By Martin Sherman
Israel will only be democratic if it is Jewish—and it will only be Jewish if it is Zionist. Therefore, it will only be democratic if it is Zionist i.e. if it is the nation state of the Jewish people
[A] nation is the culmination of a long past of endeavors, sacrifice, and devotion…The nation is a soul, a spiritual principle. Two things…constitute this soul or spiritual principle. One is the possession in common of a rich legacy of memories; the other is present-day consent, the desire to live together, the will to perpetuate the value of the heritage that one has received. – Ernest Renan, “What is a Nation?” 1882.
After a stormy passage of well over half a decade, the Nationality Bill, defining Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people, was finally passed into law by the Knesset as a Basic Law of the land—by a vote of 62 against 55.
However, as positive as this development might appear to some, it should be a matter of deep concern to the citizens of this country that almost half the members of the nation’s parliament voted AGAINST (!) the bill.
Puerile, preposterous and pernicious objections
Of course, among the 55 opponents were the 13 members of the anti-Zionist Joint List, composed of a motley assortment of smaller, mainly Arab factions – from left-wing communists to Muslim fundamentalists, who openly reject the existence of Israel as the nation-state of the Jews. This, of course, is to be expected of them. After all, this rejection is, in large measure, the underlying raison d’etre for the party’s very existence.
But what was far more inexplicable, unacceptable and inexcusable is the fact that over 40 self-professed “Zionist” MK’s voted against the bill—including the perversely named “Zionist Union”, Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid, and the left-wing Meretz faction.
Their arguments (read “excuses”) for doing so ranged from the puerile, through the preposterous, to the pernicious.
To a man (and woman), they claimed that they strongly believed that Israel should be the nation-state of the Jewish people, but believed—apparently just as strongly—that they should not say so.
Thus, for example, M.K. Elazar Stern of “Yesh Atid, (himself a former IDF general!) made the breathtakingly and brazenly unfounded accusation that this bland—almost self-evident document for any self-respecting Zionist—would harm Druze and Bedouin citizens, declaring “The Nationality Bill is poking a finger in the eye of our Druze and Bedouin brothers, who serve by our side in the IDF and in the security services”.
Of course, it does nothing of the sort and I would challenge M.K. Stern to identify a single clause in the Nationality Bill that—barring some farfetched, tortuous and contrived interpretation—even vaguely suggests such a conclusion.
However, as detached from the actual bill as Stern’s claim is, it does give anti-Israel agitators, who seek to dissuade Druze and Bedouin from such service, ample ammunition to further their case. Way to go, Elazar!
Providing grist for the mills of vehement Judeophobes
With infuriating moralistic pomposity, Stern sallies forth: “Nationalism is based on love; jingoism is rooted in hate. So [Druze and Bedouin] IDF soldiers, serving and dying for this country will be transformed into enemies” –thus, incredibly, providing a clear rationale for disloyalty on the part of Israel’s non-Jewish citizens. This from a former IDF general?
M.K. Tamar Zandberg, head of the radical Meretz faction went even further in her scandalous anti-bill vitriol, lamenting: “This is a painful and shameful night…a contaminated and polluted Basic Law was passed that is nothing but shady political collusion between Bibi and [Naftali] Bennett. According to this law, Zionism is no longer a national movement that built a home for a persecuted people, but coercive and belligerent jingoism, based on a sense of racial superiority”.
This is, at once, an appalling and outrageous misrepresentation of the law. Indeed, I would urge readers to scrutinize the bill for any hint of “racial superiority” as opposed to “Jewish distinctiveness”. Sadly however, no matter how misleadingly mendacious M.K. Zandberg’s mischaracterization of the bill is, it will doubtlessly be seized upon, with grateful glee, by the most vehement detractors of Israel, as grist to grind in their Judeophobic mills.
Zandberg’s colleague, M.K. Michal Rozen, was not far behind in her deceitful drivel, charging: “This rightwing government is destroying the values of the State of Israel and its Declaration of Independence”. Then, fueling the falsehoods and fabrications of the modern day anti-Israel blood libel, she added: “Soon it will be official – Arab citizens of Israel will be second-class citizens. The Nationality Law is the direct continuation of racist policies that discriminate against minorities in Israel.”
Bill reflects clear intent of Declaration of Independence
Of course, Rozen and others of her disingenuous ilk could not be more wrong.
For, by and large, the Nationality Bill mirrors the substance and certainly, the spirit of, the Declaration of Independence which is a robust assertion of Jewish national rights with a brief reference to the civic rights of non-Jewish minorities.
Thus, in the Declaration of Independence, the word “right(s)” is mentioned ten times – nine of which refer to the collective right of the Jews/ Jewish people. Only once does it refer to the individual civic rights of “all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex”.
