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Conservative rabbis endorse use of electric cars on Shabbat, but divisions over driving remain
(JTA) — When rabbis from the Conservative movement got together to decide whether it is permissible to drive electric cars on Shabbat, their conclusion might have been obvious.
After all, the Conservative movement famously adopted an opinion in 1950 saying that driving to synagogue on Shabbat is acceptable for Jews who have no other way to get there. And in 2012, the movement adopted an opinion saying that the use of electricity in activities that are permitted on Shabbat is acceptable according to Jewish law or halacha.
And yet the ultimate vote to permit the use of electric cars on Shabbat was deeply divided, with just 10 members of the movement’s 25-rabbi Committee on Jewish Law and Standards voting in favor and six voting against. Five rabbis abstained from voting. (All 25 rabbis need not attend a vote; six or more votes are needed to approve a paper.)
What’s more, the committee adopted a second, competing opinion, known as a responsum, outright rejecting the use of electric cars on Shabbat — by a very similar margin.
Two rabbis, including one of the committee’s co-chairs, voted for both papers, even though the responsa came to different conclusions.
“Both of these responsa articulate the preference for walking to and from the synagogue on Shabbat, and the more of us Jews who can do that, the better, not only for halakhic reasons, but also for creating a close-knit community on Shabbat,” Rabbi Elliot Dorff wrote to explain why he voted for both positions. “That said, Jewish law must be applied to the realities that Jews face.”
It’s not unusual for the committee, whose rulings guide the movement’s rabbis, to adopt competing opinions, as it did, for example, when ruling in 2006 on inclusion for gay and lesbian Jews.
The groundwork for the split rulings, published on Wednesday, was laid in a footnote to the 2012 ruling on electricity. “Those who accept the 1950 CJLS minority position permitting people to drive to synagogue in a gas powered car would be justified extending this permission to electric cars,” the opinion’s author, Rabbi Danny Nevins, wrote — implying that at least some in the movement rejected the 1950 decision.
Before the 1950 responsum, Orthodox and Conservative groups agreed that driving was prohibited on Shabbat, citing halacha, or Jewish law, that forbids a host of activities on the day of rest, including lighting a fire and traveling a long distance from one’s home. The 1950 responsum was a landmark in American Judaism because it effectively sanctioned the choices of many Jews who had moved to suburbs where walking to synagogue was all but impossible. In fact, the responsum did not say that driving to synagogue was halachically sound, only that it was a concession worth making to facilitate the public and communal observance of Shabbat.
Nearly 75 years later, the leniency reflects the practices of most Conservative congregants in the United States, but Conservative rabbis and institutions largely have not accepted it. The Jewish Theological Seminary, the movement’s flagship seminary, bars rabbinical students from traveling by car on Shabbat, for example, and the Conservative movement in Israel rejected the position fully.
The challenges to the use of cars on Shabbat according to Jewish law are extensive: One might travel beyond the borders of one’s community, for example, or be tempted to perform repairs, both prohibited on Shabbat. But the biggest obstacle for the cars that most American Jews were driving in 1950 and today is that gas-combustion engines create fire in the course of ignition.
The rise of the electric car offers a widely accessible way to drive without creating fire. Concerns about driving too far or needing repairs still apply, write the authors of the paper making the case for electric cars on Shabbat, but by sticking close to home and driving only for Shabbat-related reasons, Jews can use electric cars without violating Shabbat.
That paper was written by two rabbis with recent experience in U.S. pulpits, David Fine of Temple Israel in Ridgewood, New Jersey, and Barry Leff, who divides his time between Israel and the United States and recently completed an interim stint at a synagogue in Birmingham, Alabama.
“For those who drive to the synagogue on Shabbat, driving an all-electric car is preferable to driving a conventional car,” they write. But they add, “When possible, we encourage walking or riding a bicycle as they are at a slower pace and more conducive to the spirit of Shabbat.” (Looking ahead, they also note that self-driving cars are permitted, saying, “The more that can be taken out of direct human hands, the more the spirit of Shabbat is constructed and preserved. If the technology and capability of an autonomous driving car is available and safe and able to transport one to synagogue, then all the better.”)
The paper rejecting driving on Shabbat altogether was written by two rabbis who do not work in synagogues: Marcus Mordecai Schwartz, who heads the study center at JTS, and Chaim Weiner, the head of Masorti Europe, the movement’s network of European congregations. They say they wanted to make sure that Conservative Jews who hold more traditional views about Jewish law — and who never accepted the 1950 ruling on Shabbat driving — could see their values in the movement’s legal literature.
“Some may think that we are attempting to exclude the less strictly-observant members of our communities,” they write. “Nothing could be further from our aim.”
Practically speaking, the impact of the legal opinions about electric cars is limited. Conservative congregants mostly drive to synagogue when they go — though the number of Jews affiliating with those synagogues is down sharply in recent decades, according to survey data. Few rely on the movement’s legal rulings to guide their daily activities.
But the rulings are influential among the movement’s rabbinic corps. And they can offer broad and needed messages, according to Rabbi Pamela Barmash, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis who chairs the CJLS with Dorff.
Barmash voted for the anti-driving opinion and abstained from voting on the one permitting electric cars on Shabbat. She said she wanted both positions to be available to Conservative Jews who are thinking about how to observe Shabbat.
“What is inspiring this is to emphasize the centrality of Shabbat to our lives as Jews, to our synagogue communities, and our personal relationships with God,” she said. “Restoring Shabbat and emphasizing Shabbat as so central is all the more urgent in the 21st century.”
