Editor – Joel Katz
Religion
and State in Israel is not affiliated with any
organization or movement.
*Special edition on Women of the Wall coming soon.
By Yair Rosenberg
Can an unlikely alliance of
renegade rabbis and right-wing politicians strip the ultra-Orthodox of their
power? …
If the gambit of Tzohar and
Yisrael Beiteinu proves successful, it will likely mean the beginning of a sea
change in how religion is practiced and perceived by Israelis. Hard as it may
be, after decades of ultra-Orthodox hegemony, to envision what that kinder,
gentler face of the chief rabbinate would look like, it will clearly be an
unapologetically liberal Orthodox one, which—if accepted among Israelis—could cement
the divide between the American and Israeli Jewish communities.
The question that remains
to be answered is: Will the friendlier face of the chief rabbinate and the
pluralistic American Jewish establishment find ways to build bridges of understanding or, as Yitzhar Hess warns, will “Israel and Diaspora Jewry … go
two different paths,” each increasingly unable to comprehend the other?
January’s election may give us a first taste.
By Dov S. Zakheim, Steven
Bayme, American Jewish Committee
The fundamental challenge
therefore entails abolishing the coercive power of the Chief Rabbinate, most
notably with respect to the crucial issues of personal status – marriage,
divorce, conversion and burial.
Many modern-Orthodox leaders, both here and in
Israel, to say nothing of the leaders of the liberal religious streams, agree
that the time is long overdue to transform the Chief Rabbinate from an office
that exercises coercive power to one that entails moral influence.
Shouldn’t
Israel’s leadership be listening to those voices for the sake of the Jewish
state and, yes, the Jewish people?
By Anshel Pfeffer
So why do we have chief
rabbis? They are no more than historical relics of an era when the Jews were
tiny embattled minorities, routinely deprived of their civil rights as
individuals and as a community, and when religious leadership was invested with
a social and political significance unimaginable in today's world. …
[T]he preponderance of
rabbis in politics and every other facet of public life leaves no room for a
chief rabbi to distinguish himself or to wield any influence. The obvious thing
should be to retire the institution; it has had its day and now it's outlived
its purpose.
By Israel Harel
Few, however, were very
upset that the deceit took place within the walls of the institute that is
supposed to be the holy of holies of Jewish morality, the chief rabbinate of
Israel.
That is because the
public's generalization − one that in some cases, unfortunately, is correct −
holds that wherever the rabbinate is, bribery is there, too (including sexual bribery), as well as corruption, and endless delay,
and discrimination against women.
In its despair, the public
has learned to live with hundreds or even more fictitious positions for rabbis,
kashrut supervisors and other holy functionaries who together cost this country
immeasurably more than all the fictitious cabinet ministers and deputy
ministers and their "ministries."
The High Court of Justice
this week issued an interim injunction forbidding the Council of the Chief
Rabbinate from ordaining anyone as a rabbi who has not passed the written exams
usually required by the rabbinate.
The injunction was
requested by the Ne’emanei Torah Va’Avodah lobbying organization, which claimed
in its High Court petition that the practice of ordaining rabbis who have not
passed exams is not transparent and has been used in an unequal manner.
Several local rabbinates
are refusing to allow women to testify towards a person’s marital status for
the purpose of marriage registration, The Jerusalem Post has learned.
This policy is being
enacted despite an explicit directive from the Chief Rabbinate instructing
local rabbinates to permit women to testify in this regard.
By Shmuel Rosner
In Judaism, idolatry is a
serious matter. Determining which Christian symbol might be considered an idol
is serious, too: It could disturb Christian-Jewish relations and damage
Israel’s foreign relations. And yet Israel’s rabbinate is many things —
detached from reality, sometimes corrupt, frequently manipulative, rarely in
touch with the beliefs of most Israelis — but serious.
One editorial has suggested
it would be a good first step “to end the Chief Rabbinate’s state-sanctioned
monopoly” over kashrut supervision. I think something more radical is needed: a
redefinition of relations between state and religion that starts by altogether
abolishing the rabbinate.
An advocacy group for women
whose husbands refuse to grant them a Jewish divorce expressed surprising, if
guarded, support Sunday for a candidate for Ashkenazi chief rabbi who is
considered relatively conservative, rather than for a leader of the more
liberal Tzohar rabbinical group.