Clearly then, the Declaration is an unequivocal affirmation of national rights as the sole prerogative of the Jews, while committing to uphold the individual civic rights of non-Jewish minorities.
Any other interpretation is incompatible with its text – and certainly with the context in which that text was formulated.
The Nationality bill is merely a legal blueprint for implementing the clearly stated intent of the Declaration. Any other interpretation is grossly misleading. For it does little more than declare that Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people, that it should maintain ongoing contact with, and concern for the security of, Jewish communities abroad and mandates that public life in Israel be conducted in a manner that reflects the Jewishness of the state—in its flag, symbols, calendar and ceremonies.
The question of Arabic
The Bill has 11 clauses—one of which stipulates that, as a Basic Law, it requires 61 (out of 120) votes to change it; 8 of the remaining clauses deal with the issues set out in the preceding paragraph; and one calls for the government to foster Jewish settlement—which was always the essence of Zionism.
The remaining clause relates to “Language”, and stipulates that Hebrew alone will be the official language of the land. True, in so doing, it annuls the1939 British mandatory decree making Arabic an official language. (English was removed as an official language in 1948.) However, the Bill does clearly stipulate that Arabic will have special status in the country and that no steps will be taken to undermine its current practical standing.
Geez! How xenophobic can you get!
Interestingly, there was no outcry over the status of Russian in Israel–although around 20% of the population is reportedly fluent in the language. No demand for “special status” here. Nary a peep! Hmmm, I wonder why.
Could it be that those who do not reject the idea of Israel as the nation-state of the Jews have no need for linguistic autonomy to integrate into Israeli society?
Arab rejection of Zionism
Of course, what those clamoring to exploit this question of Arabic as proof of the coercive jingoistic nature of the Nationality Bill overlook or ignore, is that the Arab sector in Israel is not merely another non-Jewish ethnic minority.
Indeed, not only does it have strong cultural and religious affinity to Israel’s enemies, but several of its elected officials openly identify with them and have even collaborated with them. Indeed, although the majority of Israeli-Arabs have not been actively disloyal to the Jewish state, as a collective, they harbor deep resentment to Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people.
This is no unsubstantiated xenophobic allegation.
To the contrary, it is clearly reflected in their voting patterns, particularly in the 2015 election, where well over 80% of Israeli-Arabs cast their vote for the stridently anti-Zionist Joint List, which, as mentioned, is composed of diverse, mainly Arab factions—from Communists to Islamists—united only by their opposition to Israel as the nation-state of the Jews.
A constant refrain of the Bill’s opponents is that Israel is already the nation-state of the Jews in every practical sense, so why “rock the boat” by passing a law that may annoy those who are uncomfortable with the idea? Of course, the answer to that is simple: If you believe that Israel is the nation-state of the Jews, why refrain from articulating that belief simply because others believe it should not be!
Indeed, the very fact that a party, which explicitly rejects the fundamental essence of the Declaration of Independence, is today the third largest party in the Knesset, is, in itself, a powerful argument in favor of anchoring the substantive content of that Declaration in law.
A nation is not an accident of geography
What the critics of the Nationality Bill appear unable to acknowledge is that a nation is more than a random amalgam of individuals, bound by no more than the accident of their current geographical location.
Indeed, as the introductory excerpt, cited from the works of Ernest Renan, one of the leading liberal philosophers on the nature of nations, nationality and nationalism, underscores, the most essential element of nationhood is a spiritual bond and sense of fellow-feeling.
In similar vein, John Stuart Mill in his seminal treatise, “On Representative Government” (1861), stipulated that a portion of mankind may be said to constitute a nation if its members “are united among themselves by common sympathies which do not exist between them and any others – which make them cooperate with each other more willingly than with other people, desire to be under the same government, and desire that it should be government by themselves.”
Mill also specified what might constitute this sense of allegiance or “fellow-feeling.”
While he acknowledges that “the effect of race and descent… [c]ommunity of language, and… religion [may] greatly contribute to it,” this is not the most important parameter.
For Mill, “the strongest [element] of all is identity of political antecedents; the possession of a national history, and consequent community of recollections; collective pride and humiliation, pleasure and regret, connected with the same incidents in the past.”
The sine-qua-non of democracy
Mill then went on to map out the causal nexus that needs to prevail between this sense of allegiance (i.e. “common sympathies” or “fellow-feeling”) and the feasibility of democratic institutions in a given country: “Free institutions are next to impossible in a country made up of… a people without fellow-feeling [where] the united public opinion, necessary to the working of representative government, cannot exist.”
