Eighteenth-century Rabbi Schneur zalman of
Liadi explained this in his famous work Likkutei
Torah as all Jews standing equally and united
before God despite their differences.

Vayelech also concludes, when Moses ad-
dresses “the entire assembly of Israel”
(Deuteronomy 29:1), in a unified manner. Such
a colorful image is harder to picture today, when
headlines and op-eds tend to stress divisiveness,
and the parts over the whole.

“I come from a family with a Haredi brother.

I am Modern Orthodox. I have a sister who is
secular. Growing up, my father was secular and
my mom religious. If we can pull it off under
one roof, I believe so can society in general,”
says Shaked.

Shaked, together with one Haredi Orthodox
and one secular woman, spent two and a half
years discussing the topics that divide and unite
Jewish women, and then embarked on a mission
to teach others that while Jews might not always
agree ideologically, politically or religiously, they can be united. This is the
topic of her book.

Rabbi Joel Oseran, vice president emeritus for international development
at the World union for Progressive Judaism, says that in his experience it
is “rare to see the common good having the highest value,” especially in
Israel where “the playing field among denominations is not level at all.”
“When I am right and you are wrong, how can there be diversity?” Os-
eran asks. “You have to allow for more than one way to be right in order to
respect diversity.”
30 THE GUIDE 2016/2017
Shaked disagrees, saying that unity and
friendship have little to do with accepting oth-
ers’ opinions or hoping to change them.

“It’s naive to think that anyone will change
his or her mind,” she says, and it has more to
do with a belief that people can become friends
in spite of differences in levels of religious ob-
servance. “It is very easy to rip apart the other. It is
very difficult to look for the positive,” Shaked
says. “Irrespective on which religious back-
ground you come from, you have to ask your-
self: Do I look to build bridges or do I look to
inflame?” This has been Marne Rochester’s modus
operandi. An active Conservative Jew, Rochester
moved to Israel 26 years ago. In the Jewish state,
she maintains her Conservative identity, while
sending her daughter to a religious school and
praying at a variety of different synagogues. She
is most active in a Jerusalem Masorti congre-
gation, but she also attends a Sephardic, egalitarian minyan.

“I think Conservative and Orthodox, and Conservative and Reform
have a lot in common,” says Rochester. “Both the Orthodox and Conser-
vative movements are halachic movements. We just see the interpretation
more liberally than the Orthodox.”
When it comes to daily life, she says it’s easy to get along — especially in
Israel where Conservative congregants tend to follow more of the movement’s
code of conduct, as opposed to the united States, where “a lot of people who
belong to Conservative shuls don’t necessarily go by what the movement says.”




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