San Diego (special) -- Non-Orthodox Jewish movements in San Diego County are working together to combat what they believe is an unfair and discriminatory partnership between the government and the Orthodox movements in Israel. 

At the same time, they are seeking to repair the breach between themselves and the traditional Orthodox in San Diego County who refuse to sit with them in the San Diego Rabbinical Association and have declined other invitations for joint meetings.

At an Israel Bonds event at which he and Conservative Rabbi Moshe Levin of Congregation Beth El were honored for promoting dialague between their respective branches of Judaism, Reform Rabbi Jonathan Stein of Congregation Beth Israel disclosed that Orthodox rebuffed efforts to expand the forum to a "trialogue."

Orthodox Rabbi Jeff Wohlgelernter of Congregation Adat Yeshurun later verified that he had declined an invitation to participate with the two other rabbis, saying that a trialogue "is not my forum." Asked if he would participate with Conservative and Reform leaders in some other form of discussion, Wohlgelernter parried that would depend on exactly what was proposed.

Wohlgelernter, leader of San Diego's Orthodox va'ad rabbonim , which supervises kosher establishments in San Diego and other matters of halacha (Jewish law), added in a telephone interview that he has some thoughts of his own on how a meeting among rabbis in San Diego to discuss Jewish unity could take place, but declined to elaborate, saying: "I think I should speak to the rabbis first."

Beth El and Adat Yeshurun are both located in La Jolla, while Beth Israel has plans to move from its present location near Balboa Park to the La Jolla area, so such a "trialogue" would be among leaders of neighboring congregations. 

Levin said because the county's only Reconstructionist Rabbi, Alexis Roberts, currently divides her time between jobs in San Diego and Los Angeles, there was no attempt to add Reconstructionism to the dialogue, but said he would welcome Roberts' participation should she so desire. 

While such a move might please Reconstructionists, it could have the opposite effect on the Orthodox rabbis, who generally don't recognize women as rabbis. 

In another development, members of the San Diego Rabbinical Association, which includes most non-Orthodox rabbis in the county, voted unanimously to devote at least one sermon during the High Holy Days to the issues now dividing the various branches of Judaism. 

"Each rabbi, in his or her own way, will be sharing with his or her congregation concerns about the legislation and political activity which seeks to deligitimize Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist Judaism in and out of Israel," according to a news release sent to the media by Rabbi Leonard Rosenthal of Tifereth Israel Synagogue, a Conservative congregation.

Besides his own congregation, Rosenthal said those whose leaders "to date have committed to discussing this issue" includes Reform Congregations Adat Shalom, Beth Israel, Emmanu-El, Etz Chaim and Solel; Reconstructionist Congregation Dor Hadash, and Conservative Congregations Adat Ami, Beth El, Judea and Ner Tamid. He said other congregations whose rabbis did not attend that meeting may also participate.

SDRA's president, Rabbi David Frank of Temple Solel, said: "All members of SDRA are deeply concerned about Israel's religious political parties escalating their campaign against non-Orthodox forms of Judaism in recent months."

"In June there was an attempt to change the conversion laws in the country, which would effectively deny Israeli citizenship to Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist converts," said Frank, a Reform rabbi. 

"These forces also work to subvert the Supreme Court's ruling tht non Orthodox representatives be seated on local religious councils," he said. "In addition, egalitarian minyanim praying at the rear of the Western Wall Plaza, in accordance with long estalbished custom, have been benished by Chareidim (Haredim) and police. A campaign is being waged against Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist Jews in Israel. We cannot remain silent."

At the Kotel (Western Wall, Wailing Wall), highly publicized incidents during the holidays of Shavuot and Tisha B'Av inflamed passions on both sides. In the first, non-Orthodox Jews tried to conduct a mixed gender, or egalitarian, prayer service at the Wall, where men and women now pray on either side of a mehitza (divider). A riot ensued, with the non-Orthodox worshipers being pelted with a variety of objects, including excrement.

On Tisha B'Av, Conservative Jews attempted another mixed service, but in the back of the plaza facing the Kotel rather than at the Wall itself. Under orders of the Ministry of Religion, police hustled the worshipers away from the area and out of the Old City of Jerusalem. Rabbi Levin was among the 200 members of the group.

At the Sept. 7 Israel Bonds event, at which Regional Director Ellen Rofman estimated that approximately $500,000 in bonds were purchased by investors, Stein spoke of the arson five days before in Mevasseret Zion, Israel, that destroyed the room in which a kindergarten was operated by the Reform movement. 

No one was injured in the blaze, which was set in the late evening or early morning hours when the teacher and pupils alike were at their homes.

"A kindergarten was burned to the ground by arsonists who have ties to the haredi (ultra-Orthodox), " Stein said.

The Reform rabbi said while at times it is "unclear whether we will be able to proclaim 'we are one' with honesty and integrity," he nevertheless believes that non-Orthodox must continue to try to heal the breach among Jews.

"We must strive to act like menschen (good, right-acting people) even when they insult us, and insult as they have," Stein told the group meeting in Congregation Beth El's combination sanctuary and social hall.

Levin said after holding several public dialogue sessions with Stein in which they discussed differences between the movements on a variety of topics -- including Reform's decision to recognize patrilineal descent as well as matrilineal descent in determining who is Jewish-- he had concluded that on many issues the Conservative movement was closer to Orthodoxy than to Reform.

However, he said, as opposed to the relationship between the Conservative and Orthodox movements, "between Reform and Conservative there is mutual respect."

