Jerusalem’s Orthodox Deputy Mayor Refuses To Speak At Conservative Jewish Venue
Image by Getty images
JERUSALEM (JTA) — A deputy mayor of Jerusalem refused to attend a real estate conference because it was held in a facility owned by the Conservative movement.
Eliezer Rauchberger, who represents the haredi Orthodox Degel Hatorah party and holds the building and planning portfolio, had committed to being a keynote speaker Monday at the national convention of the Real Estate Appraisers Association in Israel. But he pulled out the day of the conference after realizing that it would be held at the Agron Guesthouse in downtown Jerusalem, Haaretz first reported on Tuesday. The guesthouse hosts delegations and youth groups affiliated with the Conservative movement.
Rauchberger told Haaretz in an email that he withdrew from the event because “Reform and Conservative [Jews] champion the destruction of Judaism. The people of Israel and residents of Jerusalem, whom I have the honor to serve, are not connected to these movements and do not want them to gain a foothold in the city or within the Jewish people. I do not have and will not have any connection to these heretical movements.”
He acknowledged that he planned to boycott all events in the city connected in any way with the non-Orthodox Jewish movements.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
