Who would have thought that some of the bad guys – from the perspective of non-Orthodox American Jews –would now be the good guys? That’s one revelation from a glance at the latest round of the “Who Is A Jew” controversy.

But first meet David Rotem, a newcomer to the roughly 2,000-year-old debate. In recent months, the secular Israeli politician from the Yisrael Beitenu (“Israel Is Our Home”) Party brought forward various versions of a “conversion bill,” one that would formally define in Israel a Jew as being one who either was born to a Jewish mother or converted in the Jewish state by an Orthodox rabbi paid by the Orthodox-controlled Chief Rabbinate’s office.

Last week Rotem surprised everyone by getting out of committee and onto the Knesset floor a bill for the first of three required votes.

Fortunately, that vote was promptly delayed, which put the matter in a two-month hiatus as the Knesset summer recess began on Thursday, July 22. And on Tuesday this week, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu – who performed quite poorly in the 1997-99 round on the matter – engineered a compromise for a six-month delay. Netanyahu has vowed that he will not let this bill “tear apart” the Jewish people, which indeed it could.

His compromise brings the input of a coalition of non-Orthodox groups, including the Jewish Agency for Israel, with whom the pluralistic North American Jewish federations (including Baltimore’s The Associated: Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore) is a partner. Last time around, Sharansky was charged with Netanyahu to placate angry American Jews on the issue.

What does Mr. Rotem’s new measure do? First, he says it will help hundreds of thousands of Israelis from the former Soviet Union who are not Jewish convert. That would happen by letting them “shop around” for rabbis approved by the Chief Rabbinate. At present, one must use the state-paid rabbis in their area, meaning they might be stuck with a strict one on keeping Jewish law (which has never been a prerequisite for born Jews).

Rotem’s bill also says that the new conversions can never be overturned – as has happened in recent years due to Orthodox infighting, amongst other matters.

That all sounds noble. But it’s not. In fact, it opens the door for corruption and cynicism. It’s part of the inevitable toxic mix of state-mandated religious norms. Admittedly, Israel will never deal with such matters as the United States does. But it certainly can do better than create even more animosity to all things Jewish.

Where do American Jews come in? We must continually raise this issue with Israeli leaders and friends. At the heart of such efforts must be embracing the reality that the Jewish state is indeed the center of the spoke wheel of world Jewry; that means its rulings on religious matters count everywhere. Yes, non-Orthodox religious Jews – for complicated reasons, including lack of government support – are a small minority within Israel. Yet the reverse stands true elsewhere.

The bottom line: Israel’s law certainly needs change. But cheapening religion to find a more lenient rabbi as well as ignoring non-Orthodox Jewry en masse emits an unwelcome odor. 

ADDENDUM
No one can explain to me why the compromise of 1998 – the Neeman Commission’s work – is no longer valid. It called for potential converts in Israel to study with the rabbi of their choice in an approved curriculum and then they would be validated by an Orthodox beit din (or rabbinical court). In exchange, the non-Orthodox religious groups dropped their lawsuits in front of the Israel Supreme Court.

So everyone compromised – for a while. Then some Orthodox rabbis began declaring the “conversion courts” invalid… and here we are again.

I’m betting in the end we wind up with the same thing – and the same ultimate results to this age-old Jewish spat.

It’s not often that you’re tapped for a minyan in a room full of 4,000 evangelical Christians. Nonetheless, Wednesday night one of the 20 or so Orthodox men also there—no doubt noticing the kippah on my head – walked up to me at the press table and simply said, “Minchah” and pointed over yonder.

No need for a Talmudic debate on what that meant. So I joined the group heading toward a corner of the cavernous hall turned banquet space. As we walked, Hebrew songs blared and people sitting at the several hundred large round tables waved Israeli and American flags to the tunes.

Welcome to the Christians United for Israel (http://www.cufi.org ) annual gathering in the nation’s capital, one that features two days of workshops followed by a journey to Capital Hill to lobby Congress on further cementing strong U.S.-Israel ties.

I’ll be writing more during the week about this, but I want to get a few impressions out now as in addition to hearing workshops and overhearing a lot of hall chatter, I had sit-down interviews with about a dozen people. They were sincere, diverse and well informed.

• They did not like President Barack Obama – which is a polite way of putting it. Indeed, nearly every speaker during the three-day event (and there were plenty of Jewish ones, including Republican Jewish Council head Matt Brooks) could be identified with the GOP. (Where do we fit Sen. Joe Lieberman?) The star lineup also included American Values head and former presidential candidate Gary Bauer, Sen. Rick Santorum and Rep. Eric Cantor. For good measure, we’ll toss in former National Security Council staffer Eliot Abrams, US News & World Report boss Mort Zuckerman and Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren. The latter’s boss – Binyamin Netanyahu – appeared on a live satellite feed, which had the delegates leap to their feet with cheers.

• The three main political points they took to the hill: Stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon; support Israel’s right to defend itself; and Israel is not the problem and pressure on it is not the solution.

• The common theological refrain: God commands us in Genesis to bless the descendants of Abraham, who are the Jewish people. “Replacement theology,” which says God’s covenant with the Jews has passed on to Christians (generally referred to as “the church”) is offensive. Jews still have that covenant and God’s protection. So anti-Semitism is a sin against God; we Christians know that we have messed that one up badly, but will not allow for another Holocaust.

And no, not one peep was heard publicly about end-time scenarios in which those Jews who survive the Armageddon will become “complete Jews” by turning to the returned Jesus as humanity’s savior. Nor was there a mixing of agendas. The words “abortion,” “prayer in school” and “family values” were not heard. They kept on message.

From a Jewish perspective, the scenes were simply wild. There was energetic hora dancing as the live band played Havanagilah, Hineh Ma Tov and more. There were scripture readings (both Hebrew and New Testament) all in English. There were roaring bible-thumping speeches by Pastor John Hagee (who founded the operation). There was a passionate, thundering endorsement by a rabbi he befriended in Texas 30 years ago. There was praise of members of Hispanic and African American churches participating as their representatives rose to much applause.

There was even an “offering” collected – this one to support CUFI’s work on college campuses (and the 400 college students there made their presence known, prompting the Rev. Hagee to smile and say, “Oh, to be young again.”)

Not surprisingly, nearly all the representatives of the media with whom I was sitting seemed to be Jewish (although a few represented Christian TV stations and operations). It’s fair to say that we were amazed by the energy of people of all ages, the singularity of commitment and the very un-Jewish flavor of the event.

Oh, the stories I have to tell this Shabbat!

Now – more than six decades after the Nazi’s “final solution to the Jewish question” rightly was crushed by civilized humanity, debates over the Shoah’s moral legacy seem to appear with increasing frequency. The latest chapter in that painful effort has come to our own state.

It’s in the form of a roughly $1 billion bid to the Maryland Transit Authority by Keolis Rail Services, which wants to operate the Maryland Area Regional Commuter (MARC) train service lines for Brunswick and Camden – the ones thousands of people take every day.

The problem: The majority owner of Keolis is the French railway company SNCF or the Societe Nationale des Chemins de Fer Francais. That line, partially owned by the French government since 1938, transported nearly 77,000 Jews and other victims from France to Nazi concentration camps. Even more horrifying is that doing so was profitable.

The Nazis paid SNCF for the deportations per person and per kilometer.
So it’s no surprise that a group of 269 Holocaust survivors – include two living in Pikesville—are heatedly criticizing the Virginia Railway Express for awarding an $85 million contract to Keolis. Attorneys for the group want SNCF to not only acknowledge and apologize for its role in the Holocaust, but to pay reparations of some sort. And the Maryland participants are not interested in seeing the company gain from our state without the same.

MTA officials will not say when they will decide on who gets the contract, and certainly don’t welcome the publicity. Still, they are declaring the need for secrecy on such matters because other bids are coming in. That’s offensive. This is public business and no one is asking them to give out details of the proposed contract itself.

Meanwhile, the rail company should indeed apologize with sincerity. In acknowledging its complicity in humanity’s most documented crime, it should find a way to financially support educational efforts to perpetuate the profoundly tragic lessons of the Shoah. That can come in the support of the aging survivors themselves, Holocaust museums such as the ones in Washington, Israel or France, and in the underwriting of educational curriculum.

Frankly, the money is not as important as the intent – but the money does make heads turn and corporations think about the ethics of what they do (or at least let them know they can held responsible for their actions). We cannot and dare not ever forget the Holocaust. The challenge now is living with its heavy memory as we seek to forge a responsible society that both embraces the past while striving to create a more cohesive, promising future.

U.S. President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin “Bibi” Netanyahu may not have embraced as long-lost friends on the White House portico this week, but what’s being dubbed their “make up” summit went smoothly. And that’s good for all concerned about the Jewish state, as well as all Americans.

It is no secret that until now Mr. Obama has poorly handled the public side of his differences with Mr. Netanyahu. Meanwhile, Israel’s leader at best could not control his domestic partners’ actions when it came to ill-timed announcements relating to the building of homes for Jews in East Jerusalem.  But this week a different tone seemed to resonate.

As Mr. Obama said, a smiling Mr. Netanyahu at his side, “Israel has unique security requirements. It has to be able to respond to threats or any combination of threats in the region. And that’s why we remain unwavering in our commitment to Israel’s security. And the United States will never ask Israel to take any steps that would undermine their security interests.”

For his part, Mr. Netanyahu gave the American what he wanted – a continued pledge to stay the course in negotiating with the Palestinians, an unpopular stand with some Netanyahu coalition partners. The Israeli also thanked the American for having the U.S. administration conduct “proximity talks” with the Palestinians – acting as a go between. And Mr. Netanyahu yet again called on Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to meet him in face-to-face negotiations, which indeed should occur.

With all that in mind, one hopes the theatre of hysteria – Obama hates Bibi, Bibi hates Obama, etc. – is now at an end. After all, the task at hand is both clear: The two democratic allies must work together to confront an emerging nuclear Iran, whose aspirations if achieved would exponentially increase Tehran’s ability to blackmail nations and create international mischief. For both leaders, that vital mission must be understood as far more urgent and important than even the remotest desire to score political points at home or abroad.