Anat Hoffman urges all supporters to send a letter to Rabbi Miri Gold (pictured), letting her know of IRAC’s continuing fight against a bureaucratic “Catch-22” that has negated the May 2012 Knesset decision to award her a state salary like all male Orthodox rabbis in the Gezer region.
Dear Rabbi Gold,
I’m writing you today to beg for more of your patience. I know you and your congregation, Birkat Shalom, believed that winning an unprecedented verdict in May 2012 meant that you would receive a state salary like all male Orthodox rabbis in the Gezer region. Our whole movement in Israel and abroad celebrated this achievement; however it is now clear to me that the celebrations were premature.
We have just learned that the state decided NOT to award you a salary for 2012 because you worked only part time as Birkat Shalom’s rabbi. This is spectacular chutzpa. The only reason you worked part time was that there were no financial means to pay you for a full-time position. But I know, as everyone does, that you give much more than full-time; you give your all. The rule that only full-time rabbis will be compensated by the state is an invention by government bureaucrats wishing to circumvent the court’s verdict. We at IRAC are determined to fight this verdict with all the tools at our disposal. If necessary, we will return to the Supreme Court and ask them to order your salary to be paid immediately along with compensation and legal fees.
We want to alert the many new friends that we have in the Knesset and have them investigate and correct this bureaucratic “Catch-22.” We will turn to the media both here and abroad and get the liberal Jewish world to apply pressure on Israeli decision makers. But before we do all that, I must ask you for savlanut (patience). You once pointed out to me that the word savlanut has the word sevel (suffering) in its root; you taught me that in the course of the 7 years that we were in court challenging the state to recognize you as a rabbi in Israel. So today I turn to you; dear sister, friend, and teacher. Please have more savlanut – “justice, justice will prevail.”
L’shalom,
Anat Hoffman
Executive Director, IRAC
Please click here to email a version of this letter letter to Rabbi Miri Gold. You will have a choice to either use the form or compose your own letter: