About Yizhar Hess

A lawyer by training, Yizhar has led Masorti movement since 2007. He has been an articulate advocate for the equal participation of Jews of every denomination in the affairs of the State, including national service, and for increasing support to non-Orthodox streams, which currently receive far less than 1 percent of the budget allocated to religious institutions. (Orthodox institutions receive $450 million a year; Masorti and Reform combined, a mere $100,000 annually.) Yizhar helped galvanize the movement in the well supported campaign against the Rotem Conversion Bill, pending Knesset legislation that potentially endangers the legal status of most Jews-by-Choice who have been converted by American rabbis of every denomination.