WHO IS A JEW? : RABBIS' STATEMENT IGNITES DEBATE.

Byline: Jenifer Hanrahan Daily News Staff Writer

On the operating table, Art Ginsberg heard a voice through the anesthesia say, ``We're losing him.''

At that fateful moment, Ginsberg admits he not only prayed to God but Jesus Christ, St. Joseph and Buddha - ``anyone who would pull me through.''

Despite his eclectic appeal, Ginsberg - a grandfather and owner of Art's Deli in Studio City who occasionally attends his Reform synagogue - is proudly and unshakably Jewish.

Jonathan Gabay, a 16-year-old student at Valley Torah High School in North Hollywood, practices a different Judaism.

In pursuit of a better relationship with God, Gabay doesn't speak to girls his age, attend coed parties or date. He wears a yarmulke, even on the basketball court, and goes to synagogue every Friday night and twice on Saturday.

Although their faiths appear dissimilar in many ways, Ginsberg and Gabay agree on one point.

``A Jew is a Jew is a Jew,'' Gabay said, echoing the opinions of many Jews in the wake of the decree by an association of Orthodox rabbis declaring Orthodox Judaism the only true form of the religion.

The 600-member Union of Orthodox Rabbis in the United States and Canada declared March 31 that the Reform and Conservative movements - which represent up to 90 percent of U.S. Jews - ``are not Judaism at all, but another religion.''

The edict angered, alarmed and confused many Jews - Reform, Conservative and Orthodox.

``It has offended almost every Jew that I've met,'' said Harold Schulweis, senior rabbi at Valley Beth Shalom, a Conservative synagogue in Encino. ``We are offended by the notion of disenfranchisement and delegitimization of the overwhelming majority of religious Jews.''

A family matter

On the streets and in homes across the country, the declaration has reignited a heated debate and triggered quiet reflection on what it means to be a Jew.

For Ginsberg, being Jewish is about tradition and blood. His parents were Jewish.

He attends Friday night services from time to time. He volunteers at Temple Beth Hillel Reform congregation and watches with pride as his 4-year-old granddaughter lights Shabbat candles on Friday nights.

``Just seeing this tradition passed from generation to generation, it makes me glow,'' Ginsberg said.

The Union of Orthodox Rabbis declaration was widely interpreted as tantamount to saying the non-Orthodox are not Jews.

The Union of Orthodox Rabbis, inundated with calls from angry Jewish leaders around the country, insisted that is not what they meant.

``We never said they are not Jews, only that their Judaism is not Judaism,'' said Rabbi Hersh Ginsberg, director of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis, in a phone interview.

In its March 31 declaration, announced at a New York news conference, the Union of Orthodox Rabbis urged Jews to withdraw from Reform and Conservative synagogues.

The Orthodox rabbis union also forbade Jews to pray in Conservative and Reform synagogues, telling them to pray at home if they couldn't walk to an Orthodox synagogue.

``This declaration is a clarion call to all that, despite their brazen usurpation of the titles `Judaism,' `Jewish heritage,' `Jewish tradition' and `Jewish continuity,' Reform and Conservative are not Judaism at all. They are outside of Torah (Jewish law) and outside of Judaism,'' the statement said.

Leaders of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis said their theologic bombshell was to lend support to Orthodox Jews in Israel who are fighting to preserve religious authority in that country.

Most Israelis are considered secular Jews who are unaffiliated with any organized branch of Judaism. The most predominant branch of Judaism in Israel is Orthodox, making up about 20 percent of Israel's 4.5 million Jews.

Israel's founders gave Orthodox rabbis control over religious matters, including marriages, divorces and conversions.

But recently, a growing contingent of Reform and Conservative Jews have been trying to break the monopoly, presenting themselves as an alternative to Orthodox and seeking official recognition.

Keeping it together

Even though the goal may have been to affect Israeli politics, the Union of Orthodox Rabbis' edict hit a nerve here. In Orthodox and Reform temples, in Jewish newspapers and magazines, and at Jewish gathering spots, Jews talked about the declaration and what it would mean for their community.

``It's disturbing. We should be trying to figure out how to pull together, how to be one people instead of looking at ways to divide ourselves,'' said Rabbi Alan Rabishaw of Bel-Air's Stephen S. Wise Temple, a Reform synagogue and the second-largest Jewish congregation in the country.

The outcry was strong among Orthodox Jews as well.

