By Hilary White
HOUSTON, November 21, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Rabbi Eric Yoffie, the president of the ultra-liberal Union for Reform Judaism, has lashed out at conservatives on the “religious right” who defend traditional morality and the family. He made his remarks in a speech Saturday, to about 5,000 during the movement’s national assembly in Houston.
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With unconscious irony, Yoffie attacked those who hold to traditional religious moral values about marriage and sexuality equating them with the murderous Nazi regime.
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He said, “We cannot forget that when Hitler came to power in 1933 one of the first things that he did was ban gay organizations,” Yoffie said. “Yes, we can disagree about gay marriage. But there is no excuse for hateful rhetoric that fuels the hellfires of anti-gay bigotry.”
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Yoffie avoided direct references to Christianity or evangelicals, the usual targets of accusations of bigotry, using instead the term “religious right” which he said was intended to include conservative Jews.
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He said, “religious right” leaders believe “unless you attend my church, accept my God and study my sacred text you cannot be a moral person.”
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Isaac Levy, spokesman for the conservative Jewish organization, Jews for Morality, said that Yoffie’s claims could be refuted by “any 13-year-old child” studying the Torah. “He should try at least to look into the English version of the Torah and he’ll find that he’s full of hot air,” said Levy.
Levy said that Judaism cannot simply be anything, it has specific tenets and teachings that are found in the Torah, the five books of the Law, and a movement that denies them has ceased to be Judaism.
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“The Reform religion is a different religion.” Levy told LifeSiteNews.com. “It’s not the Torah that Moses brought down from Sinai.”
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“Reform rabbis do not keep the Sabbath; they eat pork; they eat shellfish. Therefore any statement from any Reform rabbi is not the indigenous Torah perspective that we inherited from our forefathers and Moses our teacher,” said Levy in comments to LifeSiteNews.com.
The Reform Jewish Union represents 1.5 million Reform Jews in more than 900 synagogues across the United States and Canada. The Reform movement is the only branch of Judaism that sanctions gay ordination and supports same-sex civil marriage.