Because most American Jews already feel alienated from Israel, the U.S. administration understood that no great harm would be done by abstaining in last week’s UN Security Council vote against it, the rabbi of one of the largest and most influential congregations in the United States told the Knesset on Tuesday.

>> Get all updates on Israel, U.S. and the Jewish World: Download our App, sign up to Breaking News Alerts, and Subscribe >>

“It would be a mistake to attribute the news of last week’s UN resolution solely to the behavior of an outgoing American president – to differences of policy or personality between the Obama and Netanyahu administrations,” said Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove, spiritual leader of The Park Avenue Synagogue on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, a Conservative congregation comprising 1,700 families.

“When future historians look back on this moment, the gap they will discuss will not just be the one between America and Israel, but between American Jewry and Israel," Cosgrove said. "Somewhere in all the political calculations, the American administration understood that a gap exists between the vast majority of American Jewry and the actions of Israel.”

Cosgrove was among a delegation of rabbis from the United States representing the various Jewish movements who participated in a special meeting of the Knesset caucus on religion and state. All the participating rabbis, including those of the Orthodox stream, warned that American Jews are increasingly disengaging from Israel because of the government’s perceived intolerance of those who are not strictly observant. In particular, the rabbis cited the government’s willingness to allow the very stringent Chief Rabbinate to dictate rules pertaining to conversion and to prayer at the Western Wall.

“Far too often, far too many American Jews are left to wonder whether Israel loves us as much as we love Israel,” said Cosgrove, echoing sentiments expressed by many of the other participants. “We see an Israel that does not recognize the Judaism we practice, an Israel that does not acknowledge the marriages or conversions of American rabbis, an Israel that has allowed the symbol of Jewish unity – the Kotel – to become ground zero for fanaticism and intolerance, an Israel that provides hundreds of millions of dollars to Orthodox institutions and none to non-Orthodox expressions of Jewish life, an Israel in which Conservative and Reform synagogues have been subjected to vandalism and an Israel that is entertaining legislation that would criminalize a woman wearing a tallit.”

Describing it as "a bitter irony" that Israel is the one country in the world where Jews are not free to practice Judaism as they wish, Cosgrove asked: “Is it at all surprising that American Jews should find themselves alienated from the Jewish state?”

MK Elazar Stern (Yesh Atid), co-chair of the caucus, warned that the Israeli government, through its approach, risked losing not only Reform and Conservative Jews in America, but also secular Jews in Israel. “Israelis see that in the name of Judaism, this is what conversions look like, this is what marriage looks like, this is what circumcisions look like and this is what the Kotel looks, and they tell themselves that if that’s what Judaism is, they want no part of it,” he said.

Accusing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of betraying Diaspora Jewry, Yesh Atid's Aliza Lavie noted that a new bill sponsored by members of his coalition would prevent most American Jews from praying as they wish at the Western Wall. “At this place, the most precious place in the world for Jews everywhere, we’re going to say who can come and who cannot?” asked Lavie, the other co-chair of the caucus.

Although invited, no members of Knesset's ruling coalition attended the gathering.

Earlier this month, the Chief Rabbinate announced plans to draw up criteria for recognizing Orthodox conversions performed abroad (it does not recognize Conservative or Reform conversions at all). Addressing the caucus, Rabbi Seth Farber, the founder and executive director of Itim, an organization that advocates on behalf of converts, expressed deep skepticism about the initiative.

“They’ve chosen five people to sit on that committee who don’t understand anything about conversions abroad and are not willing to partake in any serious discussion,” he said. “They claim to be speaking in the name of halakha, but they are actually distorting halakha. Rather than building bridges, Israel’s Chief Rabbinate is building walls.”

Anat Hoffman, chairwoman of Women of the Wall, the multidenominational feminist prayer group, ended the meeting with a dire warning. “If the controversy over prayer at the Western Wall is not resolved, there will be bloodshed there,” she said. “Mark my word, the handwriting is already on the wall, and it is just a matter of months.