Badpuppy Gay Today

Tuesday, 25 March, 1997

The Union of Orthodox Rabbis in the United States and Canada, in an attempt to establish their orthodoxy as the only legitimate form of Judaism, will, next week, call upon world Jewry to leave the Reform and Conservative movements and to convert to their so-called only "true" faith, the Orthodox fold. The Reform and Conservative branches, according to Rabbi David Hollander, are being "spiritually misled."

The divisive demand has been made, according to orthodox reports, to help reverse an Israeli Supreme Court decision reached in the early 1990's, one that opened the door to establishing the legitimacy of Israel's Reform and Conservative believers. Most Israelis support a secular state, but a large minority of orthodox dogmatists are now gaining in momentum and power through the coalition Government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and are working day and night to turn Israel into a fundamentalist/ orthodox bulwark.

Orthodox Judaism, at the founding of the Israeli state in 1948, was given full authority over all religious matters. Later, when the Supreme Court gave certain rights to other branches of the Faith, orthodox believers showed in word and deed that they did not want share authority with competing Jewish denominations and would therefore work to reverse the Israeli Court's ruling. Prior to the court's decision, Reform and Conservative rabbis could not perform marriages, divorces or conversions. While the Reform and Conservative branches of Judaism account for the greater number of America's Jewish congregations, in Israel they are much smaller.

Rabbi Irving Greenberg, president of the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, and a respected Orthodox clergyman, says that the proposed "excommunication" of non-Orthodox Jews reflects a growing extremism. He says that in general, Orthodox Jewish theology has no pluralistic dimensions.

Reform and Conservative leaders are reacting with dismay. Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, representing approximately a thousand Reform congregations, says that his Orthodox brethren are "desperate" and "terribly patronizing."

The furious energies of fundamentalist believers across the religious spectrum, whether Jewish, Christian, or Islamic, are growing rapidly, now experiencing revivals unprecedented in this century. Whether in theocratic Iran, beleaguered Algeria, or in Washington, D.C. where the Christian Coalition dictates policies to the United States Congress, fundamentalist and orthodox zealots are on the march.

"We've got to fight back against their nonsense," says Badpuppy editor Jack Nichols, author of "The Gay Agenda: Talking Back to the Fundamentalists." (Prometheus Books).