Israel Faces Uproar Abroad as Netanyahu Yields to Ultra-Orthodox Jews
Charles Bronfman, the Canadian-American billionaire and a major Jewish philanthropist, sent a letter to the Israeli prime minister taking him to task and noting
that "to my knowledge, no other country in the world denies any Jew based on denomination." And the board of governors of the Jewish Agency, a quasi-governmental body that works to connect Israel with Jews around the world and that is led by the former Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky, flatly canceled a gala dinner with Mr. Netanyahu.
that Prime Minister, you must know that the wholeness of the people is more important than the wholeness of the coalition,
An editorial published by an ultra-Orthodox news site described Reform Judaism as "perhaps a kind of religion, but a foreign religion like Christianity and Islam." Yariv Levin, the tourism minister, from Mr. Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud Party, told a religious radio station
that threats to cut contributions to Israel showed "a large degree of chutzpah." "Those donors will not determine how the state looks," Mr. Levin was quoted as saying.
Minutes before the votes on the conversion bill and the suspension of the Kotel plan, Mr. Sharansky had accompanied Avinoam Bar-Yosef, the Israeli president of the Jewish People Policy Institute,
and its American chairmen, Dennis B. Ross and Stuart E. Eizenstat, as they presented the research group’s annual assessment to Mr. Netanyahu’s cabinet.