SELECTED REFORM RESPONSA
school, when he graduates(or is confirmed, usually around the age of fourteen) this is deemed with us to be full and official conversion of the child.
8. To answer this question I must first answer 13e: Is there supreme halakhic authority in Reform Judaism? No, the Central Conference of American Rabbis and our other organizations, such as the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, are voluntary organizations for consultation and mutual guidance. We have at the Conference a Responsa Committee of which I have the honor to be chairman. My decisions in answer to questions are made according to what seems to me a balance between the attitude of the halakha and the needs of modern times. The decisions are meant for guidance and not for governance. We respect the halakha as an expression of Jewish spiritual thought and feeling for two thousand years, and we follow it whenever we deem it possible to do so.
Now, therefore the question of No. 8: The Conference is opposed to the marriage of a Jew with an unconverted non-Jew. A few rabbis, nevertheless, do officiate at such marriages. They are a small minority. Even these few do not officiate indiscriminately, but only under special circumstances as, for example, if the couple are both old people or if they had been married already in the civil courts and the husband is going overseas to serve in the Armed Forces, and so on. So your question deals only with a few special cases, and we have not yet come to a conclusion as to what the status of such children should be.
9. Should the laws of proselytism be changed according to the principle of Hora’at Sha’ah? We think so. That is really the
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