In a subsequent interview, Levin said as one who grew up in an Orthodox home, he understands the Orthodox point of view. 

"Their basic theology rests on the assumption that anyone who does not believe that God is personally involved in the universe and with the Jewish people on a moment-to-moment basis but rather speaks of God as an 'ethical imperative' or a 'force for salvation' or whatever the kinds of terms that are heard in the Conservative, Reconstructionist and Reform movements, and someone who does not believe that God dictated the written Torah to Moses and taught Moses the oral Torah which has been passed down for generations; anyone who does not believe that, their theology demands that person be regarded as a heretic," Levin said. 

"And a person who teaches that, they regard as an enemy of Judaism and of God," Levin said. 

The rabbi said he prays that one day all the movements will recognize that "we are all facets of the same jewel." In the meantime, however, he said he is dismayed by secular Israelis who permit the Orthodox "to impose their basic beliefs that nothing but Orthodoxy is legitimate." 

"Some have done that for political reasons, saying that they need the Orthodox in the coalition and some give them that power because deep down they too believe that the only legitimate expression of Judaism is Orthodoxy , and they choose not to be Orthodox so they see themselves as estranged from Judaism," Levin said. 

"But whatever the motivations, and in some cases I think it is just ignorance, I believe that the responsibility for the Orthodox control over religious life and the responsibility for the ability of the Orthodox to delegitimize Conservative and Reform and Reconstructionist Judaism lies in the hands of the 80 percent of Israel's citizenship that gave them and continues to give them that power." 

The two honorees spoke after Rabbi Daniel Gordis, dean of the rabbinical school at the Conservative-affiliated University of Judaism in Los Angeles, delivered a strong plea for reconciliation among the branches.

"People who are opposed to Reform and Conservatism are on opposite sides of every fence except one: belief that Judaism is important," Gordis said. "It is in their (Orthodox) communities that yeshivot abound." 

After Arab suicide bombers blow up places like Mahane Yehuda (Jerusalem's Jewish market) and Ben Yehuda Street (a shopping district), it is the Orthodox who "care enough about all Jewish blood...to be on their hands and knees with little packages of gauze soaking it up, so that it can be buried properly," Gordis said.

The University of Judaism's dean reminded his audience that the Orthodox did not question whether the blood came from the body of a Reform Jew or an Orthodox Jew, or from a Jewish man or a Jewish woman.

"Those people are our brothers!" Gordis exhorted. "They may not share our agenda, but that makes our agenda all the more sacred: let us pray in the coming year for more peace between Jews and their neighbors and among Jews themselves."

Earlier that Sunday, another discussion on Jewish pluralism was conducted at the Jewish Community Center under the auspices of the United Jewish Federation. A panel moderated by UJF's Campaign Chairman Richard Katz included UCSD Political Science Prof. Sanford Lakoff, Conservative Rabbi Mel Libman of Temple Judea, and Eldad Pardo, a former Israeli broadcaster now studying for a doctorate in Los Angeles.

"There are all sorts of problems that have arisen over religion and politics in Israel," Lakoff said. "Take the census. When Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics was preparing the national census in 1995, the rabbinical council of one of the ultra-Orthodox groups ruled that counting Jews was against religious law and would cause a plague, just as happened when King David ordered a census according to the Book of Samuel." 

"One of the rabbinic authorities decreed that during Passover water drawn from the Sea of Galilee and brought into Jerusalem could not be consumed because it might be contaminated by chometz. (bread with leavening) Fortunately another rabbi pointed out that the fish would eat the chometz.," Lakoff added. 

"The Ministry of Religion and rabbinical councils are all under Orthodox control and they try to give no money to Conservative and Reform synagogues," he continued. 

"The UJA (United Jewish Appeal) has recently fired a warning shot across the bow by giving $10 million to each of the three denominations," Lakoff said. "El Al doesn't fly on Saturdays nor do the buses run but taxis do. Movies are open Friday night. Soccer is played Saturday afternoons...."

Libman personalized the difficulties posed if Israel's laws affecting conversion are changed.

"I have a daughter who was married in Israel," he said. "She is married to a Sabra (a native Israeli). When she went to get her marriage certificate in Israel, she had to prove she was Jewish. I can tell you that daughter had Jewish parents up and down the line; rabbis on both sides of her family, for generations." 

On the other hand, Libman said, "my youngest daughter who is 4 1/2 is adopted. She will have trouble, even though her conversion took place when she was 2 years old--at Pearl Harbor at the only mikvah (ritual bath used in a conversion ceremony) in the state of Hawaii. I am very concerned about her."

Pardo, who once moderated an Israeli radio show called "Between Enemies" in which Arabs and Jews discussed politics with each other, 
said secular Israelis don't understand the point of Reform or Conservatism.

"For the last 50 years people have lived there, and you have lived here," Pardo said. "Even though we are all friends and we all love each other, the concepts and understandings are very very different."

"Most Israelis don't understand why women need to go to the Wailing Wall to pray with men," he added. "The assumption of most Israelis-- the gap in understanding--is that religion is basically irrelevant altogether but we need this religion because our nationalistic make-up is built upon religion, so we need this religion to keep our nationalism. Now, whatever this religion is, they don't care."

Secular Israelis "look very favorably at feminism: they want women and men totally equal," he said. "But they say if these women are so enlightened and so smart why are they religious?' They don't understand the Reform and Conservative at all." 

"After living here five years in America, I understand why Israel desperately needs the cultural input you can provide." Pardo said. "But this is a long process."