Credit: Amir Cohen/Reuters

The growing rift between liberal American Jews and the Israeli government was exacerbated last week when the newly appointed Minister of Religious Affairs, David Azoulay, referred to Reform Judaism as “a catastrophe for the people of Israel.”

The liberal Reform movement is important in the United States, but relatively insignificant in Israel, where the ultra-Orthodox Rabbinate is a branch of the government. Most Israeli Jews are either Orthodox or completely non-observant. But the majority of American Jews identify with the liberal Conservative and Reform movements, and this fact has become enormously divisive—particularly as the Rabbinate becomes ever more radically right-wing in its religious rulings and political pronouncements.

Azoulay, who is a member of the Sephardic ultra-Orthodox Shas party, made his remarks in the context of a meeting with Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, who is tasked with negotiating a compromise regarding the right of Reform and Conservative women to pray as a group and read from the Torah at the Western Wall in Jerusalem.

Orthodox tradition prohibits women from praying aloud […]