NEW YORK (JTA) -- In a sign of continuing
friction among Conservative Jews over the issue of
homosexuality, a ceremony in Jerusalem to mark the first
anniversary of the decision to admit gays to the Jewish
Theological Seminary was held away from the campus of the
movement's main educational institution
there.
A news release from the Schechter Rabbinical Seminary said
the students agreed to move the March 26 ceremony off campus
after refusing to "give equal expression" to a
movement-approved religious opinion that upholds the
traditional ban on homosexuality.
The movement's legal authorities adopted conflicting
rulings on the status of homosexuality in 2006. One permitted
the ordination of gay rabbis, another upheld Judaism's
longstanding ban on homosexual intercourse.
According
to the release, "the students who approached SRS stressed that
they were interested only in their own personal celebration
with their friends, and that they had no interest in noting
the second Halakhic ruling."
One of the student
organizers, Jill Levy, told JTA that the ceremony was held "in
the woods" several minutes walk from the seminary. Levy would
not comment on her exchanges with the school.
The
dispute at Schechter points to the continuing tensions within
the Conservative movement over homosexuality and the
apparently different directions in which the movement's
various international affiliates are moving.
Following
the 2006 decision by the movement's law committee to permit
the ordination of gay clergy, both JTS and the University of
Judaism (now the American Jewish University) changed their
policies to admit gay rabbinical students.
But Schechter's dean, Rabbi Einat Ramon, declined to change
her school's policies, basing her decision on the more
conservative ruling. Ramon, a well-known critic of the
liberalizing tendency toward gays within Conservative Judaism,
has criticized the movement's legal authorities for failing to
take into account the views of those who regard homosexuality
as a choice.
Rabbi David Lazar, the leader of a Conservative
congregation near Tel Aviv, said he thought officials at the
Israeli seminary are "particularly sensitive because they've
chosen what seems to be an unpopular stand among many" in the
Israeli branch of the movement.
The Jerusalem ceremony
was inspired by a daylong commemoration of the change also
held March 26 at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York
City. The event was mostly closed to media, but one
participant told JTA an emotional high point was a panel in
which rabbis and rabbinical students related their personal
stories of coming out.
"We celebrate not only the
admission of gay and lesbian students to our rabbinical and
cantorial schools but also the process of honest outreach and
spirited discussion that led up to that decision," JTS
Chancellor Arnold Eisen said in a statement. "JTS has long
known that our differences make our community
stronger."
The Jerusalem ceremony was considerably
shorter and featured an address by Yonatan Gher, the incoming
director of the Jerusalem Open House, a support center for
gays and lesbians. Gher is also a former spokesman for the
Masorti movement.
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