Rivlin greets Conservative Jews as ‘family’

President Reuven Rivlin, who drew criticism before becoming Israel’s president for broadsides against non-Orthodox Jewish streams, told a group of Conservative Jews on Wednesday that Jews are “all one family.”

“If my family had ended up in the United States and not in Israel, who knows what kind of synagogue I would have joined,” Rivlin told the delegation at the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism in Jerusalem, according to Haaretz. “But I was born in Jerusalem and was educated as a Jerusalemite.

“We are all one family, however, and I respect and recognize, lovingly and genuinely, people who have chosen a different Jewish identity than my own.”

Yizhar Hess, head of the Masorti (Conservative) movement in Israel, described the meeting as “warm and jovial,” and added that it “did not surprise me.”

“As a true democrat, a Jew with deep roots and a leader who was always committed to human and civil rights, the president understands well that in his current role he functions also at the president of the entire Jewish people, and there is, obviously, more than one way to be a Jew,” Hess said.

As recently as this year, in his capacity as a member of the Knesset, Rivlin opposed granting equal status to the Reform and Conservative movements. He also drew outrage in the past for calling Reform Judaism “idol worship” and refusing to address Reform rabbis as “rabbi.”

Rivlin succeeded Shimon Peres as president in July.