates.