The recently published "Forward Fifty" list of the most influential members of the American Jewish community for 2006 should remind us again how pivotal is the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) community to the agenda of the Jewish community in America: The word "gay" appears in five different entries, making the acceptance and inclusion of LGBT people the bench mark of advancement and relevance for Jewish institutions. It should also remind us of the distance, in political concepts and not merely in miles, between the Jewish communities of America and Israel.

Last Wednesday provided another example of the widening gap between the world's two biggest Jewish communities, and showed the American Jewish establishment is way ahead of the Jewish State in seriously addressing the status of homosexuals in Jewish life. At the same time as the Conservative Movement's Committee on Law and Standards reached its groundbreaking decision of recognition of same-sex union and on the ordination of openly gay rabbis, the Knesset voted against the registration of same-sex couples who were married abroad.

The Conservative Movement, the second biggest Jewish denomination in America, is not the first to tackle the "gay question," socially and halakhically. The Reform Movement had already humanized the LGBT community: Reform rabbis perform marriages of same-sex couples as a matter of routine. Fifteen Jewish LGBT congregations flourish in North America. Indeed, it is the Jewish religious leadership in America that shows readiness to tackle questions today's world brings about, rather than hide away behind the pretext that morals cannot evolve.

 

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