So, consider for a moment, a single “incident in the past,” say the 1948 war between Israel and the Arabs. The Jews see this as their War of Independence and celebrate it as a source of collective pride and pleasure; while the Arabs, including those within the Green Line, see it as a catastrophe (Nakba) and commemorate it as a source of collective regret and humiliation.
Little analytical acumen is needed to conclude that given the diametrically opposing collective narratives, there is scant chance of generating the required “fellow-feeling” to create “the united public opinion, necessary to the working of representative government,” thus making “free institutions…next to impossible.”
After all, the recent history of this region has shown, even in countries where the ethnic diversity is far less than that between Jew and Arab in Israel, only the iron fist of tyranny can maintain law and order and prevent the country descending into the horrors of Hobbesian chaos.
If Israel is not Jewish…
Indeed, as I have explained elsewhere, in some detail, unless Israel can robustly retain its overwhelmingly dominant Jewish character, it will lose its attraction both for Jews currently resident here—and as a potential abode for Jews living elsewhere.
Accordingly, as emigration increases and immigration declines, the composition of the population will begin to resemble that of the surrounding countries–and so will its socio-political fabric…
So, what the critics of the Nationality Bill should recall is that across the Mid-East—from Casablanca to Kuwait — there is no semblance of any liberal democratic state. Accordingly, for Israel to be democratic, it must be Jewish; but to be Jewish it must be Zionist. Thus, inevitably, to be democratic it must be Zionist —i.e. the undisputed nation-state of the Jewish people.
Hopefully, the brouhaha over the Nationality Bill does not signal a growing lack of awareness of this crucial political truth –and the weakening of Jewish national will.
Martin Sherman is the founder and executive director of the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies
@ adamdalgliesh:
Bravo, you said it far better than I, who just brushed over it, although I mentioned the majot points of your post re Renan. Ms gave me a very condemnatory, turned-up-nose. “really”..?, then went on to, by inference, to regard me as an uncultured savage to whom the great Liberal Philosophers (whom he also brought in as support for Renan) were a closed book. No point in undeceiving him, being too wrapped up in his own verbal ethanol,…….
But as for the rest, yes he writes some very good stuff and when concise and to the point without fleshing it out with extraneous references, a pleasure to read.
I once had a professor of English Lit. who was so in love with his own eloquence that he would take a whole lecture hour to describe a 5 minute episode in, say, “The Newcomes”. And he was a damned tough marker, so we had to listen, improving our own language, but learning little about the characters unless we read them up well by ourselves. He had tenure and we were a captive audience-simple wet-behind-the-ears, you know.
@ Bear Klein:
I understand; change not necessary. I ust happen to stick with what I’m accustomed to. You being in America, where everything changes, like shaving off the beards of religious Jews after the Dem. ward-heelers got hold of them, changing their names to “Anglo-Saxon” ones, eating treif etc. The “Melting Pot Extraordinaire”…
I recall a joke in one of Ausubel’s famous books of Jewish stories and jokes, about the Jewish mother who was still in Russia, and would write to her son, One day his letter told her to address from now on to Sheldon Burke, instead of Shlomo Berkovitz. Another later letter mentioned that he now was clean shaven, and another, that he had been out to dine with a Democratic Congressman, in a restaurant famous for it’s spiced ham. The mother stunned by all this, after a long thought..wrote and asked him cautiously,….. “Shlomo, are you still circumcised..”.
No doubt you’ve heard it, and I left out a little here and there. but you get my point, which T.G. has not affected either you or I.
Quoting Ernest Renan on behalf of Jewish statehood is definitely out of place, because he was a virulent antisemite. In his “Life of Jesus” he not only blamed the Jews collectively for the execution of Jesus, but asserted that their murder of Jesus was a characteristically Jewish crime, the inevitable result of the Jewish religion, which he denounced as evil and barbaric. Renan was also the inventor of the differentiation between the “Aryan” and “Semitic” races, and the notion that the “Semite” was inherently inferior to the “Aryan,” which played such a central role in the Nazi ideology. I am troubled by Dr. Sherman’s tendency to quote somwhat dubious characters–first Pericles (via Thucydides), responsible for the downfall of the Greek city-states including his own, Bismarck, responsible for creating the united, highly militarized Germany that terrorized al lEurope during two world wars, and now the antisemitic philosophe Renan–on behalf of his views about present-day Israeli politics, which in and of themselves are spot-on accurate and full of insight. Surely it would be possible to locate more respectable characters, maybe even some Jewish authors, to support his observations about the current Israeli scene.
