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Panim in Action The Beilin Initiative: A Forum for Promoting Secular Judaism Holds its First Meeting in the Knesset, February 13, 2007 About 70 representatives of various organizations involved in the area of Jewish identity attended the launching of a forum for promoting secular Judaism, an initiative of MK Yossi Beilin. Only four of the nine MK’s who had expressed interest in the forum participated in this initial meeting, which took place on February 13, 2007. [See links to Ha-aretz articles] This landmark event could not have taken place without the groundwork laid by Panim, IRAC (The Israel Religious Action Center), and the numerous organizations working to promote Jewish pluralism and renewal.
In keeping with the best Jewish tradition, participants at the meeting debated about goals and objectives, and voiced disagreement on several issues. But Panim’s position paper [see below], submitted several days before, anticipated the opposition to focusing on the concept of “secular” and suggested adopting the approach of “pluralism” instead. Although some of those in attendance recommended an aggressive stance against the Orthodox hegemony that prevails in so many areas of Israeli life, others thought it best to focus on reinforcing and constructing pluralistic elements. In the end, most of the speakers agreed about the necessity of cooperative action in the political arena to serve the needs of the secular Jewish population and promote pluralistic Judaism in Israel.
The forum decided to establish task forces under the leadership of MK’s to deal with the following issues:
They also drew up a list of topics suggested as possible areas of intervention, that included:
Noteworthy too was the announcement that the forum’s next meeting would be devoted to the subject of education and that Minister of Education, Yuli Tamir, would be in attendance.
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