Congregant fires salvo in conversion war

Jewish World Review Feb. 16, 1999 / 30 Shevat, 5759

A. Engler Anderson

Lappin

Congregant fires salvo in conversion war

From Palm Beach, Robert Lappin tells Reform to stay out of Israeli politics

BOSTON -- Robert I. Lappin is an unlikely dissident.

Philanthropist, industrial park developer and pillar of the suburban North Shore Jewish community here, Lappin, 77, would in any community be the very picture of an establishment Jewish leader.

Until last month, that is.

It was then that Lappin published ads in The Jewish Advocate, the Forward in New York, and the Jewish Journal of the North Shore seeking to hire a lawyer to "force the Reform movement ... to withdraw their lawsuit seeking conversion rights in Israel ... "

Lappin is prepared to spend "tens of thousands of dollars" to prosecute the yet-to-be-filed lawsuit, he said in a telephone interview from his suite at The Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach, where he winters.

And on top of all this, Lappin is himself a Reform Jew. He says the leaders of his denomination are engaged in a " foreign adventure" to impose American-style religious and political thinking on Israeli society. Reform should devote itself to battling intermarriage and assimilation here, not meddling in Israeli politics, Lappin maintained.

"The Reform movement has attempted to gain a foothold for 50 years since the state was established," Lappin said. "They haven't done it because Israeli Jews are not interested. To gain what they have not earned, they are resorting to the courts.

"I am very concerned that America Jews do not understand that Israel is a vibrant democracy with a theocratic dimension," said Lappin. "It is not a mirror image of our democracy. Israel is a Jewish state and I want it to remain a Jewish state."

What Lappin opposes is a legal crusade by the Reform and Conservative movements to force Israeli authorities to recognize proselytes converted to Judaism by the non-Orthodox movements in Israel. Those who converted abroad are already recognized by long-standing precedent. These denominations, through their Israeli counterparts, have guided and funded several lawsuits by converts. In Israel however, the government -- in which Orthodox parties hold key portfolios -- will not allow such converts to be registered as Jews on identity documents.

So far, the non-Orthodox are winning, at least in the courts, which have consistently ordered the government to recognize such converts as Jews. This has prompted Orthodox politicians there to introduce a conversion bill that would explicitly recognize only Orthodox conversions.

For more than a year, the issue was held in abeyance when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appointed a commission led by then Finance Minister Yaakov Neeman to forge a compromise. The Progressives and the Masortim -- as Reform and Conservative are respectively known in Israel -- agreed to hold off on the lawsuits, and Orthodox politicians agreed to postpone a conversion bill.

But the breathing space afforded by Neeman fell apart, when the commission's recommendations proved untenable to both sides, and hostilites resumed.

Though Lappin's rhetoric sounds strikingly similar to that of certain Orthodox leaning factions in the conversion dispute, he insisted that his planned lawsuit was not being coordinated with any group, party or organization.

Lappin is not sure what legal theory his legal action will employ, but that is one of the reasons why he is seeking a lawyer, "to structure it." He said a lawsuit might be filed in the United States as well as Israel.

Lappin charged that the acceptance of non-Orthodox converts "is dividing and causing hatred among the Jewish people," and "places the interest of Reform rabbinical aggrandizement above the interest of the Jewish people."

But Emily Grotta, spokeswoman for the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, said that the Reform decision to support efforts to achieve recognition in Israel was determined by the lay vote of the movement's more than 800 member temples.

"We are comfortable with the positions we have taken," said Grotta, "We all know what it takes to file a lawsuit these days. He's free to do what he wishes."

Gil Kulick of the New Israel Fund, a major financial supporter of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, and the Reform Israel Religious Action Center -- two groups in the center of the conversion litigation -- said American Jews overwhelmingly support religious pluralism in Israel, as evidenced by his organization's 100 percent growth in fund raising from 1995 to 1997, and 70 percent increase in members during the same period.

A. Engler Anderson, a staff reporter for Boston's Jewish Advocate, is moderator of J-PEN: Forum for Jewish Journalism & Journalists. His personal home page can be reached by clicking here.