Conservative Judaism and the LGBT Community
By FRANCES KRAFT
Even if the Conservative movement approves the rabbinic ordination of gays and lesbians and opens the door to same-sex commitment ceremonies later this year, it will not necessarily affect shuls in Canada, says a Canadian lay leader of the denomination.
“My feeling is that there’s a great deal of strength in various approaches, as long as there’s a central theme of observance and halachah,” said Paul Kochberg, president of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism’s Canadian region, which encompasses Ontario and extends to the East Coast.
With the possibility that several tshuvot (responsa) on the gay/lesbian issue will be accepted in a December vote by the movement’s committee on Jewish law and standards, the body that sets halachic policy for the Rabbinical Assembly and the Conservative movement, Kochberg said that “our more traditional, non-egalitarian synagogues may choose to follow a tshuvah that says they will not accept clergy that are openly gay or lesbian, and will carry on as they have carried on before.”
However, he added, some congregational leaders may ask themselves how they can continue to belong to a movement that is headed in a more liberal direction.
“It’s not a simple issue,” Kochberg said. In an interview last month with The CJN, Rabbi Ismar Schorsch, who retired June 30 as chancellor of the movement’s flagship Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, characterized the potential ordination of gays and lesbians as a loosening of the “halachic moorings” of Conservative Judaism.
Speaking at his shul last December, Rabbi Steven Saltzman of Adath Israel Congregation proposed the establishment of a Canadian “sovereignty association” within the Conservative movement that would agree to disagree with the American movement. Rabbi Saltzman’s suggestion came on the heels of the Conservative biennial convention in Boston, where Rabbi Menachem Creditor of Sharon, Mass., challenged the philosophy of halachic pluralism - an approach affirmed by movement leaders - when he said that it’s immoral to allow non-egalitarian synagogues to be part of the Conservative movement.
Kochberg said there is a concern about where more traditional, non-egalitarian synagogues will find their rabbis if gays and lesbians are accepted for ordination.
Even now, many rabbinical students at the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) “will not interview, let alone serve, in congregations that will not consider all graduates on an equal footing,” said Rabbi Wayne Allen, president of the Rabbinical Assembly, Ontario region. The result is that male rabbis, as well as female rabbis, may not consider working for a non-egalitarian congregation.
“We don’t see a lot of [local synagogues] having a need for new rabbis in the very near future, but people are looking down the line,” said Kochberg.
The situation is no different in non-egalitarian Conservative congregations in places such as New York, Philadelphia and New Jersey, he added.
In the United States, Kochberg said, there is a great fear that the gay/lesbian issue will split the movement, regardless of the outcome later this year. “There are going to be unhappy people on both sides of this decision.”
Kochberg noted that there has been a slow evolution in Conservative synagogues in Toronto, where “more and more women are taking part in some aspect of the service.” Of the eight affiliated congregations in the GTA, only two are fully egalitarian. The rest are non-egalitarian or partially egalitarian.
Kochberg laments the fact that Conservative Judaism is often identified by what it isn’t: not Orthodox, not Reform, but somewhere in the middle.
He prefers to focus on what it is. “No other movement or stream of Judaism addresses to my satisfaction the dichotomies that sometimes arise between social justice and strict interpretation of Torah,” he said. On a personal level, he finds Conservative Judaism “positive” and “uplifting.”
Other issues in the movement include the retirement of Rabbi Schorsch after 20 years as JTS chancellor, a position sometimes referred to as titular head of the Conservative movement. He is being replaced by Arnold Eisen of Stanford University, only the second non-rabbi to head the JTS in its 120-year history. Eisen has gone on record as being in favour of gay/lesbian ordination, but he defers to the rabbis for an actual decision.
Also, American Jewish demographics have changed: Reform Judaism is now the largest denomination in the United States - not Conservative Judaism, as was previously the case - and intermarriage has grown.
At least in Toronto, however, Conservative Judaism is the largest denomination, at 37 per cent of local Jews, said Rabbi Allen, citing a recent UJA Federation of Greater Toronto survey. “There are a number of congregations that are very strong here. Membership is stable if not growing... I think there is a sense of strength and optimism.
“At the same time,” he said, “there is the realization that our congregations are aging, and that the cost of synagogue affiliation in full-service organizations has become more and more of a challenge for young people.