Mavoi Satum said Sunday
that it would consider backing Rabbi Eliezer Igra, a member of the Be'er Sheva
Rabbinical Court who for the past few months has also been serving as a
temporary appointee to the Supreme Rabbinical Court in Jerusalem.
Igra is the
most senior rabbinic court judge, or dayan, in the state system who is
affiliated with the religious Zionist community, and is thought to be the
preferred candidate of many rabbis from the more conservative wing of religious
Zionism.
This blatant intervention
in a strictly religious matter of Jewish law became a precedent for subsequent
rulings that curtailed the Chief Rabbinate’s powers. A ruling by the Chief
Rabbinate that Christmas trees render a restaurant unkosher would inevitably be
challenged in court. Judging from past rulings, the Chief Rabbinate would
probably lose.
This situation is
untenable. And the best way to solve it is to end the Chief Rabbinate’s
state-sanctioned monopoly over religious services – in particular kashrut
supervision.
As New Year's Eve
approaches, the dispute over celebrations renews. Restaurant and banquet hall
owners in Haifa are lashing out at the local Rabbinate for threatening to
revoke their kashrut permits if they host celebrations on December 31.
The local rabbinate in
Haifa issued a warning last week to hotels and event halls in the city that
they risk losing their kashrut supervision if they allow New Year’s Eve
celebrations to take place in their establishments.
For several years now at
Christmas time, municipal rabbis were warning businesses from marking Christian
holidays, threatening to rescind kashrut certificates. In 1998, following a
High Court appeal on the matter, the Chief Rabbinate backed down.
"Who raised their hand and didn't get one yet?" ~ "Rabbi Bakshish-Doron"
Former chief Sephardi Rabbi
Eliahu Bakshi-Doron was indicted for fraudulent receipt of goods or services
under aggravated circumstances on Monday for his role in the so-called
"rabbis' file" affair, in which hundreds of security forces officers
were ordained as rabbis in order to qualify for a pay raise.
According to the
indictment, which was filed with the Jerusalem District Court, between 1999 and
2003 some 1,500 police officers, soldiers and cadets attended various religious
colleges for a number of hours a week but were granted diplomas for completing
five years of studies. The certificates enabled the individuals to receive pay
raises from the State.
“The defendant knew that
the holders of the fictitious ordinations would receive significant salary
benefits from the state coffers,” read the indictment submitted to the
Jerusalem District Court.
“The defendant knew that
hundreds of different classes were opened throughout the country, and that at
the very least, many hundreds of students would, due to his actions and
directives, receive significant salary benefits at the expense of public fund,
benefits that weren’t due these members of the security forces.”
Ne’emanei Torah Va’Avodah,
a national-religious lobbying organization, said the case once again proves the
necessity of separating the rabbinate from the political establishment.
“The system is broken,”
said Ne’emanei Torah Va’Avodah chairman Shmuel Shetah.
Bakshi-Doron served as
Sephardi chief rabbi of Israel from 1998 to 2003 and, as head of the Chief
Rabbinical Council of Israel, authorized the issuance of the rabbinic
credentials.
Following author Yoram
Kaniuk's highly publicized legal struggle to be registered as
"irreligious,"* which made it all the way to the District Court, 42
people on Thursday petitioned the High Court of Justice to attain the same
status.
The petitioners, including
journalist Yaron London and his partner author Michal Zamir, former Deputy
Commander of the Israeli Air Force Amos Amir and poet Oded Carmeli, are demanding
to be registered as "irreligious" without enduring a legal struggle.
[*“no religion”]
“I did not call for a
complete recognition of Reform by the State of Israel,” Rabbi Yuval Cherlow
wrote in an email to The Jewish Standard.
“I oppose that. I called for us to reflect anew on how to enable someone who does not agree with what I think — about the fullness of halachah — to identify with the State of Israel.”
“I oppose that. I called for us to reflect anew on how to enable someone who does not agree with what I think — about the fullness of halachah — to identify with the State of Israel.”
Rabbi Eric Yoffie, past
president of the URJ, said that while Cherlow’s original statement neither
endorsed nor embraced the Reform movement, “He is saying that the religious
situation in Israel is a problem for American Jews; and while this is
self-evident, Israelis don’t appreciate and recognize it.”
Calling Cherlow’s
observation “a very important message,” he added that the situation creates “an
obstacle to the close relations we want and need.”
Yoffie said that a second
point Cherlow made is that Orthodox Jews needn’t make halachic compromises in
order to deal with the issue.
“We’re not looking for
halachic recognition from the Orthodox establishment,” he said. “We want equal
treatment by the government of Israel.” Cherlow wants the State of Israel “to
make a more inclusive arrangement, not a compromise in halachah,” he pointed
out.
“It’s not what we’re asking
for,” Yoffie said. “They can do things to move toward inclusiveness and
recognition by the government without halachic compromises. This is an
important point, for him to say that this is good for the Jewish people. We
welcome it.”
As a major in the army
reserve who served in the prestigious Sayeret Matkal unit, then made a fortune
in Israel’s booming technology industry, Mr. Bennett embodies one popular
vision of today’s Zionist ideal.
He wears the knitted kippa
that is the religious-Zionist signature but lives in the affluent town of
Raanana, north of Tel Aviv — and not in a West Bank settlement — because, he
said, his wife is secular.
The Knesset’s synagogue
would host its first ever Masorti egalitarian minyan if the Tzipi Livni Party
wins the 13 seats necessary to elect New Jersey-born, North Carolina-raised
Prof. Alon Tal in the January 22 election.
Besides heading the Green
Movement and teaching environmental law at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev,
Tal serves as gabai (sexton) of the Masorti Shalhevet Hamaccabim synagogue in
Maccabim-Re’ut.
Tov, a moderate haredi
political movement, has filed a request with the High Court of Justice to be
included as a respondent to a petition filed by Yair Lapid and his Yesh Atid
party against a government decision allowing the Civilian Service Directorate
to enlist 1,300 haredi men into its national service program by August 2013.
The Tov movement, which
says it represents members of the haredi community who are disillusioned with
the community’s traditional political leadership, heavily criticized the
petition as politically motivated and not constructive.
The Vizhnitzer Rebbe, Rabbi
Yisroel Hager, has called on yeshiva students not to report to IDF recruitment
centers upon receiving their initial draft orders inviting them to begin the
IDF screening process. The rabbi said he himself would take responsibility for
the mutiny.
IDF sources have promised
that they are currently working to ensure, among other things, that certain
physical examinations will be undertaken only by male officials.
Discussing the Plesner
committee's recommendation to designate a group of “diligent learners” who
would be granted a full and permanent exemption, Deri said: “No one will decide
for us who can and who cannot study Torah, who is gifted, who is a genius and
who is not a genius.
Whoever heard of such a
definition? Is that the intention of those who study Torah, who dedicate their
lives...? Are we to give IQ tests, to see who is gifted and who isn’t?”
Shas doesn't intend
“protect those who aren’t studying, that run around or take jobs off the
books,” he said, but added: “Everyone who truly studies Torah will continue to
learn and he will be respected. This is our line...for this we have come to do
battle.”
By Yagir Levy
The significance of this is
that the ability of religious soldiers to bargain over the issue of which
mission will be placed on the army has been strengthened even further. …
Now, however, this is no
longer merely a question of negotiations within the army, or between the army
and the hesder rabbis. Another important player has been added, in the form of
one of the large factions in the Knesset, and apparently a partner in the next
government.
Bennett's
expression of refusal, against which left and right momentarily united eagerly,
is a negligible threat.
Much more dangerous is placing the directives of the
rabbis above cabinet resolutions or military orders, not to mention the
government's policy of sliding into the abyss, isolating Israel from the rest
of the world and paving the way for Bennettism.
United
Torah Judaism (UTJ) has written to the Central Election Committee asking that
it ban a Kadima advertising campaign that the haredi party claims is false and
constitutes incitement.
Kadima
banners bear the slogan “NIS 350 for soldiers, NIS 3,400 for yeshiva students,”
referring to the monthly financial disbursements paid by the state to IDF
conscripts and full-time yeshiva students, respectively.
The Egged
bus company on Sunday said it will allow Kadima to post campaign posters
containing the words "yeshiva students" on its buses after initially
refusing to do so. Meanwhile, the Central Elections Committee asked the Dan bus
company for an answer on the matter.
