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March 5, 1999/17 Adar 5759, Vol. 51, No. 23
Orthodox bring out thousands for rally
NEHAMA MILLER
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
NEW YORK - Amid a heavy downpour of rain - and an even heavier downpour of controversy - an estimated 40,000 American Orthodox Jews gathered in New York City over the past weekend to express their concern over the future of Jewish tradition in Israel.
For 90 minutes, one could see huge clusters of black hats and modestly dressed women from and beyond the New York area as the sounds of prayer filled the streets of a 12-bloc radius in Lower Manhattan on Feb. 28. With prayer books and umbrellas in hand, the crowd, which included individuals from all streams of Orthodoxy, rallied, in the words of the event's planners, with "no speeches, no dais, no organizational sponsorship, just Jews coming together to pray and express solidarity with their brothers and sisters in the Holy Land."
"They are not praying for politicians to do a particular thing. It's just Jews gathering to pray en masse," said Rabbi Avi Shafran, spokesman for the fervently Orthodox Agudath Israel of America and one of the organizers of the event. "There are no speeches at this gathering and no references to what happened in Israel."
Although the situation in Israel was not spoken of at the prayer vigil itself, the gathering was reminiscent of a similar event in Jerusalem two weeks ago, when 250,000 Orthodox Jews came together in the wake of Israeli court decisions that many Orthodox fear could change the nature of the Jewish state.
The fervently Orthodox, or haredi, leaders in Israel called for a demonstration after the high court issued an order to allow Conservative and Reform representatives to serve on local religious councils. The haredi leaders also were stung by court rulings that canceled a decades-old arrangement under which yeshiva (religious college) students are entitled to army draft exemptions and a separate decision allowing a kibbutz (communal farm) to maintain business operations on the Sabbath.
The debate over religious pluralism in Israel has often reverberated among American Jews, with Reform and Conservative Jews expressing outrage at the lack of official recognition for their movements in Israel. For their part, many Orthodox Jews here have voiced their concern about altering the status quo in Israel.
The fervently Orthodox Agudath Israel last year launched a $2 million campaign explaining its opposition to the introduction of pluralism in Israel. Am Echad, which is independent but is led by some involved with Agudah, has placed ads in The New York Times, charging that U.S. Reform and Conservative leaders "want you to believe that Israel's Orthodox parties don't want to recognize American Jews as Jews."
"We are all brothers and sisters. We are uniting in recognition that in Orthodoxy a Jew is a Jew," said Gary Litke, an attorney from New York.
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