A LETTER in this weeks IJN is from David Lissy, executive director and CEO of the Masorti Foundation. Masorti in Israel is what is called Conservative Judaism in the US.
Lissy is right on so many points; on all points, in fact, but one.
He writes:
The appointment of rabbis in Israeli cities is inconsistent. Sometimes theres one, sometimes two, and sometimes none. Sometimes theres a chief rabbi, sometimes not.
And sometimes theres supposed to be a chief rabbi, as in Jerusalem, and theres not. Must one be a Zionist to be a chief rabbi of Jerusalem? Its a debate. And it delays the appointment.
There is no separation of synagogue and state in Israel. The state pays hundreds of millions of shekels in salaries to rabbis and other employees of religious councils and other religious bodies. Its exactly the opposite of the voluntary religious system in the US.
Up until last week, all rabbis employed by the state were Orthodox.
Secular Jews do not like the state-sponsored rabbinate; in particular, do not like needing its approval to get married.
A majority of Israelis support recognition of conversions by non-Orthodox movements.
A chief rabbinate as a state-sponsored institution has seen corruption in kashrut, exemptions from service in the IDF for many Orthodox young people, racist policies toward non-Jews, and other failings.
I can add to Lissys list, but before I do, one point of clarification: The exclusively Orthodox chief rabbinate does not require Jews to be Orthodox to receive its services (such as a marriage ceremony). Rather, one must prove that he or she is Jewish under Jewish law, and this requirement is applied equally, regardless of ones level of observance (or lack thereof). Then, if one is Jewish, one may (for example) be married by the rabbinate in a halachic ceremony.
What I would add to Lissys list of complaints is this: Not only non-Orthodox Jews but many Orthodox Jews do not like the bureaucratic obstacles involved in dealing with the state-sponsored rabbinate, even for relatively simple procedures.
On the arguments, David Lissy wins. By winning the battles, has he won the war? Why is there still a state-sponsored rabbinate in Israel?
LISSY is right on all points but one, his implied use of one word: therefore. As in: Because the state-sponsored rabbinate in Israel does so many things inconsistently, insensitively or flat-out wrongly, therefore it should be abolished.
This argument fails on five grounds, none of which justify the rabbinates failings, and none of which vitiate the need for reform. Observe:
1. The origin of and dedication to the separation of church and state is uniquely American.
To import separation-of-church-and-state into Israel would be a form of cultural insensitivity. It is not just Judaism that benefits from the State of Israel. It is Christianity. It is Islam. It is Bahai. Israel funds all religions, their functionaries and institutions.
If Israel separated religion from state, Israel would de-fund not just Judaism. There would be a tremendous backlash against Israel by Christian, Islamic and Bahai communities around the world, all of which would decry the sudden poverty of their institutions in Israel.
Put simply, the Israeli system is a different system, since its a different part of the world. The Israeli system needs to be evaluated on its own terms, not someone elses. Of course, the Israeli system needs to work, it needs to serve the people; but it has benefits, in a different cultural context, which the American system does not.
The American system has been uniquely kind to the survival of Jews as individuals, and uniquely corrosive of the survival of the Jews as a people. The primary benefit of the Israeli system of state-sponsored religion is the survival of the collective Jewish identity. Why else is Birthright Israel sending young American Jews to Israel, not to Arkansas?
The simple, wholesale imposition of a system that grew up in one culture, such as Americas separation-of-church-and-state, will not work in Israel. This was the logic behind the Founding Fathers rejection of the state-sponsored religion of Europe.
The Middle East is, broadly speaking, a religious society. Religion is part of the fabric of life in the Middle East in a way that is alien to the US. Each culture has its own integrity, its own system, its own benefits, its own challenges.
2. Secular has a different connotation in Israel and outside Israel.
Lissys use of the word secular to describe Israeli Jews is a prime example of the inappropriate importation of a cultural term from one context into another.
Unlike almost all of Americas secular Jews, the vast majority of secular Jews in Israel have some knowledge of the Hebrew Bible in the original language; observe Shabbos in some way; define their life rhythms according to the Jewish calendar; and have an extremely low intermarriage rate. When they go to the synagogue, they prefer an Orthodox one. A survey of secular Jews in Israel, whatever else it tells you, does not coordinate with the views of secular Jews in the US.
3. Secular Sephardi in Israel has still another connotation.
Secular Sephardi Jews in Israel a significant percentage of the population retain a deep and instinctive respect for Orthodox rabbinic leaders. Secular Sephardi Jews in Israel, however unobservant in other contexts, preponderantly observe the laws of mikveh, and most mikvehs in Israel are mostly state-supported. Thus, whatever the secular Jewish populace of Israel might prefer in a survey, it would not prefer an end to state-supported mikvehs.
4. Israel, not religion.
Many of the problems that plague the institution of the chief rabbinate, as outlined by Lissy, plague other Israeli institutions as well. These are Israeli problems, not problems arising from state-sponsored religion. Take the racism charge. Racism rears its ugly head on rare occasion in Israel, sometimes among Orthodox Jews, sometimes among non-Orthodox Jews, sometimes among the intellectual elite, sometimes in the slums of Tel Aviv.
These slums are the current, primary locale of racism in Israel, expressed toward illegal immigrants from Africa, primarily from Sudan. It makes no more sense to say that state-sponsored religion in Israel causes racism than to say that poverty in Israel causes racism. Its a deeper issue (and, by the way and thank G-d not a major issue).
Analytically, it is important to distinguish between the cause of a problem and its locale. The chief rabbinate is the locale of many problems, but not necessarily their cause.
5. Overreaching.
As Lissy says, I am sure there are non-Orthodox rabbis at funerals and in hospitals who have made life more tolerable for some Israelis. I am sure the same can be said for Orthodox rabbis. A black-and-white dichotomy, the idea that there are two wholly different sets of rabbis in Israel one set, always sensitive; the other, always insensitive is a caricature.
The valid complaints about state-sponsored religion in Israel notwithstanding, most secular Jews would not change it, and have not changed it. This is not just politics.
If religion is ever separated from state in Israel, the Orthodox will no doubt have to adapt. Many privileges, taken for granted, will no longer be there. Critics say that this will make the Orthodox rabbinate more responsive and responsible. This is the prediction.
What will be surprising, I think, is that the non-Orthodox will also have to adapt. Without an external enemy to blame, the non-Orthodox will have to figure out why, for example, a single yeshiva in Israel, Mir, has more students than all non-Orthodox rabbinical students in the world combined.
Ultimately, the attraction to or rejection of the Jewish religion depends on who delivers the deepest spiritual and ethical message.
Copyright © 2012 by the Intermountain Jewish News