Dan
brought the issue to its lawyers, and did not acquiesce to Kadima’s requests to
hang the advertisements on its buses.
The party
hopes the Central Elections Committee will demand Dan do so.
By Elana Sztokman
It is impossible to fully
address the abuses of the rabbinical court system without first understanding
the gender dynamics involved.
This is a system in which women are not allowed
to be judges or witnesses, and therefore have no power and no voice. Calls to
replace this system with another gendered system in which women still have no
power or voice are ineffective.
Reform of the system must include a systemic
approach to the inherent gender imbalance that causes so much needless suffering
to women.
Rebbetzin Levin is a
graduate of the Jerusalem Nishmat Yoetzet Halachah programme, which
trains women to offer guidance on areas of taharat hamishpachah—– encompassing
aspects of marriage, sexuality and women’s health.
The three-justice panel of
the Tel Aviv District Court on Monday, Baruch Hashem sided with a Jewish mother
seeking to prevent her children’s non-Jewish father from taking the children to
Holland.
In an answer to a question
from the audience of students he was addressing, Bennett said, "These are
two clashing values. I am for 'live and let live,' but this clashes with the
values of Israel as a Jewish state. It has a set of family values. The state
cannot absorb or contain official recognition of same-sex marriage."
A controversial
presentation was waiting for those who were getting married or divorced at the
Chief Rabbinate in Tel Aviv last week.
Three drag queens (Nona Chalant, Lady G
and Dixie D’boner) were waiting at the entrance to the place, demonstrating in
protest before the forthcoming elections in Israel. The goal: to raise
awareness of same-sex marriage in Israel.
“People were wishing us Mazel Tov, until they realized that we were drag queens, and not a real couple who just got married.”
“People were wishing us Mazel Tov, until they realized that we were drag queens, and not a real couple who just got married.”
Israel's Chief Rabbi Shlomo
Amar recognized them as a lost tribe in 2005, and about 1,700 moved to Israel
over the next two years before the government stopped giving them visas.
Israel recently reversed
that policy, agreeing to let the remaining 7,200 Bnei Menashe immigrate.
The Kolbotek report
documenting outrageous animal abuse in the Adom Adom slaughterhouse in Beit
Shean has led some to turn to the Chief Rabbinate of Israel to revoke the
company’s hashgacha.
The hidden camera
documented regular unacceptable abuse of cattle before shechita, which has
since led to international outrage along with demands to halt the sale of
cattle to Israel from Australia.
The first engineering
degree program in Israel designed specifically for haredi students was set to
open on Monday at the Sami Shamoon College of Engineering (SCE) in Ashdod.
The college is launching a
five-year degree program in civil and software engineering, which has been
tailor-made for the lifestyle requirements of its 100 ultra-Orthodox
participants.
The new degree program,
comprising 70 men and 30 women, provides monthly stipends for the participating
students totaling NIS 30,000 a year per student, which is paid for by the
Halamish NGO, directed by businessman and industrialist Eitan Wertheimer.
The senior editor of a
daily ultra-Orthodox newspaper was assaulted late Thursday night outside his
Jerusalem home in what is thought to be a politically motivated attack.
Witnesses said two men -
one who appeared to be Haredi and a second whose face was covered - ambushed
Hapeles editor in chief Nati Grossman at the entrance of his home, in the
capital's Bayit Vegan neighborhood.
But Rachel
isn't on vacation. After suffering years of unspeakable abuse and cruelty in
her own home, she fled to Bat Melech, the
only organization in Israel that provides shelters for battered women from the
national religious and ultra-Orthodox populations.
Together
with 10 other women and their children, she is staying in the shelter,
recovering from years of trauma and facing the challenge of beginning a new
life in a sector of society that seems to deny that domestic abuse even exists.
… The
women at the group's two shelters apparently represent only a fraction of those
suffering domestic violence in the religious sector. His organization's hotline
receives between 60 and 100 calls per month, says Korman.
Israelis who are not
planning to vote in the upcoming Knesset elections can make some money out of
it: The anti-Zionist Satmar Hasidic sect intends to pay every Israeli who
promises not to vote, regardless of his or her religious affiliation.
