Israel's Chief Rabbi Refuses to Call Pittsburgh Massacre Site a Synagogue Because It's non-Orthodox
Israel’s Ashkenazi chief rabbi came under fire on Sunday for refusing to acknowledge in a newspaper interview that the massacre in Pittsburgh was carried out in a synagogue.
The country’s ultra-Orthodox newspapers,
in reporting on the event, have also refused to acknowledge that it
took place in a Jewish house of prayer because Tree of Life is a
Conservative congregation, and they do not recognize the non-Orthodox
movements.
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In
the interview with Makor Rishon, a newspaper popular in the Israeli
Modern Orthodox community, Rabbi David Lau said that “any murder of any
Jew in any part of the world for being Jewish is unforgivable.” But
rather than acknowledge that the crime had been carried out in a
synagogue, he referred to the location as “a place with a profound
Jewish flavor.”
Responding on
Twitter, Yizhar Hess, executive director of the Conservative movement in
Israel asked rhetorically: “Really, chief rabbi of Israel? A place with
a profound Jewish flavor? Perhaps a synagogue?”
Tomer
Persico, a prominent Israeli scholar of religion, tweeted in response:
“Chief Rabbi Lau refuses to say it was a synagogue. And that’s while
Jews were murdered when praying.”
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“Even halakhically,
it is a synagogue,” added Persico, referring to the fact that
Conservative Judaism follows halakha, or Jewish religious law. “This is
the face of the Orthodox establishment: petty, detached, archaic and
hateful.”
Israel’s
ultra-Orthodox newspapers all reported on the attack, but likewise,
refused to refer to Tree of Life as a synagogue, preferring instead to
call it a “Jewish center.”
An estimated 18
percent of American Jews are affiliated with the Conservative movement.
Israel’s unwillingness to recognize the non-orthodox movements is a
major cause of tension with Diaspora Jewry.
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