Masorti Olami conference report: "We Will Be Dreamers"

[lethargic_man]

Last weekend, aviva_m and I (okay, and curious_reader and lots of other people) attended a Masorti Olami European conference in London:

Speakers included a number (though not all) of the UK Masorti rabbis, aviva_m's rabbi Gesa Ederberg from Berlin, R. Yeshaya Dalsace, whom I had encountered in the Nice Masorti community a few years ago (along with his replacement there) and R. Ron Hoffberg, whom I had a encountered in Prague a few years ago.

I also encountered a few other people I had met on the Marom Olami European seminars I attended in 2005–6, including Ádám Schönberger, who has been in charge of Marom in Budapest for a ridiculous amount of time now. I sadly didn't see any of my friends from Prague, though I did meet somebody who had come from Prague, whom I asked to pass on my regards to them. Also notable by their absence was anyone from the Ukraine or Russia, though admittedly those are a long way from here (and I didn't go to the Marom Olami conference in the Ukraine in 2006). There were people from at least Spain, Portugal and Poland, though, in addition to the above-mentioned countries.

One other sad absence was the UK Marom coordinator Inbar Bluzer, who somehow ended up marooned in Israel with visa difficulties. The conference was a combined Masorti/Marom one, and aviva_m and I decided to split our time between attending Marom sessions and playing with the grown-ups. (Though I suppose I'm going to have to acknowledge some day that I've grown up myself...)

It's been a while since my trips to the Continent in 2005/6, and I'm pleased to see the way things have developed since. Back then, my friends in Prague, who were mostly female (on account of being mostly converts (do I have to explain why?)), were complaining about the difficulty of finding Jewish men in the gender-unbalanced Masorti community there; now, however, they all seem to be simultaneously pregnant (though I suppose that doesn't necessarily mean they solved that problem).

Meanwhile in Budapest, when I went there, I was not very impressed with the service in the Heroes' Synagogue; and got the impression that though Marom could attract a crowd of hundreds for a few party events throughout the year, young people were largely disconnected from the religious experience. Now, however, I learn that Marom has set up an egalitarian minyan, Dor Chadash, in their Moishe House (set up—as for that matter was London's—in the last few years), and it is thriving, so yay Marom, Moishe House and Dor Chadash!

The growth in Masorti institutions seems really to be rocketing. This was only the second Masorti Olami European conference, the first being the one in Paris two or three years ago; and I'd forgotten just how recently the European Masorti Beth Din was set up, first as a UK institution, and then more recently extending to the Continent too. The food at the conference was provided by Mint Kosher, the first caterer operating under the supervision of the Masorti Beth Din, drawing on a market that just a few years ago was too small to attract caterers. And Masorti communities have been springing up all (well, ish) over the UK—Bournemouth and Glasgow, I learned, joining communities founded in the last few years such as Elstree & Borehamwood and Stoke Newington.

(Finally, as a largely unconnected aside, did you know the Abayudaya, the autochthonous Jewish community of Uganda, affiliates to Masorti Olami? I discovered that recently, forgot it and then relearned it at the weekend Masorti Olami literature.)

Comments

[aviva-m.livejournal.com]

This is all very nice - and yet I am finding myself one week after the conference still being bothered by certain things, which some rabbis said on sunday (on the panel about the future of Masorti). For example I couldn't believe my ears, that a prominent rabbi would suggest that, in a world of growing fundamentalism, non-egalitarian minyanim could be the future of Masorti. To which I would have loved a woman standing up and say: "I too believe, that in a world of growing feminism, non-egalitarian minyanim are the future. Women are taking leadership roles everywhere, they dislike being ruled by old men with black hats. To attract young women, I would therefore strongly suggest to inaugurate only women as rabbis for the time being. Also we don't really need male participation in our services. Men are welcome to sit on the side and watch - as long as they don't distract us. Should this be boring, they may go out and discuss football." Would this be a silly or even offensive statement? Then why is it ok the other way around, especially in a non-orthodox denomination?

[lethargic-man.livejournal.com]

I think the opinion was being offered as descriptive, not prescriptive. To be sure, those of us on the liberal end of the spectrum are moving in the direction of increasing egalitarianism, but we're possibly in a minority trend: witness the fact that the Conservative movement, which used to be the biggest denomination in the States, has been losing a lot of people in recent years, not just to the left but also to the right.

[aviva-m.livejournal.com]

Fair enough, but I don't think, this is the way to get them back. People, who feel attracted by fundamentalism, will surely go directly to orthodoxy or to the haredim. Why would Masorti be more attractive to them, if it's not egalitarian? They would probably still say, that's not the "real thing".

[lethargic-man.livejournal.com]

I don't think anyone is saying "let's become less egalitarian in order to try and win people back"; hence my comment about being descriptive, not prescriptive. The movement evolves according to what its members do. If enough individual congregations move away from egalitarianism, then the movement as a whole does.

People do the strangest things. Orthodoxy as a whole has moved wildly to the right, and done so in a gradualistic way, hence maintaining buy-in from its members. And I know people who grew up Liberal but who now prefer segregated seating in shul.

[aviva-m.livejournal.com]

OK, then I probably misunderstood that speech. However, I would wish a religious movement to have some non-negotiable core values -and I would wish equal rights for men and women be one of them. For example it's inconceivable, that Reform Judaism as a whole will ever abolish egalitarianism, it's just too much of a core value. If individuals or congregations moved away from that(which is their good right), than they would no longer be Reform, but something different.
I'd wish (because we will be dreamers ;-) it could be similar for Masorti.

[lethargic-man.livejournal.com]

I don't think R. Weiner was setting that out as his vision for the Masorti movement; I think what he was trying to do was challenge people's default assumption that the movement was moving towards increasing egalitarianism. As a stalwart of Assif, I'm sure he himself is in favour of increasing egalitarianism. Maybe what he said was intended as a wake-up call.

I'll be posting what he said in due course, so we can see what other people think.