It escapes us how one can oppose book bans but favor speaker bans
Have liberal Jewish leaders forgotten the example of former president of Israel, Reuven Rivlin?
We report this week that more than 330 American rabbis are pledging to block members of the Religious Zionist bloc in Benjamin Netanyahu’s new government from speaking at their synagogues and will lobby to keep them from speaking in their communities.
This is exactly how not to advance Jewish life. Robust or even angry intellectual exchange is the mature way to communicate disagreement, out of which, often times, minds are changed.
One of the offending targets of the ban is religious Zionist Avi Maoz, who has condemned all liberal forms of Judaism. Have liberal Jews forgotten that the former president of Israel, Reuven Rivlin, uttered the exact same condemnation, but, due to intellectual engagement, Rivlin not only changed his mind but went on to become a universally beloved president of Israel, liberal Jews included?
Even if dialogue with Maoz would not change his views one whit, an honest exchange between him and voices in the Diaspora would convey to him the nature of the impact of his views that their isolated articulation only in Israel would not. This itself would be valuable.
The same is to be said for the other offending religious Zionist targets: Itamar Ben-Gvir, who will control the police, and Bezalel Smotrich, who will supervise West Bank Jewish settlements.
As it happens, we know more about Smotrich’s views than Ben-Gvir’s, and strongly disagree with them.
Precisely on those grounds, we would relish the opportunity to engage with him. To ban him would simply reinforce his confidence in the correctness of his views. This is counterproductive. To engage with him would open the door to possible revision.
A debate ban is also a form of election denial. President Biden accuses former President Trump of denying the fairness of elections because he, Trump, has lost them. Biden says that, to Trump, the only fair election is one that Trump wins.
Election denial is not only to refuse to admit to being the loser, it is also to refuse to acknowledge the legitimacy of the winner. To ban winners from speaking in one’s synagogue or community is not substantively different from denying the legitimacy of their election. For all practical purposes, election denial is not only to call an election unfair, it is also to delegitimize its consequences.
There is something far more corrosive at work here: taking Israel for granted. Let the Diaspora see just how it would do, especially in a time of growing anti-Semitism, if Israel were not here. Israel, like every other country, is imperfect. But unlike every other country, Israel is a bulwark of Jewish safety. Were it not for Israel, including its elections that do not turn out the way one might want, Jews in the Diaspora would not have the confidence to speak up in their own defense as confidently as they do.
Jews should be a bit more humble, a bit more wise, a bit more circumspect, and bit more mature, a bit more realistic, before painting Israel as a home of bigots. It is best for Jews on opposite sides of critical issues to discuss and debate them, rather than to lambaste the first and only Jewish state in 2,000 years.
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