Israel orthodox oppose Reform Judaism and every other movement they disagree with (including the conservative movement) because they are bigots. Let's cut the shit and call it for what it is.

Like every tired argument from orthodox leaders, the author ridiculously spins numbers and facts to make his dishonest arguments.

Yes, the US has 39% of the Jewish population but that is the biggest Jewish population than any country. Not to mention that the US is merely the very strong center of non-orthodox Judaism because if you include all world religious Jews, about 80% are non-orthodox Jews. If we get rid of non-orthodox Judaism you won't see these religious non-orthodox Jews joining orthodox Judaism. These people will likely lose their Jewish identity so they can still enjoy living in a free society where they are allowed to have dinner at a non-Jewish family's house, live among people of other religion (and people of no religion), and be citizens of countries they live in. In short, contrary to what this asshole is saying, Reform Judaism and all forms of non-orthodox Judaism do a great deal to keep Judaism alive regardless of interfaith marriages and the autonomy that Reform Judaism provides Jews to live a meaningful Jewish way of life as they see fit. As opposed to living a Jewish life as an idiot (who once claimed that 2004 the South Asian tsunami was god punishing the world for sins) prescribes to you.

The author of this article creates a false equivalency claiming that Rabbi Uri Regev is also using hate speech for merely pointing out the fact that Rabbi Amar has no authority over Jews (and note that the author ironically cannot bring himself to consider Rabbi Regev a legitimate rabbi). Rabbi Regev never questioned Rabbi Amar's status as a rabbi but it is a fact that Judaism does not have a vatican or a pope telling us what to do. The fact is that if "Chief" Rabbi Amar wants to tell Jews what to do he will likely see a lot of middle fingers waving at him.

It gave me a headache just looking at it!

The article is too damn ridiculous. I didn't even know where to begin responding to it.

Near the middle he basically goes off on how awful Reform Judaism is because children raised in a Reform household are likely to...marry non-Jews! Oh the horror!

...are all the usual arguments. The author tried to mask it a little bit to seem fair but he couldn't do it for too long.

It prompted me to look up Beinart.

Apparently, politically he is DLC and religiously, Orthodox. I expect this has formed his views.

I checked the reviews of his last book, The Crisis of Zionism. It looks like it received a polarizing response, although Bill Clinton supports it.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeedpolitics/bill-clinton-israel-critic

Thanks for the critique. I have to learn more about this.

Israel doesn't recognize civil marriages, only religious ones. And its Reform-rejecting Orthodox religious leaders won't recognize the marriage of a Jew and a non-Jew. Meaning that even though Israel has a sizable Muslim and Christian population (who are even Israeli citizens), they are basically restricted to only marrying in their communities, and mixed marriages are effectively prohibited.

...but it gets even worse as the article notes. The religious leaders in Israel won't even recognize someone as a Jew unless they have pure Jewish ancestry by their standards (racial purity, sounds a little familiar? Ironic, I know.) and as noted above they do not recognize patrilineal lineage. In some cases people have been denied recognition of a Jew because it was discovered they had a non-Jewish ancestor a century or two ago. These people can keep their citizenship if they already have it, but are therefore prohibited from marrying "true" Jews.

There is a loophole: Israel does recognize marriages from abroad, and thus Cyprus is a common destination for "marriage tourists" from Israel that reason. However even then any children resulting from that marriage are held to the same standard. If you have a man who is 100% Jewish marrying someone who a woman who is 255/256 Jewish out of the country, then their children will never be considered "true" Jews and would face the same discrimination and restrictions when they opted to be married. It was actually a Jew who explained this to me. Yeah it's fucking ugly, and there's no doubt the vast majority of American Jews would be disgusted if they were familiar with it as well.

But I disagree that "race purity" enters the equation since there is no such thing as "the Jewish race."

According to Jewish Law (and the orthodox follow Halacha as they see it) a person is Jewish because he/she was born of a Jewish mother. So, in the marriage laws, a son of a non-Jewish mother is not considered Jewish. Consequently, the child of this marriage cannot marry a Jew according to Halacha unless this person converts to judaism. However, a child of a non-Jewish father and a Jewish mother is considered 100% Jewish according to Halacha.

The issue is that Israel is a Jewish state rather than an orthodox Jewish state. A Jewish state represents the Jewish people which includes Jews of various religious movements, secular Jews, atheist Jews, etc.

Israel's religious leaders (or rather, the more right-wing ones; it's hardly ALL their religious leaders even if Apostolou would like that to be the case) oppose Reform Judaism for exactly the same sorts of reasons that Pat Robertson opposes liberal Christians. Because they are right-wing bigots, who are misusing religion in the cause of right-wing and bigoted politics, that's why.

As regards Apostolou himself, he's basically a nut. Here he was in 2005, complaining that our Tories in the UK aren't sufficiently subordinate to the Republicans!

http://www.ideasinactiontv.com/tcs_daily/2005/05/how-britains-conservatives-have-undermined-the-atlantic-alliance.html