SEMINARY LEADER URGES END TO ISRAEL'S CHIEF RABBINATE.

Byline: Gustav Niebuhr The New York Times

In a sign of growing tension between some Orthodox Jewish groups and non-Orthodox Jews, the chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary called Wednesday for ``dismantling'' Israel's chief rabbinate and ending donations to groups that oppose the recognition of non-Orthodox movements in Israel.

In a letter mass-mailed to Conservative rabbis and major Jewish organizations, Rabbi Ismar Schorsch also warned that a recent declaration by a small group of Orthodox rabbis could, even unintentionally, create a climate conducive to violence by one Jew against another.

Schorsch referred to a March 31 declaration by the Union of Orthodox Rabbis, which said the Reform and Conservative movements were ``not Judaism'' and urged Jews to avoid the movements' synagogues. The union's statement drew widespread opposition, including criticism from the Rabbinical Council of America, the nation's largest Orthodox rabbinic group.

Schorsch's letter, sent to 1,500 members of the Conservative movement's Rabbinical Assembly and to organizations like the United Jewish Appeal-Federation, comes at a time of friction between the Orthodox and non-Orthodox movements, as well as between the non-Orthodox and the Israeli government, over the issue of Orthodox rabbinical control of religious life in Israel.

The founders of Israel gave Orthodox rabbis authority over religious affairs, including marriages, divorces and conversions, supervised these days by a chief rabbinate that includes a large religious bureaucracy. But in 1995 the Israeli Supreme Court opened the door to a greater role for non-Orthodox rabbis by ruling that Orthodox conversions were not required for an Israeli to be registered as a Jew.

While the Reform and Conservative movements comprise the vast majority of religiously-affiliated American Jews, they are a minor presence in Israel, whose population is divided, about 4 to 1, between secular and Orthodox Jews.

On April 1, the Israeli Parliament voted to reverse the Supreme Court's ruling, by granting preliminary approval to a bill that would give Orthodox rabbis sole authority to conduct conversions in Israel. The vote outraged Reform and Conservative leaders, who said that in rejecting a pluralistic view of Judaism, the Parliament threatened Jewish unity.