Is Israel a tough place to be a Jew?

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Jrosemary
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Is Israel a tough place to be a Jew?

Post #1

Post by Jrosemary »

A friend of mine once said, only half-joking, that Israel has absolute religious freedom--for everyone except Jews. Just consider the marriage situation. As Carlo Strenger points out:
Carlo Strenger wrote:Only wedding rituals performed by Orthodox rabbis are allowed, Jews cannot marry non-Jews, and Kohanim cannot marry divorced or widowed women.

The result is patently absurd: Israel is the only country in which Jews are told by the state whom they can marry and how. Many non-Orthodox Jews, who are not willing to have the state impose Orthodox values upon them, choose to formally marry in Cyprus or some other venue. They feel alienated by the country of which they are citizens, in which they serve in the military, often at great personal cost, and where they pay their taxes, because the state infringes on some of their most basic liberties.

(See full blog entry here)
This is not only unjust but bizarre--Strenger reminds his readers that 85% of world Jewry are not Orthodox! The Orthodox are a minority in Israel as well; yet they have disproportionate say over religious matters, and have used that to attack other branches of Judaism.

The bulk of Strenger's blog entry is concerned with the new conversion bill, which gives all authority on conversions to the Orthodox rabbinate. As far as I can tell, this bill will probably not affect the current status quo regarding diasporic converts. The status quo has been that if you convert to any branch of Judaism in diaspora--Orthodox; Reform/Progressive; Conservative/Masorti; Reconstructionist; you are recognized as a Jew by the state of Israel and can make aliyah if you choose. I don't think that's going to change with this new bill--but it's unclear.


Here's another good Haaretz article
about this and the general struggles of Progressive Jews in Israel. It's about a female Reform rabbi in Tel Aviv, and it's called "Israel's pluralism threatened by new conversion law."

cnorman18

Orthodox arrogance

Post #2

Post by cnorman18 »

It's struck me ever since I converted that a major schism is coming, wherein Orthodox Jews will no longer recognize Conservative and Reform Jews as authentically Jewish. That has been a common Orthodox attitude for some time now, in some circles, and in my opinion it's a betrayal the pluralistic and freethinking spirit of traditional Judaism going back to Moses. Unfortunate, but if the Haredim don't shed their arrogance and self-righteousness, the rest of us Jews aren't going to recognize them as Jewish either. I call an arrogant bigot an arrogant bigot, Jewish or not, and I'm opposed to fundamentalism among Jews just as I am opposed to it among Christians. In both cases, people may believe what they like; but I don't think anyone has the right to dictate what OTHERS have to believe in order to exercise basic civil rights, such as marriage. That's unacceptable on the part of ANY government.

The possible drying up of support for Israel from Diaspora Jews is a separate problem; I doubt that US Jews will ever withdraw support for Israel entirely, but I suspect that support might become more selective and private, as opposed to direct aid to the Israeli government. If the Knesset and the Prime Minister aren't concerned about the views of non-Orthodox and Diaspora Jews, they have no reason to be surprised when those Jews aren't concerned about supporting their actions.

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Post #3

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cnorman18 wrote:It's struck me ever since I converted that a major schism is coming, wherein Orthodox Jews will no longer recognize Conservative and Reform Jews as authentically Jewish.
More on that rift, and on the legislation in question, in this article: Will My Children Be Jewish? As one person noted in the comments, this whole situation is lo b'seder--not okay.

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Post #4

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And here's a New York Times Op-Ed on the new bill:
The New York Times wrote:
The Diaspora Need Not Apply

By ALANA NEWHOUSE

WHO is a Jew? It’s an age-old inquiry, one that has for decades (if not centuries) provoked debate, discussion and too many punch lines to count — all inspired by what many assumed was the question’s essential unanswerability. But if developments this week are any indication, the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, might soon offer an official, surprising answer: almost no one.

On Monday, a Knesset committee approved a bill sponsored by David Rotem, a member of the nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu party, that would give the Orthodox rabbinate control of all conversions in Israel. If passed, this legislation would place authority over all Jewish births, marriages and deaths — and, through them, the fundamental questions of Jewish identity — in the hands of a small group of ultra-Orthodox, or Haredi, rabbis.

The move has set in motion a sectarian battle that is not only dividing Israeli society but threatening to sever the vital connection between Israel and the American Jewish diaspora.

The problem is not simply that some of these rabbinical functionaries, who are paid by the state and courted by politicians, are demonstrably corrupt. (To take the most salacious of a slew of examples, an American Haredi rabbi who had become one of the most powerful authorities on the question of conversion resigned from his organization in December after accusations that he solicited phone sex from a hopeful female convert.) Rather, it is that the beliefs of a tiny minority of the world’s Jews are on the verge of becoming the Israeli government’s definition of Judaism, for all Jews.

