SEPHARDIC
JEWS REJECT REFORM JUDAISM
a GUEST POST by Mr. Cohen – quotes listed in time order
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********** QUOTE 1 OF 13: **********
Reform — with rebuke for existing forms inherent in the very word —
was by
its nature incompatible with traditional Sephardic orthodoxy.
Reform, an attempt to bring Judaism “up to
date,” to make Judaism appear
to be at home with existing American religious
patterns, was attacked
by traditionalists as a subversive attempt to
“Christianize” Judaism.
Under Reform, women would come down from their secluded balconies
in
synagogues, and worship side by side with their husbands.
Men would take off their tall silk hats.
[Reform] synagogues would look more like
churches.
English would replace Hebrew.
SOURCE: The Grandees: the Story of America's Sephardic Elite
(chapter 14, page 192) by Stephen Birmingham, year 1971,
First Lyons Press
paperback edition, ISBN: 9781493024681 ISBN: 149302468X
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********** QUOTE 2 OF 13: **********
“…it [Reform Temple Emanu-El, in year 1868 CE]
represented — on a
national scale — a triumph for the
Reform movement, which the Sephardim
had so long opposed.”
SOURCE: The Grandees: the Story of America's Sephardic Elite
(chapter 18, page 253) by Stephen Birmingham, year 1971,
First Lyons Press
paperback edition, ISBN: 9781493024681 ISBN: 149302468X
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********** QUOTE 3 OF 13: **********
“While Reform Judaism was remaking the pattern
of Jewish life, threatening to
topple the traditional
orthodoxy, these [Sephardic] Jews knew nothing of it.”
SOURCE: The Grandees: the Story of America's Sephardic Elite
(chapter 21, page 273) by Stephen Birmingham, year 1971,
First Lyons Press
paperback edition, ISBN: 9781493024681 ISBN: 149302468X
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********** QUOTE 4 OF 13: **********
“…the insistence of the Sephardim on retaining
the Orthodox form
of worship — against the trend
toward modernization and Americanization that
has
been marked among Jewry all over the country …”
SOURCE: The Grandees: the Story of America's Sephardic Elite
(chapter 22, page 284) by Stephen Birmingham, year 1971,
First Lyons Press
paperback edition, ISBN: 9781493024681 ISBN: 149302468X
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********** QUOTE 5 OF 13: **********
“To this day there is no Sephardic synagogue
which is not strictly Orthodox.
Although not all Sephardic Jews are personally Orthodox,
Orthodoxy has remained
the official Sephardic tradition.
Nowhere in the entire Sephardic world has
Reform or Conservative Judaism
penetrated.”
SOURCE: The Secret Jews (chapter 3, page 99)
by Joachim
Prinz, year 1973, Random House,
ISBN-10: 0853031851 ISBN-13: 978-0853031857
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********** QUOTE 6 OF 13: **********
“Enlightenment
brought major changes to the Sephardic community too,
but Reform never
presented a serious challenge to the established
Orthodox rabbinate, and the
vast majority of [Sephardic] lay people,
even those who grew lax in their Halachic
observance, remained
attached to the traditional [Orthodox] rituals in the
synagogue and the home.”
SOURCE: Piety and Power (chapter 1,
page 7)
by David Landau, year 1993 CE, publisher: Hill and Wang,
ISBN 10:
0809076055 ISBN 13: 9780809076055
MICROBIOGRAPHY: David Landau was News Editor
of HaAretz,
Managing Editor of The Jerusalem Post
and Israel Bureau Chief for the
Jewish Telegraphic agency.
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********** QUOTE 7 OF 13: **********
“The Reform leaders did not rest on their laurels,
and continued
agitating until they had obtained a
foothold in virtually every single kehillah
in New York.
Out of 100 shuls that had been established in the early 1800s,
only a pitiful ten percent, ten shuls in all, remained Frum
[Orthodox].
Three or four of the ten [synagogues that remained
Orthodox in New York] were Sephardic shuls,
and the rest were
Ashkenazi shuls that had heroically
managed to withstand the pressure of
the Reform movement.”
SOURCE: The Rav HaKolel and His Generation 5th
Edition
(chapter 7, page 53) by Rabbi Yonah Landau, year 2014 CE,
68 Lee
Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11211
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********** QUOTE 8 OF 13: **********
"…We do declare that:
We affirm the eternality of our holy Torah, the Jewish nation,
and the
Holy Land of Israel.
We affirm that our Judaism is solely determined by
the teachings of our
Holy Torah, both written and oral,
as passed down through the generations, all
the way to Sinai.
Movements such as Conservative and Reform are foreign
to our Torah
tradition, and their executions of halachic rites
such as: marriage,
divorce, and conversion will NOT be recognized."
SOURCE: RESOLUTIONS ADOPTED BY THE
IRANIAN RABBANIM IN
THE UNITED STATES
AT ITS FIRST NATIONAL RABBINIC CONFERENCE,
2017 JUNE 7 * YEAR
TAF SHIN AYIN ZAYIN, SIVAN 13,
IN ONTARIO, CALIFORNIA
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********** QUOTE 12 OF 13: **********
“Rabbi Ken Spiro, a historian and a licensed tour guide from
the Israel Ministry of Tourism…explains that the major difference
between
Israel and the Diaspora is that in the Jewish state, there
is a large
population of Sephardim (Jews from the Arab world)
who are generally more
traditional and historically have had
no exposure to Reform or Conservatism
Judaism—movements
that originated in Western European—as well as American
Ashkenazi Jewish communities of the 19th and early 20th centuries.”
SOURCE: Why Israelis aren’t as worked up about the
Western Wall as Diaspora Jews by Josh Hasten, 2018 August 1
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********** QUOTE 13 OF 13: **********
Liam Hoare (freelance writer
based in the United Kingdom) said:
“On top of
that, Reform and Conservative Judaism were never
present in Sephardi
Jewish communities in the Muslim world…”
SOURCE: Reform and Conservative Judaism
Have Failed
in Israel and It’s Their Own Fault by Liam Hoare,
March 2015, Issue
24 of The Tower Magazine
http://www.thetower.org/article/reform-and-conservative-judaism-have-failed-in-israel-and-its-their-own-fault/
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