Whither Masorti?: A Response to Michael Graetz

In an era when Conservative Judaism in the United States continues to seek a unifying vision that will make it relevant and inspiring to 21st-century American Jews, Michael Graetz should be commended for attempting to do the same for our own institutions here in Israel. Will Masorti, like American Conservative Judaism, be relevant in the coming century? In both instances success is contingent on a clear articulation of vision, values, and goals—a task that requires leadership capable of building consensus on core principles.

For American Conservative Jews, the state of Israeli Masorti Judaism is not merely an academic question. While the number of Jews in the States continues to shrink, in Israel the number is actually growing at a healthy pace. There are now more Jews in Israel than in the United States and, as these trends continue, Jewish life in Israel will continue to flavor American Judaism more than ever before. For those who still do not recognize this simple fact, I suggest going to your closest kosher restaurant. I bet it is far more likely to have falafel or hummus than kugel or kasha, something that might not have been the case even one short decade ago. This is one of the more accessible indicators of who is defining what Jewish life in America will be like in the coming century, even in aspects as prosaic as the Jewish kitchen. Israel is now the center of Jewish life in all ways, and all trends indicate that its centrality will only continue to grow in the future, so that in the coming century Israel will define what Judaism will be for Jews around the world.

Therefore, the need to be part of the process of defining the nature of Judaism in Israel is as essential to American Jews as it is to Israeli Jews. American Conservative Jews desperately need a bridge connecting them to Israel and to Israeli Jews, or else they will increasingly find themselves alienated from the future of world Jewry as it will be defined in the coming century. That bridge is Masorti, and the success of Masorti institutions in Israel is thus an essential component of ensuring the success of Conservative Judaism worldwide.

Fortunately, Masorti at the moment is incredibly vibrant. Unlike in the United States, where the number of synagogues formally affiliated with the Conservative movement is shrinking, in Israel the movement, while still small, is growing and expanding quickly both in terms of number of congregations and number of members. While we are still a step away from becoming a mainstream form of Israeli Judaism, all current trends indicate that, with the right leadership and support, we can make that transition soon. In other words, while American Conservative Judaism knows that it needs to seek bold, new visions in order to staunch its decline, Israeli Masorti Judaism has the easier task of attempting to identify what it has done right these last few years so that it can properly leverage this positive momentum into creating a critical mass that can catapult it into becoming a mainstream force in Israel.

Most observers agree that Masorti is succeeding precisely by focusing first and foremost on community building, on youth programming, and on media campaigns designed to reach out to native Israelis. For many years, Masorti congregations were primarily landsmanschaften for American olim in Israel, providing social support networks for their members and nostalgic touchstones for the Judaism they had experienced in the old country. Most native Israelis only heard about Masorti, if at all, as a result of a few high-profile legal and political cases demanding that the government recognize the validity of Conservative conversions.

Today, however, by focusing on transforming Masorti into a grassroots Israeli organization, Masorti is finally integrating into the Israeli experience and becoming a more native institution. As Rabbi Graetz correctly implies, only by continuing to transform itself into something distinctively Israeli, will Masorti be able to make itself relevant into the Israeli future.

Unfortunately, by defining Masorti Judaism to Israelis as a religious movement that seeks to balance universalism with particularism...