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The post Conservative rabbis endorse use of electric cars on Shabbat, but divisions over driving remain appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials
FILE PHOTO: The atomic symbol and the Iranian flag are seen in this illustration, July 21, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
i24 News – Iranian and Iran-affiliated media claimed on Saturday that the Islamic Republic had obtained a trove of “strategic and sensitive” Israeli intelligence materials related to Israel’s nuclear facilities and defense plans.
“Iran’s intelligence apparatus has obtained a vast quantity of strategic and sensitive information and documents belonging to the Zionist regime,” Iran’s state broadcaster said, referring to Israel in the manner accepted in those Muslim or Arab states that don’t recognize its legitimacy. The statement was also relayed by the Lebanese site Al-Mayadeen, affiliated with the Iran-backed jihadists of Hezbollah.
The reports did not include any details on the documents or how Iran had obtained them.
The intelligence reportedly included “thousands of documents related to that regime’s nuclear plans and facilities,” it added.
According to the reports, “the data haul was extracted during a covert operation and included a vast volume of materials including documents, images, and videos.”
The report comes amid high tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, over which it is in talks with the US administration of President Donald Trump.
Iranian-Israeli tensions reached an all-time high since the October 7 massacre and the subsequent Gaza war, including Iranian rocket fire on Israel and Israeli aerial raids in Iran that devastated much of the regime’s air defenses.
Israel, which regards the prospect of the antisemitic mullah regime obtaining a nuclear weapon as an existential threat, has indicated it could resort to a military strike against Iran’s installations should talks fail to curb uranium enrichment.
The post Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz looks on, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, in Jerusalem, Nov. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
The Israeli military has retrieved the body of a Thai hostage who had been held in Gaza since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack, Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday.
Nattapong Pinta’s body was held by a Palestinian terrorist group called the Mujahedeen Brigades, and was recovered from the area of Rafah in southern Gaza, Katz said. His family in Thailand has been notified.
Pinta, an agricultural worker, was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz, a small Israeli community near the Gaza border where a quarter of the population was killed or taken hostage during the Hamas attack that triggered the devastating war in Gaza.
Israel’s military said Pinta had been abducted alive and killed by his captors, who had also killed and taken to Gaza the bodies of two more Israeli-American hostages that were retrieved earlier this week.
There was no immediate comment from the Mujahedeen Brigades, who have previously denied killing their captives, or from Hamas. The Israeli military said the Brigades were still holding the body of another foreign national. Only 20 of the 55 remaining hostages are believed to still be alive.
The Mujahedeen Brigades also held and killed Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, according to Israeli authorities. Their bodies were returned during a two-month ceasefire, which collapsed in March after the two sides could not agree on terms for extending it to a second phase.
Israel has since expanded its offensive across the Gaza Strip as US, Qatari and Egyptian-led efforts to secure another ceasefire have faltered.
US-BACKED AID GROUP HALTS DISTRIBUTIONS
The United Nations has warned that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli blockade of the enclave, with the rate of young children suffering from acute malnutrition nearly tripling.
Aid distribution was halted on Friday after the US-and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said overcrowding had made it unsafe to continue operations. It was unclear whether aid had resumed on Saturday.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, overseeing a new model of aid distribution which the United Nations says is neither impartial nor neutral. It says it has provided around 9 million meals so far.
The Israeli military said on Saturday that 350 trucks of humanitarian aid belonging to U.N. and other international relief groups were transferred this week via the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza.
The war erupted after Hamas-led terrorists took 251 hostages and killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, in the October 7, 2023 attack, Israel’s single deadliest day.
The post Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say
Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo
The State Department is weighing giving $500 million to the new foundation providing aid to war-shattered Gaza, according to two knowledgeable sources and two former US officials, a move that would involve the US more deeply in a controversial aid effort that has been beset by violence and chaos.
The sources and former US officials, all of whom requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that money for Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) would come from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which is being folded into the US State Department.
The plan has met resistance from some US officials concerned with the deadly shootings of Palestinians near aid distribution sites and the competence of the GHF, the two sources said.
The GHF, which has been fiercely criticized by humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations, for an alleged lack of neutrality, began distributing aid last week amid warnings that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli aid blockade, which was lifted on May 19 when limited deliveries were allowed to resume.
The foundation has seen senior personnel quit and had to pause handouts twice this week after crowds overwhelmed its distribution hubs.
The State Department and GHF did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Reuters has been unable to establish who is currently funding the GHF operations, which began in Gaza last week. The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to transport aid into Gaza for distribution at so-called secure distribution sites.
On Thursday, Reuters reported that a Chicago-based private equity firm, McNally Capital, has an “economic interest” in the for-profit US contractor overseeing the logistics and security of GHF’s aid distribution hubs in the enclave.
While US President Donald Trump’s administration and Israel say they don’t finance the GHF operation, both have been pressing the United Nations and international aid groups to work with it.
The US and Israel argue that aid distributed by a long-established U.N. aid network was diverted to Hamas. Hamas has denied that.
USAID has been all but dismantled. Some 80 percent of its programs have been canceled and its staff face termination as part of President Donald Trump’s drive to align US foreign policy with his “America First” agenda.
One source with knowledge of the matter and one former senior official said the proposal to give the $500 million to GHF has been championed by acting deputy USAID Administrator Ken Jackson, who has helped oversee the agency’s dismemberment.
The source said that Israel requested the funds to underwrite GHF’s operations for 180 days.
The Israeli government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The two sources said that some US officials have concerns with the plan because of the overcrowding that has affected the aid distribution hubs run by GHF’s contractor, and violence nearby.
Those officials also want well-established non-governmental organizations experienced in running aid operations in Gaza and elsewhere to be involved in the operation if the State Department approves the funds for GHF, a position that Israel likely will oppose, the sources said.
The post US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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