The following is the Conservative Movement’s statement condemning the decision to include Otzma Yehudit in the Israeli Knesset.
Racism and hatred are antithetical to our Jewish values and the ideals on which the Jewish State of Israel was founded.
The Conservative/Masorti Movement condemns the decision to include Otzma Yehudit, a racist Israeli political party with roots in the extremist ideology of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane and his Kach party, in a list that might be a legitimate coalition member after the elections. For decades, this movement has been widely recognized in Israel and throughout the United States as dangerously radical, including the Kach party being designated by the U.S. Department of State as a terrorist organization since 1997. Otzma Yehudit should not be further legitimized in any sense and we hope and pray that the party returns to a place of irrelevance.
Rabbinical Assembly
United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism
Cantors Assembly
Federation of Jewish Men’s Clubs
Jewish Educators Assembly
Jewish Theological Seminary
Masorti Foundation
Masorti Israel
Masorti Olami
Mercaz-Canada & Canadian Foundation for Masorti Judaism
Mercaz Olami
Mercaz USA
The Schechter Institutes, Inc.
Seminario Rabinico Latinoamericano
Women’s League for Conservative Judaism
Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies
