SAN DIEGO — The astonishing events taking place in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Bahrain, even in the Palestinian territories are being watched by Israel with grave interest. So far, the imprint of these seismic outbursts and initial changes seem not to be as sectarian-driven as they are simply the yearnings of many Arab youth for political liberty and economic justice. Israel enjoys being the exemplar of democracy in the Middle East but, in fact, it is socially choked by its own form of tyranny: the control of people’s lives by the wildly outdated Chief Rabbinate and its considerable fangs.
An enlightened and bold Israeli government would finally undo the stranglehold conceded in 1948 to the ultra-Orthodox tribunals that would dictate how people should eat, live, marry, dress, die, and be buried in a postmodern state that is cosmically secular. The imposition of the religious parties upon Israel’s federal system is altogether out-of-proportion, inappropriate, unseemly, and a burden to Israel’s ability to operate in the areas of education, infrastructure, foreign policy, and the state’s official perception of the Palestinians as human beings and citizens of both Israel and the inevitable Palestinian polity.
Israel’s security needs, created and exacerbated by successive Arab governments and a global labyrinth of terror groups, are inviolate in this discussion. But it is hard to make a case that a recent edict by a bevy of municipal rabbis that prohibits Israeli Jews from selling property to non-Jews has much to do with the defense of Israel’s borders. Nor does the proposed “loyalty oath” floated by disingenuous Knesset politicians (including the foreign minister) trying to appease their coalition needs with Haredi factions do anything but weaken Israel’s integrity as an historic and rousing answer to the Holocaust.
The meddling of local rabbis, working for the Chief Rabbinate, in Israeli elementary and high school curricula, effectively muddling Israel’s remarkable modernity and scientific creativity, is more than troubling. It is stifling and self-defeating for a daring young nation that needs peace more than it needs God.
Israelis themselves, that is the near 80% majority who are not religious or observant are increasingly vocal and indignant about the restrictions imposed on their lives—such as when busses cannot run, how they should dress on the beaches, or the constraint of kosher laws, or what kind of rabbi can exclusively perform their weddings, and even who is a Jew. Resentment is beginning to boil over that Israelis are taxed to compensate self-styled sages for studying Torah incessantly while not sharing equally in national service to the Army.
Of particular sensitivity is the knowledge that so much of the impetus of Israel’s painfully overextended and morally corrosive occupation of the West Bank is a function of radical right wing theology and to the attendant racist views held by these fundamentalists not only about Palestinians, but of Jews who are not “Torah-true.” In fairness, there are economic and strategic aspects tethered to Israel’s building of the settlements. But this is ultimately ecclesiastic poison that prolongs the stalemate and many young Israelis just want to be world citizens, not police soldiers.
The fact is that Israel is not a Jewish state. It is a state of Jews, mostly. The vernacular is Hebrew and every time a person speaks, sings, or even curses there in the language of Elijah and Deborah, the death clatter of the Nazi is further drowned out. Israel remains the singular and most stirring response to genocide in contemporary history. It has everything to be proud of—except the intolerable and degenerative interference upon its own maturation and success by these old men and their acolytes who are frozen in a dangerous antiquity.
Israel needs to abolish the chief rabbinate so that its future will at last be as promising as its past has been inspirational.
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Rabbi Kamin is a freelance writer based in San Diego. He may be reached at ben.kamin@sdjewishworld.com