``Who is the one to be the judge of how any person lives his life? Only God,'' said Rabbi Shlomo Cunin, West Coast Director of Chabad, which actively recruits Jews to its ultra-Orthodox movement.

Leaders of major U.S. Orthodox organizations denounced the statement, describing the rabbis' association as a fringe group.

Seeking to distance their views from the author group, the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations, which represents 1,000 synagogues, faxed a statement to news organizations across the country, decrying the declaration as an attempt to ``condense thousands of years of religious theology into 10-second sound bites. . . . The Orthodox Union firmly advocates that all Jews are brethren.''

The Rabbinical Council of America, the nation's largest association of Orthodox rabbis, also moved quickly to repudiate the position of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis.

The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles is organizing a meeting of local rabbis to ``heal any potential interdenominational rifts'' caused by the declaration.

Others are unsure of what all the hullabaloo is about. Conservative Jewish commentator Dennis Prager, who hosts a daily show on talk radio KABC-AM (790) about ethics and morals and is the author of several books on Judaism, said the confusion is the result of ``press hype,'' that news stories made too much of a small group's position.

Prager said being Jewish is as much about ethnicity as it is religion, and all Jews should understand that no group has the power to determine who is a Jew and who is not.

``Jews are a people,'' Prager said. ``A Jew can believe that God is made out of pickles and he is still a Jew. . . . You are a member of the Jewish people whether you are Reform, Conservative, Reconstructionist, communist, fascist or racist.''

Prager said Jews are overreacting to what is as an ``intellectual challenge'' posed by the hard-line rabbis.

Other Jewish leaders say the Union of Orthodox Rabbis is a small group whose edict has little impact on their lives.

``I don't take this group too seriously,'' Rabishaw said. ``I am perfectly confident that the Jewish life I live and that our congregants live is as authentically Jewish as even the most Orthodox way of life.''

The three main branches of Judaism differ over interpretation of the Jewish law, or the halakah. For example, the Reform and Conservative movements allow women rabbis, while the Orthodox branch does not.

Reform Jews accept civil divorces. Conservative Jews require a ``get,'' a religious divorce before a tribunal of rabbis.

The Reform movement split from the other branches in 1983 by recognizing the offspring of interfaith marriages as Jewish, whether the father or mother was Jewish. Until then, all branches of Judaism held that Jewish identity was passed solely by the mother.

Within Orthodoxy, some congregations consider themselves centrist Orthodox, while others are ultra-Orthodox. Then there are smaller, more extreme Orthodox groups such as the Hassidim, which includes sects such as the Satmers and Lubavitchers, who wear distinctive dark frocks, black hats on men, and wigs, or sheitel, on women.

An open debate

At Valley Torah High School, girls wear dark-blue skirts that cover their knees, shirts with collars and no makeup. Boys wear dark slacks, button-down shirts and yarmulkes, even on the basketball court.

They also freely debate religious questions, such as whether it is better to break the Orthodox ban on driving to temple or to not go at all, and the latest controversy.

Reform and Conservative Jews, Gabay said, ``are living Jewish life, but in a different way.''

Karina Krayndler, 18, of Woodland Hills, worried that the declaration will ``turn off a lot of people. To the rest of the world, it make Jews look like they're really judgmental.''

To others, the edict doesn't seem like anything new. Some Orthodox rabbis have long insisted their brand of Judaism is the only legitimate expression of the religion.

``Maybe the Orthodox hold themselves up as the ideal Jews,'' said Conservative Rabbi Sally Olins of Temple B'nai Hayim in Sherman Oaks. ``They might feel this way, but they have the decency not to say it.''

For David Goldin, 90, an Orthodox Jew from North Hollywood, wrangling over doctrine serves no purpose than to arouse ill will.

``Charity, visiting the sick, helping the poor, honesty - this to me is the real religion,'' said Goldin, who owned a religious supply store for more than 30 years. ``The rest is just observance.''

``In Judaism, there's room for all of us.''

CAPTION(S):

3 Photos

PHOTO (1 -- color)Sandy and Art Ginsberg observe Shabbat with daughter Roberta Mitteldorf, and grandchildren Sam and Ariella.

David Sprague/Daily News

(2 -- color) Children in yarmulkes participate in Friday services at Steven S. Wise Temple, a Reform congregation among those that one Jewish group has declared to be outside Judaism.

Tom Mendoza/Daily News

(3) Harold Schulweis is senior rabbi at Valley Beth Shalom, a Conservative synagogue in Encino.

Evan Yee/Daily News