by Michael Vuolo
NARRATION: The Jewish Council for Public Affairs is a kind of religious umbrella organization ... it tries to build a consensus between the many strains of Judaism on both sides of the political center. The Council organizes an annual conference to discuss the issues of the day. Assistant Executive Ethan Felson spoke from Boston on February 24th, hours after a panel discussion.
TAPE: FELSON: I don't think you would have seen some of the organizations that have backed same-sex marriage ... today ... having done so one year ago.
NARRATION: Felson said that more and more Jewish groups are welcoming gays and lesbians. But there is still no consensus on marriage, even among the more liberal branches. B'nai Jeshurun, a Reform congregation on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, has roughly 4,000 members, but less than 20 are here at 7:30 a.m. ... some still wrapping tefillin around their arm and forehead. Rabbi Jessica Zimmerman leads the Wednesday morning prayer service.
TAPE: ZIMMERMAN: For thousands of years, Judaism has managed to adapt in ways which have integrity to the text and to the history, to the tradition ... but at the same time incorporate modern, at whatever time period, values.
NARRATION: Zimmerman believes that Jewish law is evolving, much like secular law. She sees the issues of homosexuality and Judaism first through the lens of civil rights ... only the appearance of the family is different, she said, when both parents are the same gender.
TAPE: STEIN: I've made a huge change, but it was not an easy change for me.
NARRATION: Rabbi Jonathan Stein, across town at Temple Shaaray Tefila, wrestled for years with this issue. He was a key player in the early debates among the Reform rabbinate. He served as chair of a Committee on Human Sexuality and wrote material that later became part of the Reform position affirming gay unions. But, he says, there is no precedent in Judaism for same-sex couples.
TAPE: STEIN: You have to go outside of the Jewish tradition and be willing to say, "Here's a value that's so important to us, that even though it goes against X number of years of Jewish thought and practice, we have another thing to add to the mix."
NARRATION: Although he never performed a same-sex ceremony, Stein has made the leap outside of Jewish tradition ... he is willing. There is a very vocal part of the rabbinate, however, for whom the leap is simply too great. Jeffrey Salkin is a rabbi at The Temple, a 1,500-family congregation in Atlanta Georgia. Salkin is a social liberal ... he supports gay rights and opposes anti-gay legislation ... but he won't officiate a same-sex wedding ceremony ... he refuses to break with Biblical tradition.
TAPE: SALKIN: The imagery of that liturgy is extremely tied up with the idea of the complementarity of male and female roles ... even going so far as to teach us that a man and a woman actually complete each other in a rather cosmic and mystical way and I don't see that for gay and lesbian relationships -- now it may well be a failure of nerve or imagination on my part.
NARRATION: For many in the rabbinate, the debate over same-sex unions is largely philosophic and professional. For Shana Margolin, the issue is more personal. Margolin is a rabbi at the Jewish Community Center of Belle Meade, a small town in central New Jersey. She and her partner, a woman, have been together for more than 15 years. They have a home in the suburbs and an a adopted three-year-old son. They are, by most measures, the definition of a committed, monogamous couple.
TAPE: MARGOLIN: You look at what the Torah says about homosexuality per se and you look at what the Torah says about companionship and love and you look at what the tradition says about people being together and making holy relationships and all of those argue in favor of gay people marrying, having ... making families together.
NARRATION: In mid-January of this year, New Jersey became the fifth state to pass domestic partnership legislation. In five months, when the bill takes effect, Berger and Margolin will go to their local municipal building and register, bringing them a step closer to legal legitimacy ... but full religious legitimacy won't likely come so soon. Rabbi Zimmerman believes that gay and lesbian couples have the same ability to create a Jewish home as heterosexual couples. It could be years before the American people reach a consensus on this issue and thousands of more years before traditional Jews ... will agree. For Columbia Radio News, I'm Michael Vuolo.
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