It is hard to exaggerate the possible ramifications, first and foremost for Jewish Israelis. Rivkah Lubitch, an Orthodox woman who is a lawyer in Israel’s rabbinic court system, painted a harrowing picture of the future in a recent column on the Israeli Web site Ynet.

“Even if you didn’t go to register for marriage, and even if you didn’t go to a rabbinic court for any reason, and even if you didn’t pass by a rabbinic court when you walked down the street — the rabbinic court can summon you, conduct a hearing about your Jewishness and revoke it,� she wrote. “In effect, the entire nation of Israel is presumed to be Not-Jewish — until proven otherwise.�

Why are the rabbis doing this? The process is not being driven, as some say, by a suspicion of new converts — they’re simply a wedge issue. Nor is it, as others argue, a reaction to the influx of Russian Jews, who when they seek permission to wed in Israel are often asked for evidence that their families were registered as Jews in the old Soviet Union.

No, what is driving this process is the desire of a small group of rabbis to expand their authority from narrow questions of conversion to larger questions of Jewish identity. Since what goes for conversion also goes for all other clerical acts, only a few anointed rabbis will be able to determine the authenticity of one’s marriage, divorce, birth, death — and every rite in between.

And lest one imagine that this is just another battle between the more progressive Reform and Conservative denominations and the more observant Orthodox, it must be noted that the criteria used by the rabbinate are driven by internal Haredi politics, not observance. According to the Jewish Week, at one point the number of American rabbis who were officially authorized by the Israeli rabbinate to perform conversions was down to a few dozen. Even if you are Orthodox — and especially if you are Modern Orthodox — your rabbi probably doesn’t make the cut. (Don’t believe it? Go ask him.)

Given that the conversion bill is the latest in a series of similarly motivated efforts, it seems almost useless to note that the stringent approach to Jewish law that the Israeli rabbinate promotes bears little connection to the historical experience and religious practice of the majority of Jewish people over the past two millenniums. It will do little good, too, to point out that it is well outside the consensus established by Hillel — arguably the greatest rabbi in all of rabbinic Judaism and whom, as Joseph Telushkin argues in a forthcoming book, was willing to convert a pagan on the spot, simply because he’d asked.

And it doesn’t help to argue that giving the ultra-Orthodox rabbinate total control over Jewish practice will destroy religious life in Israel just as surely as clerical control hurt the Church of England and the Catholic Church in Spain and France. Or that the Zionist founders, from Herzl to Jabotinsky to Ben-Gurion, all believed passionately in the unity of the Jewish people and the need for a secular state.

But perhaps a more practical rallying cry will work: If this bill passes, future historians will inevitably wonder why, at a critical moment in its history, Israel chose to tell 85 percent of the Jewish diaspora that their rabbis weren’t rabbis and their religious practices were a sham, the conversions of their parents and spouses were invalid, their marriages weren’t legal under Jewish law, and their progeny were a tribe of bastards unfit to marry other Jews.

Why, they will wonder, as Iran raced to build a nuclear bomb to wipe the Jewish state off the map, did the custodians of the 2,000-year-old national dream of the Jewish people choose such a perverse definition of Jewish peoplehood, seemingly calculated to alienate supporters outside its own borders?

And, they will also wonder, what of the quiescence of diaspora Jewry? Many American Jews understandably see Israel as under siege and have not wanted to make things worse; they imagined that internal politicking over conversions and marriages was ephemeral, and would change. But the conversion bill is a sign that this silence was a mistake, for it has been interpreted by Israeli politicians as a green light to throw basic questions of Jewish identity into the pot of coalition politics.

The redemptive history of the Jewish people since the Holocaust has rested on the twin pillars of a strong Israel and a strong diaspora, which have spoken to each other politically and culturally, and whose successes have mutually reinforced the confidence and capacities of the other. Neither the Jewish diaspora nor Israel can afford a split between the two communities — a dystopian possibility that, if this bill passes, could materialize frightfully soon.


Alana Newhouse is the editor in chief of Tablet Magazine, which covers Jewish life and culture.

cnorman18

Post #5

Post by cnorman18 »

Jrosemary wrote:And here's a New York Times Op-Ed on the new bill:
The New York Times wrote:
The Diaspora Need Not Apply

By ALANA NEWHOUSE

WHO is a Jew? It’s an age-old inquiry, one that has for decades (if not centuries) provoked debate, discussion and too many punch lines to count — all inspired by what many assumed was the question’s essential unanswerability. But if developments this week are any indication, the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, might soon offer an official, surprising answer: almost no one.

On Monday, a Knesset committee approved a bill sponsored by David Rotem, a member of the nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu party, that would give the Orthodox rabbinate control of all conversions in Israel. If passed, this legislation would place authority over all Jewish births, marriages and deaths — and, through them, the fundamental questions of Jewish identity — in the hands of a small group of ultra-Orthodox, or Haredi, rabbis.

