O pinion
A Step Toward Religious Jews Should Embrace American
Freedom in Israel
Evangelical Friendship and Support
MID-ATLANTIC MEDIA EDITORIAL BOARD
LAST WEEK, Israel’s Supreme
Court ruled 8-1 that non-Or-
thodox conversions must be
recognized for purposes of
citizenship under Israel’s Law
of Return. The decision was a
welcome step toward making
the Jewish state a land of
religious freedom for Jews.

Unfortunately, the realities
of Israeli politics could lead to
the ruling being overturned
by the Knesset. The court
decision — which came as a
surprise to most — related to
cases that had been on hold for
15 years, as the court waited
for the government to address
the issue through legisla-
tion. Finally recognizing the
futility of waiting, the court
ruled. But even though the
ruling is significant for Law
of Return purposes, it did
nothing to loosen the haredi
Rabbinate’s stranglehold on
personal status issues in the
Jewish state.

Israel’s Law of Return, which
confers a fast track to citizen-
ship, defines a Jew as “one who
was born to a Jewish mother
or converted, while not being
a member of another religion.”
The court held that conver-
sion in Israel under Reform
or Conservative auspices met
that test. As noted by Harvard
law professor Noah Feldman
in Bloomberg Opinion, “The
question before the court was
not whether Conservative
or Reform conversions were
religiously valid, but whether
they counted socioculturally as
‘Jewish.’” The court concluded
that for those purposes, non-Or-
thodox conversions counted.

Nonetheless, according to
Feldman, the ruling was a signal
“that the country’s legal elites
are tired of deferring to the de
facto Orthodox monopoly over
defining Judaism in Israel,” and
a forceful nod by the justices
“in support of intra-Jewish
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM egalitarianism.”
The ruling was largely
celebrated in the Diaspora, where
the issue of religious pluralism is
a big deal. In Israel, however,
the issue has less currency. So it
was primarily the religious and
political leaders in the country’s
haredi community that reacted
most strongly — and their criti-
cism was stinging.

Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi David
Lau said those who undergo
Reform or Conservative conver-
sions “are not Jews.” And
according to Chief Sephardic
Rabbi Yitzak Yosef: “What the
Reform and Conservatives
call ‘conversion’ is nothing but
a forgery of Judaism.” Interior
Minister Aryeh Deri, of the haredi
Shas party, pledged to overturn
the decision through legislation,
since it constitutes “a mortal blow
to the Jewish character of the
state” and the “complete demoli-
tion of the status quo [on religious
affairs in Israel] that has been
upheld for over 70 years.”
The “status quo” to which
Deri referred dates back to a
time when Israel’s character,
population and politics were
much different than they are
today. Much has changed since
1948. Non-Orthodox streams
of Judaism account for the vast
majority of the world’s Jewish
population, and their influ-
ence is growing in the majority
secular Jewish state. That is
an issue Israel will have to
address as it works to sustain
its foundational commitment
to being both Jewish and
democratic. In the meantime, a move
toward religious freedom and
religious tolerance is a good
thing. Last week’s Supreme
Court ruling is a step in the
right direction. It is something
to be celebrated. l
Mid-Atlantic Media’s editorial board
is composed of media owners and
journalists from Washington, D.C.,
Maryland and Philadelphia.

BY WILLIAM WANGER
IN A RECENT ISSUE of the
Jewish Exponent, there was a
review of the new documen-
tary “’Til Kingdom Come,”
which investigates American
evangelical Christian support
for Israel and which screened
last month at the Gershman
Jewish Film Festival in
Philadelphia. It sounds as
though the filmmaker, Maya
Zinshtein, could have benefited
from doing more research, as
the film apparently simplisti-
cally asserts that the reason
evangelicals support Israel
financially and otherwise, and
show warmth for the Jewish
People, is to convert Jews, and
prepare for the rapture and
Armageddon, during which
Jews will be asked to convert to
Christianity. For a more balanced view,
Zinshtein should have looked
at pro-evangelical sources, like
David Brog’s “Standing with
Israel: Why Christians Support
the Jewish State.” In that book,
the Jewish author states the
primary reason for American
evangelical support for Israel,
and their love for the Jewish
people, is that God said, in
Genesis, that “He will bless
those who bless the Jews, and
curse those who curse the Jews;
and that all peoples on Earth
will be blessed through the
Jewish People.”
That’s it. Oh, and evangeli-
cals believe that God actually
said what is written in Genesis
(and, unlike most Jews, they
JEWISH EXPONENT
can cite the specific Torah
chapter and verse), and
they believe that the post-
Holocaust watchwords “never
again” obligate those modern
Righteous Gentiles to demon-
strate that “never again” is not
a mere platitude.

I am a Zionist, a pro-Israel
advocate and a proud Jewish
American who was brought up
in a Conservative Jewish home.

For decades, I have worked
with evangelical groups,
including Christians United
for Israel and the Delaware-
based Olive Tree Ministries,
on a multitude of pro-Israel-
related matters. In addition,
my business life has brought
me into close and regular
contact with evangelicals.

Among other things,
evangelicals showed me how
to bring God into nearly every
aspect of our modern lives,
from reading (Old Testament,
in my honor) prayers before
board meetings, to treating
employees as family, to humbly
performing charitable acts and
tithing, all to better the lives
of their neighbors (many of
whom are recent immigrants)
and directly support their
greater community. While,
perhaps, my Judaism might
also have taught me those
things, it was my interaction
with Old Testament-steeped
evangelicals that brought
them home.

Moreover, on more than
one occasion, I have sadly
felt more aligned with my
eva ngelical friends than with
my Reform Jewish co-religion-
ists on matters involving
Israel’s security, including the
Golan Heights; Israel’s legal
and the Jewish people’s ances-
tral rights to a united Jerusalem
and Judea and Samaria;
calling out
Palestinian violence and “play to slay”
policies; and demanding that
Israel’s actions be measured
by the same moral and legal
standards that the world
applies to other nations. The
number of evangelicals who
regularly write and visit legis-
lators advocating on pro-Israel
matters, travel to Israel (even
during the intifadas) and
contribute to pro-Israel causes
dwarfs that of most of the
greater American Jewish
community. At none of the CUFI
“Nights to Honor Israel” or
in any of my other interac-
tions with evangelicals was
my conversion, “tribula-
tions,” Armageddon or the
rapture ever mentioned or
implied. Rather, I have seen
Israel honored, and Jews and
Judaism venerated. Unlike
the people interviewed in
the documentary, I am not
uncomfortable with evangel-
ical pro-Israel support and
philosemitism. Would some
evangelicals like Jews to
convert to Christianity? Of
course. Do some support
the Jewish return to Israel to
hasten Jesus’ return to Earth?
Surely. Do some evangelicals
believe that I will not go to
heaven because I don’t accept
Jesus as my savior? Yes. My
response is: “So what?”
I know that the hearts of
some of my evangelical friends
truly ache because they fear I
will not go to heaven. Clearly,
Jews and American evangeli-
cals have different theologies.

I simply don’t agree with them;
and will worry about the after-
life when I get there. That’s
what comes through my
knowledge of my religion, its
beliefs and appreciation of its
particular teachings, laws and
values. Frankly, I say leave it to God
to sort out whose theology is
true, offers a better path to
promoting human goodness
and provides a better value
system. As Dennis Prager and
See Wanger, Page 24
MARCH 11, 2021
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