A leading American Reform rabbi said that the best approach to the controversy over canceled plans for an egalitarian prayer area at the Kotel, or Western Wall, would be for American Jews to become more engaged with Israel.

Rabbi Richard Block, a former president of the World Union for Progressive Judaism (WUPJ) and the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR), told The Algemeiner on Thursday, “whatever goes on in Israel, we need more visits there, and deeper, engaged, more passionate commitment to help develop non-Orthodox streams of Judaism there.”

The anger expressed by many in the Jewish community over the decision earlier this week to stop the establishment of an egalitarian prayer area for non-Orthodox Jews and to strengthen the Chief Rabbinate’s control over conversions, Block said, is “understandable,” but “we’re not going to Israel as an act of kindness. We are going there for our own souls and our own sense of Jewishness.”

“Going to Israel doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t register our fundamental disagreement with this decision, for example by going to the Supreme Court,” Block added. “But to disengage from Israel over legitimate issues says to those on the other side of this dispute, ‘It’s your Israel.’ And it’s not — it’s our Israel too, and we don’t walk away from it.”

While Block acknowledged that the government’s decisions resonated more with American Jews than with Israelis, it also reflects the extent of the power wielded by the Rabbinate, which the majority of secular Israelis resent. He noted that because the Rabbinate governs the process of marriage, many Israeli couples instead opt to cohabit, thus “the end result is that marriage, which is sacred in Judaism, is undermined.”

Block said that American Jews who are upset with the decision and the political climate in Israel should invest in the country’s community resources, “so that we’re engaged in developing the Israel we all aspire to.”

[Photo: Union for Reform Judaism / YouTube ]