Lapid: “How can this country be Jewish if it also wants to be a democracy?” • Ultra-Orthodox parties: “This bypasses rabbinical authority.”
Hezi Sternlicht, Gideon Allon and Yehuda Shlezinger, ISRAEL HAYOM
Following his party’s advancement of the civil marriage bill, Finance Minister and Yesh Atid Chairman Yair Lapid addressed the issue of religion and state Tuesday at the Prime Minister’s Conference on Partnership and Growth at Tel Aviv University, which dealt with the integration of minorities into the economy.
“Other countries solved this problem by declaring a separation between religion and state. That will not happen in Israel,” he said. “It will not happen here because Israel — unlike other countries — is not just a place, it is also an idea. It was established after the world proved time after time, century after century, victim after victim, blood after blood, that we have no other place to go.”
According to Lapid, the fundamental problem, to which there is no solution, is the definition of Israel as a Jewish democracy. “At meetings like this, it is customary to hide this definition. We prefer to emphasize Israeli democracy, the right to vote and be elected, the fact that we have Arab members of Knesset, Arab judges and Arab officers in the IDF, and we all pretend that as long as there is an Arab soccer player on the Israeli team, there is no problem — but there is a problem.”
Lapid went on: “How can this country be Jewish if it also wants to be a democracy? Like Islam, like Christianity, Judaism is a history, Judaism is a civilization, Judaism is a tradition and Judaism is a religion….The rabbis, great as they may be, wise as they may be — do not make the laws.”
Earlier Tuesday, all Yesh Atid members of Knesset signed the civil marriage bill, which they intend to have approved in the current term, ending in March 2014. The bill aims to revolutionize religious services, allowing civil marriage, same-sex marriage, and otherwise halachically forbidden marriages and granting all couples with a civil union the full privileges and obligations afforded to married couples, within a system that is outside of the rabbinate’s purview.
The bill is supported by Labor, Meretz, Hatnuah and Yisrael Beytenu, and strongly opposed by the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, United Torah Judaism and Habayit Hayehudi. “The civil marriage [bill] places a serious question mark on our alliance with Yesh Atid,” warned MK Yoni Shatbon (Habayit Hayehudi), “this bypasses rabbinical authority.” MK Nissim Zeev (Shas) added that the bill “will split the nation in two.”
The National Association of LGBT in Israel stated that “the civil marriage bill is the fruit of the labor of ‘Otzma,’ the political arm of the association, and of other NGOs alongside the party leaders, and we congratulate [Yesh Atid’s] heads for standing by their word to provide a solution for the state’s recognition of same sex marriages and civil marriages between couples who don’t want or are uninterested in being married by the chief rabbinate.”
Israel is the state of the Jewish People. These Jewish people have many different variations in the actual ritual practice and customs of the religion and the people. The state is a representative democracy.
Some groups want imposition of how they practice Judaism imposed on the others. Others want complete distance from some of these coercive practices.
This tug of war between what is right or best for Israel and the Jewish people will go on for a long time. The one thing I know it is best to try and be tolerant of others viewpoints.
I for one label myself a Zionist Jew. I felt comfortable in the orthodox temple I went to as a kid and also very comfortable living in what some call secular Kibbutizm (some do celebrate Jewish Holidays). I can find commonality with any Jew who is a Zionist and not trying to tear others apart who may not be identical in all viewpoints or customs.
I find it refreshing. That way unJews can simply go into their own oblivion quietly without lying and tainting the Jewish people. By all means marry each other, dogs. or any other animal of their choice and sexual deviants of record. Go for it… fade away!
get lost Lapid and yours.
If you really believed that, you would be a member of Shas or similar. You would be advocating a Theocratic Republic.
Do you believe Judaism is imposed by force, or do you believe in freedom?
I would suspect being Jewish has enough of an attraction to most Jews that they would remain voluntarily, without having to resort to authoritarian methods. How far do you want to take it?
Do you want to make cheeseburgers illegal in Israel? Driving on Sabbath?
@ CuriousAmerican:
A Jewish State isn’t Jewish without the Jewish faith. American Jews are on the verge of disappearing due to assimilation and intermarriage and Lapid wants to introduce this formula into Israel.
The Rabbinate prevents this from happening which is why its enemies want to emasculate it. Again, why have a Jewish State when Jews are free to leave the Jewish people of their own accord?
Why give Cyprus the business?
Define what you mean by Jewish state. Do you mean a homeland for the Jews as stated in San Remo or do you mean Rabbinic regulation?
San Remo provided for a Jewish national home, not rabbinic monopolies.
What is your definition of a Jewish state?
By a Jewish state do you mean a homeland for the Jews, which is what Balfour and San Remo meant, and what Herzil meant – or do you mean an Orthodox theocractic set of regulations? which is really a Rabbinical state.
The former is defensible; and what Sam Remo intended.
The latters seems to be derived from an accomodation Ben Gurion made to Orthodox rabbis who were opposed to a secular Israel and threatened to ask the UN not to partition Palestine.
If one defines Jewish state along ethnic lines, civil marriage should be legal.
You are upset that a Jew can marry an Arab now. More likely, it will end problems that Jews have when one party is from Russia, and the paperwork is unclear.
Good idea.
Bad idea
Maybe good idea, depends on the issues.
Cohens should not have to go through vettings.
But, on the other hand, there may be issues of consanguinity that should remain forbidden.
Why have a Jewish State when a Jew can marry an Arab or a dog?
Actually Israelis who want to flout the rabbinate nowadays can go to Cyprus and marry there.
The moral relativism of democracy, as embraced by Yair Lapid and the rest of the Left, has no room for a Jewish State.