A thoughtful post by Donniel Hartman published yesterday on the Shalom Hartman Institute’s blog and eJewishPhilanthropy deserves serious consideration by all concerned about the impact of Haredi extremism in Israel.
Rather than casting all the blame on the Haredi minority or imagining there are facile solutions to the current problems, Hartman rightly casts his eye on the Israeli Jewish majority’s inability to articulate a coherent and compelling idea of Jewishness.
He writes:
“The source of the challenge posed by Haredim to Israel as a Jewish and democratic state lies first and foremost in the failure of the larger Israeli society to define for itself the meaning and limits of the Jewishness of the Jewish state…We must recognize that being a Jewish and democratic state will not be the result of a declaration but the consequence of a well thought-out policy and public discourse. Being a sovereign people means that instead of ascribing blame one takes responsibility.”
The Haredi challenge to the standards of the Israeli public square seems so fierce today when they are still a relatively small minority of the population precisely because the Jewishness of that public square is so ill-defined. Israelis may declare Israel’s Jewish character in 1,000 different ways, but the state’s true Jewish content continues to derive mostly from the public authority granted to rabbinic bodies. Maintaining the state’s Jewish identity while simultaneously freeing the public square for greater expressions of religious pluralism (to say nothing of what is to happen for major life-cycle events like birth and death) is therefore a far more difficult problem than many would like it to be.
This, however, as Hartman points to, is one stirring reason why it is so extraordinary to live in a world with a reborn Jewish state. For the question of what it means to be a Jew is now fully in the hands of the Jewish people living as a free people in their homeland for the first time in 2,000 years.
Rather than capitulating to the Haredi positions on these matters or avoiding the question with an embrace of every possible contemporary definition of Jewishness so large that it is empty, we should finally grasp the opportunity to articulate a new standard broad enough to encompass the wide center of the Jewish people but that nevertheless resonates deeply with the tradition.
Efforts of this nature are afoot, perhaps most notably in the work of Haim Amsalem, who, among other things, is attempting to promote a solution to the conversion crisis of hundreds of thousands Russian-speaking Jews in Israel that is both moderate and firmly rooted in traditional halachah. The Jewish world desperately needs more rabbinic leaders of this kind who are able to stand against the most extreme interpretations of halachah in a way that nevertheless is authentic to Jewish tradition.
Some might claim the Jewish people has today simply grown too diffuse, with too many mutually exclusive definitions of Jewishness for there to be any chance to today unify them around a single idea. But that again is just another articulation of the importance of the Jewish state, for if a majority of its people are able to find a public discourse about Judaism they can all subscribe to, “the spirit of Judaism,” as Ahad Ha’am wrote long ago, “will radiate to the great circumference, to all the communities of the Diaspora, to inspire them with new life and to preserve the overall unity of our people.”
I read that the Christian population is growing in Israel, mostly via immigration. nIf a Jew in Israel converts to Christianity, does he or she lose any rights?
So far the problems revolve around Jews whose conversion TO JUDAISM is questioned. This includes Messianic Jews who have sought to become expedited citizens under Right of Return and do not qualify through family membership. They can always take the naturalization route. nSo far the problems revolve around Jews whose conversion TO JUDAISM is questioned. This includes Messianic Jews who have sought to become expedited citizens under Right of Return and do not qualify through family membership. They can always take the naturalization route. n nSo born Israeli unlikely any problem. Anyone who undergoes unexpedited naturalization process no problem. Jews whose conversion status is questioned might have trouble qualifyiing for expedited Right of Return would still have naturalization option if all else failed, ditto for Messianic Jews (however that is now being decided). n nAs far as Jews who converted to Christianity *after" qualifying for expedited citizenship under right of return (and not naturalization)–their Jewish status via birth or conversion had not been questioned– and then converted out of the faith–I don't know if there are even cases of this or any precedent.
No. Christians and Muslims have full civil rights in Israel.
I know certain people who claim to be Jews, almost or wholly for political reasons, as that Jewishness gives them a unique and visible platform from which to cast stones at the Jewish state, or to hand those stones to Jew haters to cast at the Jewish state. n nTom Friedman, Tikkun 'Rabbi' Michael Lerner, MJ Rosenberg (today writing about wily Israelis in Al Jazeera), the J-Street Crowd, San Francisco granola Jews who get on flotillas to Gaza, – if it were up to me, I would toss them! n nJudaism should get organized, decide on a few red lines that no Jew can cross – one of which would be aiding and abetting the enemies of the Jewish National Home, adjudicated by a Sanhedrin. Cross that line, and you're kicked out. They can of course keep talking, keep stuffing those bloated faces with bagels and lox, but forever with a well deserved asterisk after their names – 'tossed out of the Tribe for being a traitor'. At least that way, others would see that we have our traitors, but we have our pride, and a self preservation mechanism as well. n n(only half joking) n
A rescue boat lands on a deserted island and finds a lone survivor from a shipwreck that occurred some months back. He has a white snowy beard down to his waist but has managed to retain his yarmulka and tzizit. Behind him he's constructed a hut out of reeds, adorned with a mogen david of twined palm fronds. "Thank Lord, you are alive," says the captain of the rescue mission. "and you've been busy, what is that hut behind you?" n n"That," beams the pious Yidden "is the shul I worship in!" n n"And what is that hut, over there?" asks the captain, pointing to a second hut about 10 yards distant. n n"That!!!!" shouts the Jew, rapidly coming to a boil. "That's the shul I wouldn't be caught dead in!!!"
He remains a full citizen of Israel- like the Arabs, the Druzes and other minorities and retains his rights.
Thank you for the Ahad Ha’am link. n nFrom his Jewish State: n n n
(cont) n n
I do not understand this obssession with defining who is a Jew. Nor do i understand this obssession with always adding “democratic,” to “Jewish state.”r nr nIsrael is a nation-state just like any other. Italy Germany etc…r nr nWhen Germany and Italy were fascist, were they any less German or Italian? Israel is a Jewish state with a unique language and culture, period. No matter its political form.
But the issue is in large measure pushed by the more conservative Orthodox rabbinate in and out of Israel who have a definition of "who is a Jew" that is founded on their (restrictive) interpretation of the unique G-d given holiness of the body of Jewish law and observance codified by normative Jews for roughly, what, 17 centuries and for 3-4 centuries after that to today by the Orthodox (and Conservatives and mitzva-oriented Reform). Political Zionism was a secular adaptation of Jewish culture to begin with stressing nationalism and pre-rabbinic Bibilical patrimony. Changes in Israeli interpretation of "who is a Jew" affect the status and identiy of Jewish movements outside of Israel. And when "ultra-Orthodox" start to push for social norms whose "modesty" requirements segregate women in the back of buses or exclude them schools etc., then issues of what-are-we-here-for-and-who-are-we are unavoidably raised in Israel. Moderate and modern Jews, not least living within Israeli neighborhoods facing demographic change and conflict, do not wish to embrace a sectarian Judaism that compels them, against their will, to sacrifice western norms of democracy.
These are excellent links. A bissel more of this and a little/more-than little less of the relentlessly narrow-gauge politicized focus on what has that scoundrel Obama done lately or the perils-of-Pauline off-Broadway tryouts of the GOP reality show Presidential Nominee. Let's have some roots talk, plz.
I've read on the Internet about people from other, poorer countries in Asia and Africa migrating to Israel for economic reasons. I know that in the 90s a lot of Russians, many of them non-Jewish, moved to Israel. Is there much concern in Israel about its ability to absorb these immigrants?