The move has set in motion a sectarian battle that is not only dividing Israeli society but threatening to sever the vital connection between Israel and the American Jewish diaspora.

The problem is not simply that some of these rabbinical functionaries, who are paid by the state and courted by politicians, are demonstrably corrupt. (To take the most salacious of a slew of examples, an American Haredi rabbi who had become one of the most powerful authorities on the question of conversion resigned from his organization in December after accusations that he solicited phone sex from a hopeful female convert.) Rather, it is that the beliefs of a tiny minority of the world’s Jews are on the verge of becoming the Israeli government’s definition of Judaism, for all Jews.

It is hard to exaggerate the possible ramifications, first and foremost for Jewish Israelis. Rivkah Lubitch, an Orthodox woman who is a lawyer in Israel’s rabbinic court system, painted a harrowing picture of the future in a recent column on the Israeli Web site Ynet.

“Even if you didn’t go to register for marriage, and even if you didn’t go to a rabbinic court for any reason, and even if you didn’t pass by a rabbinic court when you walked down the street — the rabbinic court can summon you, conduct a hearing about your Jewishness and revoke it,� she wrote. “In effect, the entire nation of Israel is presumed to be Not-Jewish — until proven otherwise.�

Why are the rabbis doing this? The process is not being driven, as some say, by a suspicion of new converts — they’re simply a wedge issue. Nor is it, as others argue, a reaction to the influx of Russian Jews, who when they seek permission to wed in Israel are often asked for evidence that their families were registered as Jews in the old Soviet Union.

No, what is driving this process is the desire of a small group of rabbis to expand their authority from narrow questions of conversion to larger questions of Jewish identity. Since what goes for conversion also goes for all other clerical acts, only a few anointed rabbis will be able to determine the authenticity of one’s marriage, divorce, birth, death — and every rite in between.

And lest one imagine that this is just another battle between the more progressive Reform and Conservative denominations and the more observant Orthodox, it must be noted that the criteria used by the rabbinate are driven by internal Haredi politics, not observance. According to the Jewish Week, at one point the number of American rabbis who were officially authorized by the Israeli rabbinate to perform conversions was down to a few dozen. Even if you are Orthodox — and especially if you are Modern Orthodox — your rabbi probably doesn’t make the cut. (Don’t believe it? Go ask him.)

Given that the conversion bill is the latest in a series of similarly motivated efforts, it seems almost useless to note that the stringent approach to Jewish law that the Israeli rabbinate promotes bears little connection to the historical experience and religious practice of the majority of Jewish people over the past two millenniums. It will do little good, too, to point out that it is well outside the consensus established by Hillel — arguably the greatest rabbi in all of rabbinic Judaism and whom, as Joseph Telushkin argues in a forthcoming book, was willing to convert a pagan on the spot, simply because he’d asked.

And it doesn’t help to argue that giving the ultra-Orthodox rabbinate total control over Jewish practice will destroy religious life in Israel just as surely as clerical control hurt the Church of England and the Catholic Church in Spain and France. Or that the Zionist founders, from Herzl to Jabotinsky to Ben-Gurion, all believed passionately in the unity of the Jewish people and the need for a secular state.

But perhaps a more practical rallying cry will work: If this bill passes, future historians will inevitably wonder why, at a critical moment in its history, Israel chose to tell 85 percent of the Jewish diaspora that their rabbis weren’t rabbis and their religious practices were a sham, the conversions of their parents and spouses were invalid, their marriages weren’t legal under Jewish law, and their progeny were a tribe of bastards unfit to marry other Jews.

Why, they will wonder, as Iran raced to build a nuclear bomb to wipe the Jewish state off the map, did the custodians of the 2,000-year-old national dream of the Jewish people choose such a perverse definition of Jewish peoplehood, seemingly calculated to alienate supporters outside its own borders?

And, they will also wonder, what of the quiescence of diaspora Jewry? Many American Jews understandably see Israel as under siege and have not wanted to make things worse; they imagined that internal politicking over conversions and marriages was ephemeral, and would change. But the conversion bill is a sign that this silence was a mistake, for it has been interpreted by Israeli politicians as a green light to throw basic questions of Jewish identity into the pot of coalition politics.

The redemptive history of the Jewish people since the Holocaust has rested on the twin pillars of a strong Israel and a strong diaspora, which have spoken to each other politically and culturally, and whose successes have mutually reinforced the confidence and capacities of the other. Neither the Jewish diaspora nor Israel can afford a split between the two communities — a dystopian possibility that, if this bill passes, could materialize frightfully soon.


