This is a letter from a friend of mine that shares a very compelling message that needs to desperately be heard by our government. We must be responsive to all streams of Judaism and our government must finally accept their right to full participation and legitimacy.
As you govern the State of Israel, the beloved heartland of the Jewish people, please remember all of the “children” of Israel equally without prejudice to gender, ethnicity or denomination. P’nai Yachadut-Reclaiming Judaism, our constituents and staff are outraged at the arrest of Anat Hoffman, and our every pilgrimage to Israel is marred by the absence of religious equality and freedom for women and Jewish clergy across the full spectrum of Jewish practice. You are breaking the integrity of the Jewish people, demoralizing her daughters’ relationship to the State of Israel, and destroying any potential for klal Yisrael and ahavas Yisrael by giving favoritism to any one form of Judaism over another.
We urge you to afford equal religious rights to Anat Hoffman and the Women of the Wall. In the wake of the Shoah, HaShem has called Jewish women to serve as Torah readers, teachers and scholars, rebbes & rabbis, cantors and scribes. We are multiplying rapidly in these fields, becoming a great natural resource to cultivate support for Israel.
Jewish women in our time are called to strengthen the Jewish people, the Jewish home and communities, and Jewish practice in ever-evolving ways. Equal access for Jews throughout the spectrum of practice to worship in our own ways in Israel’s holy places is vital to a free and healthy Israel and Jewish people. P’nai Yachadut is fully prepared to respect the diversity of needs within the Jewish people, to afford time and access for differing forms of worship and practice….to the exclusion of none. Just as there are many types of butterfly and rose, the survival of the Jewish people has always relied upon our diversity, it is derekh ha-teva.
We pray you will have the vision, depth and wisdom to ensure freedom of religion as a precept at the Kotel and throughout the beloved holy land of Israel. Call on us as allies in this time of changing Jewish practice; k’vode ha-tzibbur now means our option for full participation and recognition within the forms of living as a Jew that each person in the spectrum of gender chooses.