@ Edgar G.:
I use the words temple and synagogue interchangeably, when speaking or writing English. I have done this since I learned English at age 5 or 6. When speaking German we mixed in Yiddish words so then I used Schul, I hardly ever talk German anymore. In Hebrew I use Beit Knesset. Not about to change sorry.
@ Bear Klein:
I don’t believ I’ve ever been in a Temple in my life. I’ve been to synagogues which I always have called a “shool”. I only use the word “synagogue” if talking to Goyim.And in fact am not today religious enough to worry about whether there’s a “Temple” where there should be a “shool”. I keep telling you this but it doesn’t seem to penetrate.
I suppose your info that they thought he’d married a mamzer is correct, wherever it was published. The point is, that whatever, or whoever they thought he’s married, that fact that he HAD married a couple it was against Israeli law, and I suppose that they feel embattled enough by all the pressures against them, to have penalised him, even if only in a very modest way.. I don’t have a red phone line to the Rabbanut so I don’t know.
In your opinion, and maybe even mine, it should beno business of the state, but \israel is not just a state it has to perpetuate the Jwidh People therefore has rules. And one rulse says that a Jewish couple must have the Rabbinate Hechser… I happen to agree with them becuause of the uniqueness of the Jewish State and want to keep it ongoing and not dissolving into a variety of “Jewish” creeds that won’t last out the century. This is our ONE and ONLY chance for a JEWISH State, and we must have rules as to things that others might take for granted. We can’t afford this.
@ Edgar G.:
So do not go to a Temple that is Masorti if you do not approve I have no problem. No one is forcing you as in the USA you are free to practice Judaism without interference from the State. That is how it should in Israel and perhaps if the Haredi are out of the government it will happen.
By the way the Rabinoot accepts they marriages on the list after they are done in-spite of the Law. See if it is a civil only ceremony the Rabinoot has NO authority. They wanted to question this Rabbi because they erroneously thought he had marriage a mamzar. They found out by themselves it was not true. So they had the cops hassle him.
If he was an orthodox rabbi you would think it was okay if he was taken to jail for questioning?
See it should not matter what we think if one Rabbi is kosher or not. It is none of the states business. Unless you believe in Jewish Sharia.
@ Bear Klein:
He was doing his job if he was in America or elsewhere, in Israel he was breaking the law.. I can’t help that; I didn’t persuade him to be Masorti, or the Govt into passing the laws.
As you know Bear, in this discussion between you and I, you are standing on perfectly familiar ground, and I am not. I know little about the different brands of Judaism other than Haredi, Chabad, Modern Orthodox Conservative, Reform, -in Ireland called “Liberal”.- and I was brought up in an orthodox home, knowing nothing about the others which had not reached our consciousness until many years after.. I also know that there is Religious Zionism, who seem just Orthodox Zionists.
I have just given a very casusal glance over a few paragraphs about Masorti, and seen another odd-and-end from the corner of my eye. The prominent rabbi discussing his Masorti belief said Masorti was Conservative,and allied with the Conservative Movement all across the globe, but really Modern Orthodox. and was against gay Rabonim or same sex marriage. Masorti was in favour of Female Rabonim but against them dispensing rulings based on Halacha.
From the corner of my aforementioned eye, I say a heading about a gay Masorti Rabbi celebrating a same sex marriage.
So to me it seems that every Masorti Congregation or group of congregations make up it’s own rules as to what they will observe, whilst sticking to the parent organisation in a loose way.
Who knows…I don’t really care. If they want to go against the Israeli Law they may be penalised for it, and if they want to change it they have to get enough government or Knesset votes to do so. Israel is a country a laws far more than nearly any other country. I can understand that the Rabbanut regarded the marriage as religiously binding as all the necessary Halachic dictums regarding marriage were presumably followed out, but that doesn’t mean that the have to recognise the vehicle of it.
Consider, with a people so fractured and traumatised as is the Jewish People, The main things that have been keeping the people as a People are Torah, and sanctity of the family., neccessarily meaning legal marriage. Israel and the Rabonim, to protect this from dissolution like in the Diaspora where whithering away is ever growing, made it a law that marriage between a Jewish man and woman should get the sanction of the Religious Authorities..
I don’t blame them, because without those old geezers having suffered the tortures of hell to secretly study Torah all through the centuries, in the most perilous times, Judaism would today just be something that we’d read about in a book on Vanished Religions/Peoples.
This has to be an undeniable FACT. So, irksome to many as it may be, because i am so proud and happy to be a Jew, that I’m glad to leave them alone, and not try to drag them down to my level. They think on a far higher plane than most, and we’ve been lucky that such people have survived.
All this, regardless of the fact that I myself have had serious problems with them in the past.
