Taxation Without Representation

As Miri Gold sees it, her fight is not about a paycheck but religious freedom in Israel. Ever since David Ben-Gurion granted the Orthodox Rabbinate a legal monopoly over Jewish religious life in exchange for their support of a Jewish state, only Orthodox rabbis have qualified for government salaries. Gold, an energetic Reform rabbi in a bright blue kippah, says she too deserves a paycheck and has taken her battle all the way to the Israeli Supreme Court. “If Israel wants to be a Jewish state, it must be democratic,” she says. “People should have freedom of religion as stated in Israel’s Declaration of Independence.”

The legal battle, which has made Gold the face of the Reform Movement’s struggle for legitimacy in Israel, boils down to a simple question: Who is a rabbi? The Chief Rabbinate of Israel refuses to grant a teudat kasher (a rabbinical certificate) to anyone who is not Orthodox. Without such certification, there is no government appointment, and without government appointment, there is no government salary. “The present situation is unjust,” says Gold, 56, who leads the 180-person Bikrat Shalom Congregation on Kibbutz Gezer, between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. “We are taxed for religious services but have no representation,” she adds, echoing the heady slogan of the American Revolution.

Though Gold is an ordained rabbi and the undisputed spiritual leader of her kibbutz, she is not recognized by the government as the “community rabbi.” Her flock is a mix of kibbutzniks and their neighbors in the Gezer region, few of them Orthodox. The financially strapped kibbutz is unable to pay her salary, which is currently shouldered by her congregation and the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism. A legal victory would, she says, not only relieve Reform and Conservative congregations of financial burdens but give all Israelis “choice as to what rabbi is going to serve their community.”

The Israel Religious Action Center, the legal arm of the Reform Movement in Israel, brought a petition on Gold’s behalf to the Supreme Court in 2005, after failed attempts to appeal to the Religious Services Department of the Prime Minister’s Office. Much to Gold’s disappointment, the justices consented at a hearing in June to the government’s demand for more time for the Knesset committee on religious reform to change the current law. The court set an end-of-the-year deadline and has frozen almost all rabbinical appointments in the meantime. “My assumption is that, in 2007, when there is no sweeping religious reform, we will be back in court,” says Gold.

The granddaughter of Belarusian immigrants, Gold grew up in a Conservative home in Detroit, Michigan. She fell in love with Israel during her college junior year abroad and, drawn by Zionism and socialism, eventually settled in 1977 on Kibbutz Gezer, which has been described in the Jewish press as the “major hippie hangout between Greece and Africa.” At first, she worked in the communal kitchen. “I saw myself as a Yiddishe mama cooking for all those kibbutzniks,” she says. When the kibbutz’s rabbi left in the mid-1980s, Gold quietly stepped in to fill the spiritual vacuum. “I am very shy in my soul, but I guess I kind of rose to the occasion,” she says. “I started leading Kabbalat Shabbat. I gradually grew into a para-rabbinical role.” But it was not until 1993, at her daughter’s bat mitzvah, that she decided to leave the kitchen. Gold enrolled in Jerusalem’s Hebrew Union College and was ordained in 1999. Today, she is a popular and active rabbi who runs a rehabilitation program for prisoners, and invites Klezmer musicians to provide the live soundtrack for her Simchat Torah services.

Most Israelis either attend Orthodox services or don’t go to synagogue at all. Reform is the largest Jewish movement in North America, but it has only 6,000 dues-paying members in Israel. Israel is not alone in favoring one religion or denomination; Ireland, Great Britain, Italy and Greece do so as well. Rabbi Benny Lau, who leads the Ramban Synagogue in Jerusalem, believes that there is enough diversity within Orthodoxy to satisfy everyone. “I refuse to accept that dichotomy of Reform or nothing,” he says. “There are answers to Jews’ spiritual needs within normative Judaism.”

Gold is careful to note that her legal case seeks only government recognition of non-Orthodox movements and does not ask “the Orthodox to change their ways.” “I think that some of the Orthodox rabbis feel a bit threatened, and maybe that’s good,” Gold says of the effect modest competition from Israel’s Reform and Conservative movements has had. Israelis are increasingly open to having life cycle rites performed by non-Orthodox rabbis, and some Orthodox rabbis now break with tradition and allow women to speak after an official wedding ceremony.

“They are trying to be more accommodating,” Gold says.

She is optimistic that her case will become a landmark victory for religious freedom that will bolster the spiritual life of Israel as a whole. “I think that all different ways of celebrating and observing enrich Judaism,” Gold says. “The last thing I am interested in is people sitting on the sidelines because nothing talks to them.”—Moment Staff