According to sources
involved in the move, each person submitting their identity card and driver's
license on Election Day will receive $100 in cash.
Hiddush CEO Rabbi Uri Regev
argued that the move was an alleged election bribe, adding that "Satmar
Hasidim have a right to boycott the elections, but they must not offer a bribe
to others. They must be informed that the Israeli law also applies to
them."
A new
initiative by a group of ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students in the north is
gaining a growing following in the Haredi community. It calls on yeshiva
students to refrain from discussing the upcoming election, and allows those who
do so to enter a lottery twice a week that may net them a NIS 500 prize.
An ultra-Orthodox
organization is demanding an immediate halt to work on a combined public,
commercial and residential project in Ashkelon, saying that remnants of Jewish
graves have been found at the location.
Police arrested a young
ultra-Orthodox man last week after he was caught using a hammer to smash
centuries-old painted wall tiles at King David’s Tomb in Jerusalem. He told
police he did so because an older friend had advised him that “the tiles were
stopping his prayers from reaching the tomb.” The man said he was hoping that
his prayers for a bride would be answered.
A report in Ma’ariv claimed
that Construction and Housing Minister Ariel Attias of Shas said in internal
discussions that unless the party retains the Housing portfolio, Prime Minister
Binyamin Netanyahu will not be able to form a government after the upcoming
election.
“We don’t have anyone to go
with, we are going together with him [Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu],” Shas
co-leader Aryeh Deri said on Saturday night. “I hope he also keeps the faith
and takes us along," Deri said, adding that some leaders of his party were
talking "openly” about excluding Shas.
Shas has been waging a
tense battle with right-wing parties - the joint Likud Beiteinu roster on the
one hand and Habayit Hayehudi on the other.
Rabbi
Rafael Pinhasi, secretary of the Shas movement’s Council of Torah Sages, was
caught on tape criticizing joint political leader Arye Deri for comments he has
made claiming leadership of the party.
The Muslim authority
managing the Temple Mount on Sunday dumped tons of unexamined earth and stones
excavated from the holy site into a municipal dump, in violation of a High
Court injunction, Maariv reported on Monday.
Israel’s top court in
September 2004 prohibited removal of earth from the Temple Mount and ruled
that, should it be necessary, the Antiquities Authority must be notified a
month in advance so it may examine the earth for artifacts.
Hear the word
"prophet" and the names Jeremiah, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jesus or Mohammed
may come to mind. While these are figures from the distant past, Rabbi Shmuel
Fortman Hapartzi is training a new generation of prophets for a new age.
The 16th
annual Love of Poetry festival in Jerusalem opened yesterday. The festival is
sponsored by the Mashiv Haruach poetry journal. This year’s theme is on the
Jewish prophets and their prophecy as poets and poetry.
Mashiv
Haruach called the prophets “the first social poets, or prophets of the
revolution, who gave freedom to their spirits and based on them prophesized at
the city gates Jewish poetry, the poetry of the world to come, daring and
existential poetry.”
Haredi leaders expressed
fury on Saturday night with the Jerusalem Municipality’s decision to allow a
large Christmas tree to be displayed next to Jaffa Gate at the entrance to the
Old City.
The city issued a permit to
a private individual to set up a tree for three days last week. The permit
ended on Thursday and the permit-holder removed the tree.
Forget Christmas fruitcake,
eggnog and peppermint candy canes. At one particular family-run joint in Jaffa,
customers celebrating the Christian holiday will be treated to a rather
untraditional delicacy today: sufganiyot – the classic Hanukkah doughnuts.
“Israel is
proud of its record of religious tolerance and pluralism, and Israel will
continue to protect freedom of religion for all,” Netanyahu said. “And we will
continue to safeguard places of Christian worship throughout our country.”
Aviv has
joined a unique new Jewish-Arab singing group, the Jerusalem Youth Chorus, which is sponsored by the YMCA and is the brainchild
of Micah Hendler, who recently graduated from Yale where he was a member of the
university’s fabled Whiffenpoofs a cappella choir.
Rabbi David Rosen addresses
participants at an interfaith prayer of unity at the King David Tower Museum,
where organizers are proud to have assembled representatives of all the
'children of Abraham'.
Editor – Joel Katz
Religion
and State in Israel is not affiliated with any
organization or movement.
