Reform Movement Dedicates Israel’s First-Ever Synagogue Built with State Funds

May 13, 2008

In the same week that Israel celebrated its 60th anniversary, the country’s Reform Movement also made history when it dedicated its first-ever synagogue erected with State funding in the city of Modi’in, mid-way between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

The synagogue building came into being after veteran NIF grantee Israel Religious Action Center (IRAC) of the Movement for Progressive Judaism in Israel (Reform) petitioned Israel’s Supreme Court demanding that the Ministry of Housing and Construction and the Modi’in Municipality allocate a building and land to Modi’in’s Reform community, as is routinely done for Orthodox communities.

In an out-of-court settlement, the Ministry of Housing and Construction agreed to provide the Reform and Conservatives Movements with prefabricated buildings in five locations around Israel, including Modi’in.

"A precedent has been set here," said Rabbi Gilad Kariv, Associate Director of IRAC. "It is also the first time that we moved from a legal battle to close co-operation. There was a transformation here - from a fight to the finish, to partnership with the Modi'in municipality."

Modi’in Mayor Moshe Spector initially opposed allocating land to the Reform Movement, but after touring the U.S. as a guest of the World Reform Movement, he has now become an enthusiastic supporter of religious pluralism.

Rabbi Kinneret Shiryon, Israel's first female rabbi, and head of
the Yozma community addresses the dedication ceremony.

Founded in 1997 under the leadership of Rabbi Kinneret Shiryon and a core of dedicated activists, Modi’in’s Yozma Synagogue (Hebrew for initiative) currently serves 240 registered families.

"The new building has seating for 130 congregants," explains Yozma's Chairman Jay Shofet, SHATIL’s Director of Resource Development Consultation. "We will still have an overflow on the High Holy days, but it is a big improvement over the highly inconvenient pre-school facility that has housed us until now."

Yozma has received ongoing consultancy from SHATIL. "There was a critical time four years ago when the community was growing very fast and the advice that SHATIL gave us on organizational restructuring was critical," recalls Shofet.

IRAC is currently handling a number of potentially precedent setting cases including  a court case against the Jerusalem Municipality demanding allocation of land for a Conservative synagogue in the Talpiot neighborhood. IRAC also submitted a Supreme Court petition on behalf of Rabbi Miri Gold and the Gezer Regional Council demanding that she receive a salary as the local authority’s official rabbi. At present, non-Orthodox rabbis are not recognized by the State for such purposes. NIF also supports IRAC advocacy training courses for local Reform and Conservative activists.

Yuval Yavneh, Director of NIF’s Jewish Pluralism Program, explains that funding the advocacy efforts and court appeals of IRAC are several of the many initiatives designed to make Israel a more pluralistic society. "The aim is that the Israeli government should not discriminate between different religious streams," he explains. "In recent years we have been making major efforts though grantees and coalitions to successfully ensure that just as the Israeli government funds Jewish education in Orthodox schools, so it will give equal budgets to Jewish studies in State secular schools for programs of the Reform, Conservative and other unaffiliated movements."

The opening of the Yozma Synagogue received media coverage in Israel and overseas.

See this Associated Press report on MSNBC
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24471332/

The assembly of the Modi’in Reform Synagogue can be seen in this short clip on youtube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uLGvWcyczA