@ Edgar G.:
“Masorti and other rabbis have been performing religious wedding ceremonies in Israel for tens of years. While the Rabbinate condemns these rabbis and their weddings, until now they have done little, if anything, about it. In 2013, after Modern Orthodox rabbis of the Tzohar movement threatened to start officiating outside the confines of the Rabbinate, the religious parties pushed for a change in the law, which already forbade Jewish weddings outside of the Rabbinate. Since the amendment, the law has carried a penalty of up to two years imprisonment for rabbis who officiate and couples who get married in a religious ceremony outside the Rabbinate.
One of the most absurd outcomes of this fiasco is that, on the one hand, the Rabbinate has recognized Rabbi Haiyun’s wedding ceremony as religiously binding, and therefore an offense. On the other hand, the Rabbinate refuses to register this halakhically acceptable ceremony. They cannot have it both ways! Either it is a recognized, halakhic wedding, or it was just a civil ceremony with no religious meaning. If the latter, then the Rabbinate has no jurisdiction in this matter.” https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-day-the-jewish-state-became-orthodox/
So the whole thing and the law are a power play by the Rabinoot to hold onto power because a clear majority of citizens do not like their monopoly on religion include the Modern Orthodox in Israel and elsewhere.
@ Edgar G.:
Actually were you are off base is assuming bad intentions of this rabbi just because he is conservative and without any basis.
Did you even think for a minute all he wants to do is the work he trained for? That his congregants when they get married want him to perform the service?
You actually believe he wanted to get hauled into jail?
Did you consider that this law of throwing a rabbi in jail for doing his job is draconian and needs to be abolished. It is not the conservative rabbi who is trying to force his way onto anyone but the Rabinoot is the one who is intolerant. The intolerance towards fellow jews is pure evil and primitive thinking.
If they would have had the same question with a Rabbi who was from the rabinoot they would have called him on the phone without the police. Strong Arm tactics against a Rabbi to try and intimidate him. You actually think that is okay?
Outside the home I was taught Judaism in an Orthodox Schul as a youngster. However as an adult I learned and listened to a lot of lectures from a conservative rabbi who I truly admire. I have mentioned before that I hate the labels of Secular, Reformed, Orthodox…….. The only label I believe in and identify is Zionist Jew.
The other labels are all divisive. I hate intolerance and bigotry in particular towards fellow Jews. We should look what we have common with fellow Jews and not what the differences are. The labels say we are on team x and the guys on team y are the bad guys. Control Mechanism and Power Play the evil in religion.
@ Bear Klein:
Well…I’m not into it as much as you arr and i agree with your objection to the police action, as I’ve said. But ..there’s no question, he knew he was going against Israeli Law and still did it. It may have been cleared up but it caused a public outcry, the public being the nonreligious mostly Diaspora, and that’s what he wanted. The fact that he is there in Israel, officiating with a brand of Judaism which is not recognised by the authorities tells me the story. If he just wanted to live in Eretz Yisrael, he could, without getting himself embroiled in this public manner. Is he too proud to refer couples to the Rabbinate….??
I agree with you about Chabad, For me R. Schneerson, was very special. I’ve had his picture on top of my fridge for many years. Chabad sent these large postcard sized pictures with stand alone fold over, to all, I suppose, who made donations, which I regularly did. I keep all the lovely “masterpiece” calendars. Every Yom Kipur I make Kapporot (with money) for myself and my 4 children separately and make it into a Chabad donation. Growing up we used a chicken.
@ Edgar G.:
Actually if you read the whole article what they were calling him about was cleared up without him. So they were just harassing him. That is okay with you because it is the official way (sorry for sarcasm). They could have sent him an email asking the question but they wanted to show their power and control being the assholes they are.
Anyway the Chabad in their non coercive but friendly Judiasm get more people into Judiasm than the Rabinoot. I do not understand why you think they are positive. In fact they are not just creating rifts with Jews in the diaspora but Jews in Israel who are interested in the religion but are appalled at the Rabinoot.
They are corrupt and have no moral authority as they keep their sons from service and try and tell people that what they do is just as important as the people who keep them from being killed.
I believe in freedom and these Haredi Rabbis just use religion for power, money and control. I see no spiritual value in these people. The religion and Jewish people will be better without them having a near monopoly on religious services and institutions in Israel. The rabinoot tries and keep out the Zionist Rabbis from being able to provide services. They have done conversion education best in the IDF
@ Bear Klein:
The only thing I see wrong with this, other than the expected “international outrage or “roiling” or whatever, ..I mean when are they not “outraged” … was that they should have let the guy sleep and called on him at 10 o’clock, after he’d finished his davening…presuming that he still performed that rite. He KNEW he was going against te law so he did this deliberately, knowing he’d be arrested and create the usual world “outrage”. Like those excuses for women that disrupt the Wall prayers.
