Conservative Jews
could reverse policy on gays

The Conservative Jewish movement, the faith's American-based middle ground between liberalism and orthodoxy, is nearing a leadership decision that seems likely to permit openly gay rabbis and same-sex unions. The Rabbinical Assembly Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, which last tackled the issue in 1992, meets in New York next week, where its 25 members are slated to review the issue, one that simmers across Judaism.

"The way it looks, it will be decided on a more liberal understanding of the law," Rabbi Irwin Kula, president of the National Jewish Centre for Learning and Leadership, told Reuters. "It would be a very big, big surprise if that's not the case."

Rabbi Joel Meyers, executive vice president of the Rabbinical Assembly, said: "I really don't know what will happen. Many of my colleagues are betting they will have two opinions at the end--that rabbis can maintain the prohibition on homosexual behavior, and another that says it normalizes homosexual behavior."

The assembly said in announcing the December 5-6 meetings that the committee's function is to advise rabbis on Jewish law or Halakha affecting Conservatives, who number 2 million of the world's 13 million Jews. The rabbis are not bound by its statements, which in the past have sometimes offered multiple interpretations on issues.

While the topic may be couched in gay rabbis and same-sex unions, the crux of the issue really is "how one views homosexual behavior," Meyers said in an interview. That is the subtext of the committee's 1992 statement, which welcomed gays to congregations, youth groups, summer camps, and schools but prohibited same-sex commitment ceremonies and the knowing admission of "avowed homosexuals" to rabbinical or cantorial schools.

"That is cowardice," says Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum of New York's Congregation Beth Simchat Torah, whose 800 members make up what is called the largest gay synagogue in the world. "They have dragged their feet on this for many years. They look over their shoulder toward orthodoxy worried about not being called Jewish enough, and I consider that cowardice."

A gay pride rally in Jerusalem in November met with stormy protests and finally unfolded in a small stadium under heavy security. But Israel's highest court also has ruled that gays and lesbians who marry abroad may be registered as married in the country.

There are perhaps 6 million Jews in the United States, only about a third of them affiliated with a congregation. Of those who do attend synagogue, 38% are Reform, 33% Conservative, and 22% Orthodox, according to one survey.

Rabbi Kula, author of Yearnings: Embracing the Sacred Messiness of Life, said the move toward liberalization among Conservatives "is not something that came down from the top. It came from Jews in the pews...Jews who had homosexual children and wanted them to be rabbis." (Rabbi Gerald Zelizer of Neve Shalom, a Conservative congregation in Metuchen, N.J. Zelizer is a former president of the Rabbinical Assembly and a contributing columnist for USA Today.)