Hadassah Says It’s Being ‘bullied’ for Barring Conservative Mohel

Hadassah has accused Reform and Conservative Zionist organizations of “ideological bullying” in their campaign to have a Conservative rabbi registered as a mohel, or ritual circumciser, at Hadassah medical facilities in Israel.

Carmela Kalmanson, national president of the women’s Zionist organization, denied claims by Rabbi Andrew Sacks that Hadassah hospitals had discriminated against him because he is a Conservative rabbi.

Instead, in a statement released July 31, she claimed Hadassah was complying with Israeli laws and customs for licensing mohelim when it denied Sacks access to its hospitals.

According to Kalmanson, mohelim are licensed by a committee made up of two Orthodox rabbis appointed by the Ministry of Religious Affairs, and two surgeons, also Orthodox, selected by the Ministry of Health.

But according to the head of the Reform organization fighting on Sacks’ behalf, the licensing committee is only customary and has no legal standing in Israel.

“Hadassah doesn’t want to do the courageous thing” and challenge the custom, said Rabbi Eric Yoffie, executive director of the Association of Reform Zionists of America, or ARZA.

“We deplore the fact that Hadassah or any other hospital finds it necessary to create committees that don’t have the force of law behind them,” he said in a telephone interview.

EFFORT AFOOT TO REACH ACCOMMODATION

Sacks, a graduate of the Jewish Theological Seminary and a certified mohel who emigrated to Israel from Philadelphia in 1987, had asked officials at Hadassah University Hospital on Mount Scopus in Jerusalem to allow him to practice and advertise his services there.

Sacks said he was denied permission by an Orthodox rabbi at the hospital, who told him that because he was a Conservative rabbi he would never be permitted to practice at Hadassah.

ARZA’s Israel Religious Action Center vowed to take legal action to force the hospital to allow Sacks to practice. The organization has been seeking a greater role for non-Orthodox rabbis and lay people in Israeli religious life.

Kalmanson maintained that the regulation of circumcision in Israel “falls into an ill-defined area between secular law, religious law and custom.”

She acknowledged that Hadassah conceivably could have challenged the practice by allowing Sacks to practice without obtaining the license.

But, “after due deliberation, Hadassah decided it would be inappropriate for the institution to take action unilaterally on an issue that has far-reaching implications for Israel’s religious groups, its government, its medical community and society at large,” she said.

Nevertheless, the organization has undertaken efforts to reach an accommodation with religious and government authorities, she said, including the introduction of legislation in the Knesset that would shift regulation of mohelim to the Health Ministry.

Mercaz, the Conservative Zionist organization, has also decried the alleged discrimination against Sacks.