They shouldn’t have expected him to be finished davening by 5.30. Maybe they thought he would daven at around the same time the Dati do…. Hmmm.
So he got what he wanted….PUBLICITY….
@ Bear Klein:
I didn’t say I liked them. You obviously were away that day when I described my serious, almost physical battles with the Rabbinate over my impending marriage in Israel, even though done through the Rabbinate. I was forced to pick up the office phone, threaten to tear it out and throw it through the window. Also shook my fist under the good Rabbi’s face and promised to break his jaw. This was only to get back the ORIGINAL document of the Satmar conversion of my wife to be–which they originally agreed to but tried to renege……..
I know all about the Cyprus trips, and I care nothing for them. Let them continue, but the PRINCIPLE of Orthodox marriage laid down by Halachic rulings and carried out by the Rabbinate should remain in place. It gives stability to the Jewish Family, apart from carrying on a many centuries’ years old tradition.
Trying to pull down the Rabonim is like the Reform women who come to the Wall only to disrupt Orthodoxy, not to pray but to destroy. There is an all-out attack by assimilated Jews on our age old traditions, which our fathers slaved and died for. I’m totally against that, although not religious myself.
When an ensconced Institution is under attack, it’s tendency is to pull itself inward and put up more barriers. In modern lingo it’s called “doubling-down”. I believe that the Talmud describes it as “building a fence around the Torah”… We should leave them alone.
The Liberal and inclusive Jewish adherents want to pull them down to their level, so that in 50 years when children intend to marry, already keeping very few Jewish traditions, their antecedents should not be checked, because, Halachically , they will not be Jews.
Although not recognised as such, except by the Haredim, it’s a destructive, all-out attack on the whole Jewish Religion and People.
I remember when Chaim Cohen of the Supreme Court wanted to marry a divorcee and the Rabanut said ‘NO”, so they went to Cyprus, and everybody lived happily ever after. He didn’t make any scurrilous attacks on them.
@ Edgar G.:
The whole article is found at https://www.jpost.com/printarticle.aspx?id=562905
I cut and pasted parts. I think the Rabinoot should only be used voluntarily and the state should get out of the religion business. The article does not even mention the 20,000 people who marry outside of Israel every year because they do not want to deal with the Rabinoot. Israel also needs a civil marriage option.
@ Edgar G.:
You are free to like the Rabinoot. Being forced to marry with them for one example is coercion. The choice one has in Israel is go overseas and 20K people do that annually, rather than deal with them. The Jewish Religion requires only two people to witness a marriage for it be legal except in Israel. Well the religion has the same requirement but coercion authority known as the Rabinoot does not agree.
I personally know how they apply kashrut to certain situations is just a hustle for money and has nothing to do with kashrut. Same with marriages or approval of who is a Jew. Hell this religious mafia even excludes other Orthodox Rabbis from performing Jewish ritual ceremonies. Why not because the other Rabbis are not qualified because it will take from their fees for coerced services. You like them your business. They turn off the majority of Israelis from religious services.
You like tyrannical Judaism that is your business. The Jewish religion continued in the diaspora without a central authority for religion for 1000s of years as it is now in Israel for Jews. Yet these guys you think are so good they do not want to send their sons to the IDF yet alone their daughters.
The rabinoot is greatly responsible for a split that is occurring in the Jewish people. They are not good for Judaism but actually detrimental to it and the State of Israel.
@ Bear Klein:
How is it Religious Coercion to be asked in a JEWISH STATE to obey JEWISH LAWS of the State. , The hated Rabbinic Council is what had kept Judaism alive over th centuries. Without people like them, today there would be NO Jusiasm. Maybe you like that idea better…./?
Yes….but because of “the Fleshpots of Egypt” the free will you’re talking about will eventually destroy the Jewish Nation and State . It might take some time but already the Jewish Jewish sector of the population is fighting rear-guard action against encroaching Liberal Judaism, completely equipped with the free entry of Missionaries, and chazar everywhere.
Many just pay lip service to Jewish customs and traditions….so how long do you think that Israel will struggle on, trying to fulfill the “Return to Zion as in former days”….. 50 years…a hundred…….before collapsing into the dregs with which is it being surrounded both externally and worse, internally….???
“Inclusive Judaism”….really means “diluted Judaism”, and eventually it will become “Homeopathic Judaism” where after immense dilution, the only Jewishness will be in the name.
The National Bill passed on in Israeli is actually far weaker than constitutions of many European democracies, which unlike Israel even create an official national religion. The law does not violate anyone’s individual rights or create any special privileges for Jews.
