Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

18 Jewish House Members Press Netanyahu On Pluralism

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Eighteen Jewish Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives wrote Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressing disappointment in his rollback of religious pluralism reforms.

“We write to express our profound concerns about recent decisions that seem to call into question the legitimacy and equal status of non-Orthodox Jews,” said the letter sent Thursday.

Among the decisions they cited were the June decision by Netanyahu’s Cabinet to put a hold on a 2016 agreement to expand an egalitarian prayer plaza at the Western Wall and a pending Knesset bill that would consolidate power over conversions performed in Israel under the Orthodox Chief Rabbinate.

“Like our Jewish constituents we believe are and must remain am echad, one people united by history and faith,” said the letter, signed by all but three of the 21 Jewish Democrats in the House. There are also two Jewish Republicans in the body.

The letter echoes a similar plea from seven Jewish U.S. senators sent earlier this month to Netanyahu.

It is rare for U.S. lawmakers to comment on internal Israeli politics, especially unrelated to national security or military affairs.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

2X match on all Passover gifts!

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:

  • Credit the Forward
  • Retain our pixel
  • Preserve our canonical link in Google search
  • Add a noindex tag in Google search

See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.