Alana Newhouse is the editor in chief of Tablet Magazine, which covers Jewish life and culture.
Well said. This bill is an abomination and a betrayal of Judaism and the Jewish people. One hopes that rationality will prevail in Israel. One hopes.

cnorman18

Post #6

Post by cnorman18 »

Jrosemary wrote:
cnorman18 wrote:It's struck me ever since I converted that a major schism is coming, wherein Orthodox Jews will no longer recognize Conservative and Reform Jews as authentically Jewish.
More on that rift, and on the legislation in question, in this article: Will My Children Be Jewish? As one person noted in the comments, this whole situation is lo b'seder--not okay.
Also horrifying. As a nonobservant Conservative convert, I am not recognized as a Jew by most Orthodox rabbis now; since I'm not Orthodox, I don't much care - but if the the State of Israel doesn't recognize me as a Jew, as far as I am concerned, the State of Israel will have been hijacked by cultists and bigots.

Are the Haredi usually collectively insane and suicidal? One wonders. Their arrogance is breathtaking, and the apathy of non-Orthodox Knesset member is a mystery.

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Post #7

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According to the Associated Press, Netanyahu will fight the conversion bill. I'm not a big Netanyahu fan, but I will be grateful to him for this:
Associated Press wrote:
Netanyahu says he will oppose conversion bill

By ARON HELLER (AP)

JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Sunday that he would oppose a conversion bill that has rekindled the age-old debate over who is a Jew and has provoked an angry response among liberal Jewish groups abroad whose support is critical to Israel.

Last week, an Israeli parliamentary committee gave preliminary approval to a draft legislation that would give Orthodox rabbis in Israel more control over conversions. The more liberal Reform and Conservative movements that represent the vast majority of Jews outside Israel contend the new legislation would be a dangerous blow to religious pluralism.

Netanyahu told his Cabinet on Sunday that he feared the bill would create a rift in the Jewish world and that if he couldn't find a compromise solution, he would ask his coalition partners to vote against it. The bill would have to pass three votes in the Knesset, Israel's parliament, to become law.

Under the current practice, Israel only partially recognizes conversions performed by non-Orthodox rabbis inside Israel, while those converted by non-Orthodox rabbis outside the country are automatically eligible for Israeli citizenship like other Jews. The proposed legislation would give Israel's chief rabbinate the legal authority over all matters of conversion in Israel.

The group most likely to suffer from the change would be immigrants who converted to Judaism abroad and could now be denied Israeli citizenship.

The bill touches a nerve in the Reform and Conservative movements. Though they are strong abroad, their presence is marginal in Israel, where Orthodox rabbis have a near monopoly over religious practice.

While staunch backers of Israel, liberal Jewish movements abroad look worriedly at the prospect of the country's Orthodox religious establishment further entrenching its control. They say passage of the bill would also be a blow to the legitimacy of non-Orthodox rabbis the world over.

Rabbi David Saperstein, head of the Washington-based Religious Action Center of the Union of Reform Judaism, said the bill, if passed, would mark a "crisis of the first order."

"It would be an enormous blow to the unity of the Jewish people and the principle of religious freedom in Israel," said Saperstein, who is visiting the country to lobby lawmakers to drop the bill.

"The American Jewish community will remain strongly engaged in Israel, but the message will be sent that the government of Israel does not accept our rabbis and our movement as legitimate, and it would make all our work much more difficult."

Of the world's roughly 13 million Jews, half live in Israel and most of the rest are concentrated in North America.

Israeli religious authorities' skepticism about the legitimacy of overseas conversions has been cited as one of the main causes of a growing rift between Israel and world Jewry.

Seth Farber, an Orthodox rabbi and director of a body that helps Israelis navigate the rabbinical bureaucracy, said he was in favor of conversion reform but not at the price of damaging the delicate relations between Israel and the world Jewish community.

"We have to find a way to resolve this problem without paying too heavy a price, which is alienating 85 percent of American Jews," he said.

The bill has even provoked a group of Jewish U.S. senators to draft a rare letter of complaint to Israel's ambassador to Washington, The Jerusalem Post newspaper reported.

Caley Gray, communications director for signatory Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-New Jersey), told the Jerusalem Post that "Senator Lautenberg hopes the Knesset does not pass this legislation, which he views as divisive."

The bill's sponsor, David Rotem, an Orthodox Jewish lawmaker from the largely secular Yisrael Beitenu party, has rejected the criticism, saying his goal was to make conversion easier for immigrants from the former Soviet Union, who make up most of his party's voters.

Rotem insists the bill would not affect North American Jews.

Roughly 1 million people immigrated to Israel after the collapse of the Soviet Union, many with tenuous ties to Judaism.

The bill is just the latest squabble between Netanyahu and the head of Rotem's party, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who have clashed on a number of policy matters in recent weeks. Its progress likely depends on whether the two resume their cooperation.

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