“The faux outrage against the bill,” he stated, “is simply another attempt to single out the Jewish state and hold her to a double standard. What’s good for the United Kingdom and Spain should also be good for Israel.”
Ted, your friend Mr. Diamond correctly points out in some of his writings (paraphrasing loosely) that power of the Haredim by virtue of the power they have due to Israel’s electoral system make progressive Jews uncomfortable with Israel.
My answer to that is have a half million to a million progressive Jews move to Israel and they will find very quickly that pluralist Jewish religion in Israel will be very welcome. Polls already indicate that 58% of Israeli Jews favor pluralistic options.
Israeli Jews even those who are for pluralistic Judaism in Israel get flustered by many progressive Jews in the west is that they seem to support the Arabs and are more wed to Liberalism than either Judaism or Israel.
Hard for Israelis to listen when one bashes Israel and favors its enemies at times. I personally hate the Rabinoot. Marriage in Judaism requires only two witnesses and does not require a Rabinoot approved Rabbi. That a conservative Rabbi in Israel was arrested for marrying two Jews who wanted him to marry them was a national disgrace. So I want progressive Jewish Zionists who love Israel to move to Israel to fix this disgrace for good.
If there was a referendum on this in Israel the Haredi Rabbis would lose their power of coercive religion over other Jews.
I do not know if Mr. Diamond reads this blog but I would be interested in his comment on this and/or Tobin’s article. I have to tried to post on his site but everything is moderated and most of the commentators to his articles did not seem to approve of Israel if not outright hate it.
https://www.jns.org/opinion/what-do-we-expect-from-a-jewish-state/
A very good article and in my view a correct perspective for the most part on the Nationality Law and what should be focused on.
@ Edgar G.:
I believe in free will. I believe in freedom even for Jews.I do not believe in religious coercion. Religious coercion is dividing the Jewish people right now.
To me it is more important that a person be good to others, do their duty to their fellow citizens (e.g. guard duty, reservist service, IDF service, national service) than if they if decide to eat cheesecake after eating meat. Naturally they should respect those that do and would not bring something not kosher into a kosher household.
@ Bear Klein:
When I went first to Israel, the Israel we’d had in our hearts for so many centuries, with all the Rabonim who bore the burden of care bravely, and all Jews suffering the tortures and persecution, but holding on so that we, ourselves, could see this day, I was so ashamed to hear that there was chazar sold in certain stores, and that all restaurants were not kosher. I was more than ashamed I was mortified .
That feeling had never left me, a combination of disgust and loathing for those who have let us down, not only us, but all our poor martyrs who have gone before, over the many centuries. All they had were the prayers that we should see this day, an Israel free and vibrant. I’m sure it never occurred to any that there would be treif and chazar abundantly available.
I haven’t mentioned this before because it hadn’t come up.. It didn’t change my mind about the country the Holy Land, but certainly gave me a different attitude towards the people, which I believe that I show on this site, from time to time. I truly feel that those people do not deserve to be in Israel, corrupting others away from the path of Jewish morality. I am not religious as I’ve mentioned, but 100% Jew. I don’t pray that much, but I keep the traditional laws that I can, and one of them is strict kashrut. The way the Israeli Jew runs toward chazar one would think that it was impossible to be kosher in a Jewish country, not easy like it is.
I’ve described here, how, in Ireland, the Irish Grand National at Fairyhouse Races Week, always fell during Chal Hamoed Pesach, and our whole family would go for the day, taking bottles of milk or home made lemonade, lots of buttered matzoh, maybe some fried fish, and a bag of hard boiled eggs. The hard boiled egg was our staple food whenever we had to travel away from home in the countryside. Not difficult to keep kosher.
@ david melech:
Some Jewish people are kosher some are not. They are still Jewish. Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people and they come in many flavors.
If this is to define ISRAEL as the nation state of the JEWISH people why is pork, shell fish allowed to be sold, served in restaurants and supermarkets? Why are some kibbutzing still breeding and packaging pork. Why with still survivors of nazi camps are tattoo shops allowed? Why, why, why I’m sure so many more why’s can be found to go into the full pages of this law.
@ david melech:
Just because it is not an official language does not mean can not use the language. It is also on street signs because lots of people speak English.
I was in Japan in the 1980s and at the Train Stations everything was in Japanese and no one spoke English. Talk about a problem getting around.
If English was removed as an official language 1948 how come today it appears on government items eg; stamps, coins and bills?
@ ms:
No, it’s legitimate but it occurred to me that that definition applies just as well to the international Left, every clause of it. That”s why they think Trump is being treasonous when he criticizes the European socialist leadership.
