PERSONAL PERSPECTIVE: REFORM JEWS SEE NO POINT IN LEADERS' STEP TO RIGHT.

Byline: Jonathan S. Shapiro

THERE is an old joke about a Jewish man stranded on a desert island.

A passing ship rescues him, but the man insists on giving the ship's captain a tour. The captain is amazed to see that, although the man is the only one on the island, he has built an entire city, including a city hall, a library and not one but two different synagogues.

``Why do you need two synagogues?'' the captain asks.

``Don't look at that one on the right,'' says the man, dropping his voice to a whisper. ``I don't go to that one.''

To its critics, Reform Judaism always resembled the man on the island. It seemed to define itself by what it was not: not wearing yarmulkes, not wearing prayer shawls, not keeping kosher and not accepting Scriptures as being actually written by God. The major hallmarks of the movement appeared to be individual interpretation of the word of God, rather than mindless ritual, and a more open approach to, if not full acceptance of, intermarriage.

Reform Judaism has recently responded to its critics by taking a turn to the right.

In May, its leaders voted to encourage members to adhere to more traditional religious practices. Reform Jews are now encouraged to, among other things, keep kosher, wear the symbols of their faith and use Hebrew during services.

None of this will have much of an effect. Most Reform Jews already followed these traditional practices. Certainly their rabbis did nothing to dissuade them from doing so. No Jew was ever asked to leave a Reform synagogue for wearing a prayer shawl or speaking Hebrew. Furthermore, the supposedly new principles are mere suggestions anyway and not enforceable rules.

If the principles are neither new nor enforceable, then why adopt them at all?

The answer rests not in divinity but in practical politics.

The real purpose was to secure Reform Judaism's recognition from the other movements, Orthodox and Conservative Judaism.

To non-Jews, particularly anti-Semites, all Jews may be alike. But among Jews the divisions are longstanding and bitter. Since Reform Judaism's inception, Conservative movements have refused to recognize it as Judaism at all. They do not respect the right of Reform rabbis to perform marriages or conversions or burials. They do not respect the liberalism of its followers.

In Israel, Reform Judaism is only a small portion of the Jewish nation's religious tapestry, and an almost invisible segment of the population adheres to it. Meanwhile, Orthodox communities are flourishing in Israel, just as they are flourishing in Los Angeles, a fact known by anyone living in the Fairfax District.

While Orthodox rabbis assert great influence on the social and political life of Israelis and, by extension, on American Jews seeking to marry, study or live in Israel, Reform rabbis are scorned by their Orthodox and Conservative colleagues as little more than pretenders to the faith.

As a means to gain respect from their more conservative brethren, the adoption of new principles by Reform Judaism's leaders is clearly a failure. With an ugliness that can only exist in family relationships, Orthodox and Conservative Jews in Israel greeted the new principles with disdain, dismissing them as not going far enough in bringing Reform Jews into the fold. Saying that the new principles won't make Reform Jews ``partners in the Bible, as it was given on Mount Sinai,'' the chief rabbinate of Israel, Meir Lau, promised that there will be no dialogue with the Reform movement until it adopts the Orthodox rabbi's strict interpretations of Jewish law.

It is hardly surprising that doctrinal battles among Jews continue. Jews have spent the last 5,000 years in debate with one another over the authorship and meaning of the word of God.

What is surprising and sad, at least for this Reform Jew, is that the leadership of the Reform movement would appear to give up the doctrinal fight so easily: The admission inherent in the new principles is that the brand of Judaism practiced by a large group of American Jews has already been mistaken.

Perhaps the leaders of the movement would do well to remember what makes Reform Judaism different in the first place. Reform Judaism developed in Europe and the United States in the 18th and 19th centuries as an effort to lead Jews out of the ghetto and into the societies in which Jews lived. It was a product of desire both to retain Jewish identity and become a part of the greater community. It was a modern movement, based on rationality and egalitarian principles. It sought to soften the heavily paternalistic, exclusionist policies of traditional Judaism and let Jews worship in their own language. It sought equality for women, converts and those not blessed with training in liturgical Hebrew.

For many, Reform Judaism was a way to maintain a Jewish identity during a time of assimilation, particularly in the United States. That many Reform Jews remained more traditional in their faith than the leaders of the movement is evidence of the vitality of rituals, the security American Jews have long felt in their homeland and the promise of Judaism's continued survival and growth.

It does not mean we are ready to abandon the liberal, modern principles of Reform Judaism - not even for a portion of brotherly approval or greater political influence. The new principles, therefore, were neither necessary nor politically prudent. They do not create new doctrine or require new practices. And they will not earn Reform Judaism's leaders the respect they seem so desperate to receive from their more closed-minded counterparts.