Leading national-religious personality Rabbi Yuval Cherlow has called for state recognition of non-Orthodox Jewish denominations as a means of preventing their alienation from the Jewish state. (Photo: Progressive Jews during a service in Jerusalem)
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Four Women of the Wall were detained on December 14 after donning prayer shawls at the Kotel. The arrests took place amid “escalation of restrictions” on Jewish women’s rights, forbidding women from entering the plaza by the Kotel with Jewish holy articles, tallit and tefillin.
At a recent boardroom lunch co-hosted by the ARZA and UPJ, JNF-KKL Deputy Chairman Menachem Leibovic emphasised the vital importance of UPJ congregants joining ARZA.
Leibovic (pictured left with ARZA chair Barbara Ford), who holds the JNF-KKL Lands Portfolio, told the lunch attendees that he is uniquely placed as a member of the Progressive Judaism movement in Israel in a position of high political influence. His appointment at the last World Zionist Congress in 2010 was as a direct result of the high number of ARZENU delegates, which is calculated on the number of voting members from each country.
Therefore, it is vital for the future of Israel that every Progressive Jew becomes a member of ARZA so they can vote.
“The most effective way of ensuring that Progressive Jewish issues and values are incorporated into Israeli society is to activate your ARZA membership today,” Leibovic stressed. (more…)