Sebastien- I see that you are getting the hammer also, even though your query seemed to me very proper in the circumstances; a good question; meriting a good, non-philosophical answer. . I of course was beyond the pale.
@ ms:
Yes really…!! As for what you presented at the seminar collaborating with Dr Shain, I’m sure you had a lot of time to research it, write it, re-write it, edit it several times, fashion it, alter it, polish it snip it a little here, cut a little there, add a little on top….. and …voila !! The article in question seemed TO ME to have been very hurried, a collection of hardly relevant information just thrown together. I was merely giving my opinion, not venturing to criticize as you seem to believe. It was disappointing to me because lately you have been writing very informatively and incisively; articles I looked forward to reading. .
I’m not a fervent fan of philosophers, no matter whom although I have a leaning for Edmund Burke who was a lot more than that.. And I don’t believe that the very important but also very controversial Nationality Bill, which passed in the remarkably fast time of 5 years, (considering how long it takes to have a common-or garden building actually finished) needed what seemed to me to be more like long-winded, unnecessary justification, than encomium.
I’m sure you understand that YOUR opinion is not necessarily My opinion. And…on a point off the subject. I listen to you on video now and then, and find it hard to actually concentrate on what you’re saying, because you move your lips very little and you speak in a rather low voice. It’s not the volume control on my PC nor my hearing, and I really want to hear your opinions on what are usually very interesting subjects.
Perhaps the questions are pre-arranged and being fed to you, although I don’t think so, therefore I’d be getting your spontaneous opinions. And THAT would be worth listening to, for me anyway, far more than your articles.
@ Sebastien Zorn:
@ Edgar G.:
So you believe that reference to major liberal philosophers on the nature of nations is out of place in in the discussion of Israel as the nation-state of Jews – really??
See https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1354-5078.1998.00321.x
For an article I co-authored with Prof. Yossi Shain (Tel Aviv/Georgetown) which was presented at a joint MIT-Harvard MacArthur Seminar
@ Bear Klein:
Sorry Bear, I was a little ambiguous there. I meant Martin’s article seemed to me to be a bit of a rush job. It’s construction, and the text itself , gave me that impression, not smoothly flowing as is normal.
SZ: By Mill’s definition, does the intenational Left constitute a nation, then?
Martin Sherman said: “In similar vein, John Stuart Mill in his seminal treatise, “On Representative Government” (1861), stipulated that a portion of mankind may be said to constitute a nation if its members “are united among themselves by common sympathies which do not exist between them and any others – which make them cooperate with each other more willingly than with other people, desire to be under the same government, and desire that it should be government by themselves.”
@ Edgar G.:
They have worked on for this for years. So it was not rushed but compromises were always required.
The question should be what was the purpose of the bill. If the purpose was to create an Israeli Basic Law that said Israel is a Jewish State then it was done. This was needed because of the Supreme Court chipping away at times of the Jewish State Concept.
@ Edgar G.:
All told, it looked like a very rush(ed) job to me.
Interesting up to the point of the repetition of Renan’s remarks on nations. I don’t think we needed to go into all that “stuff” about John Stuart Mill’s concept of a nation, and much more…. nor Renan’s philosophies. Using his definition of a nation was enough, but we should be clear that he was not thinking of the Jewish Nation.
Let’s call him a “philosophical philologist”.-(lovely alliteration) . He was a very tortured individual from what I recall, and was pulled several ways by his conflicting thoughts, his religious upbringing, his awakening to a wider world etc.. I recall little, but I have a couple of his books bought about 55 years ago and not looked at since. His “Life of Jesus” was my first essay into such matters. He certainly encompassed a wide range, and showed his scholarship was great. As for Jesus, he thought that Jesus was the perfect man who got rid of any Jewish connection…. but was only a man, not a divinity. I think he was excommunicated for this.
{ I recall thinking that it was the opposite of Herod Agrippa 2, whom the crowd acclaimed as “A god not a man”, whereupon he immediately became ill and died. At least so goes the story in Josephus….but…if we can believe it happened like that we are open season for bridge salesmen.}
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I recall him travelling in Palestine with his older sister whom he revered, and that they both became ill. She died. It affected him badly and I think this was when he began to write the Jesus book which he dedicated to her..
Anyway, at first interesting, and then petered out to a lot of unnecessary philosophical thoughts about………….I stopped reading here so I don’t know. This is the very first MS article I didn’t read to the end. I got tired of it. Maybe I missed something good later..I hope there was.
But I have a feeling, acquired somewhere, (maybe a newspaper article) that he believed that Semitic Jews were inferior to Christians, and that European Jews were not related but were descended from Khazars, and he didn’t regard Jews as a nation.