The ongoing battle in the religious sector over the status of The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, a fund that transfers millions of dollars a year to Israel from Christian donors around the world, has seen a new development over the past fortnight.
Some two weeks ago, Rabbi Mordechai Eliahu - one of the national-religious camp's most highly regarded halakhic authorities, alongside Rabbi Avraham Shapira - published a letter in which he backtracked on his ruling that Jews can enjoy the fund's bounty despite it being a gift from Christians. "Now, it appears otherwise to me," Eliahu wrote in his new letter. "And as a result, I concur with what was written by the great rabbi, the genius Rabbi Avraham Shapira ... and, therefore, my statements or writings from before this letter are all null and void, and I am party to the prohibition."
In the interim, however, it appears that Eliahu's new ruling has not been the last word on the subject.
Dvora Ganani, the director-general of The International Fellowship, claims that after the organization learned of the new ruling, she called Eliahu's secretary, Rabbi Shmuel Zafrani.
"Many of the charitable institutions headed by Rabbi Eliahu benefit from our fund," she says. "So I asked Zafrani if we should stop transfering the money to these institutions. He said I shouldn't, and explained that Rabbi Eliahu signed the letter only after capitulating to heavy pressure applied to him by Rabbi Simha Hacohen Kook, but that he tells anyone who calls him and asks how to act in practice that the money can still be accepted."
Ganani also tells of a specific case involving the Or Leah charity association: "At the time we learned of Eliahu's ruling, we were in possession of a check in the amount of NIS 50,000 in its favor. The chairman of the association, Eliahu Cohen, called Rabbi Eliahu to ask him what he should do, and according to Cohen, he was told he could accept the check."
As a result, in the midst of the storm around Eliahu's "boycott" letter, The Fellowship received a letter of thanks from Cohen, who wrote: "We wish to express in these lines our gratitude for your donation and your special and uniquely dedicated assistance ... May blessed God fulfill all your heart's desires."
Cohen adamantly refused to respond to questions from Haaretz, and referred the newspaper to Eliahu's secretary, Zafrani, who also failed to respond to the numerous calls made to his home, his mobile telephone and his pager.
Meanwhile, the confusion surrounding Eliahu's position has spilled over to the National Religious Party-affiliated daily Hatzofeh. Last Friday, the newspaper published a report on Eliahu's prohibition ruling; but on Sunday, the daily printed "a clarification" according to which Eliahu has not imposed a ban on accepting money from the fund.
The campaign against The Fellowship has been spearheaded for a number of years by a lone woman - Mina Penton, who serves on the Jerusalem City Council on behalf of the NRP. Penton reasons her crusade against The Fellowship on the claim that the fund is based on money from Christians who wish, in the end, to convert the Jews. She even argues in her publications that The Fellowship's head, Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, has admitted in a book he wrote in the past that he is a "Jew for Jesus."
Ganani, of course, rejects Penton's claims about Eckstein: "The publication on which Penton bases her argument has been completely taken out of context. We are talking about a fictional novel that describes a meeting between a Jewish rabbi and a Christian journalist who are visiting the Holy Land together.
"During their tour in Jerusalem, a traditional Jew berates the rabbi for traveling with the Christian. And then the rabbi says, `Although I don't believe in Jesus as The Messiah and view him as a Jew who brought salvation to the Gentiles, it's exactly what I have become to a certain extent - a Jew for Jesus.'
"So perhaps what we have here is a not very good way of putting things on the part of Eckstein, but he certainly doesn't attribute to himself support for Jesus in the Christian sense of the word. And, in any event, we are talking about a fictional novel."
Whatever the case may be, The Fellowship's religious beneficiaries have no intentions of stopping their acceptance of money from the fund, even if it emerges that Rabbi Eliahu did mean to prohibit the practice.
"Rabbi Elyashiv and other Torah sages have ruled that accepting money from the fund is permissible if the money is not going to educational institutions," says ultra-Orthodox journalist Dudi Zilbershlag, who runs soup kitchens and other charitable associations. "And, indeed, Eckstein himself is meticulous about not offering his donations to educational institutions at all."