Haredi anti-Zionism, where draw the line?

Anti-Zionism Israeli Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss and company greeting Ahmadinejad
at Iranian anti-Holocaust conference.

"You go ahead and enjoy your state for a few years longer!"

an anti-Zionist haredi on Yom Ha'atsmaut

31 May, 2008

Zionism, the national liberation movement of the Jewish people, begins with an identification with, and concern for the survival of the Jewish people. Beyond this overriding concern the movement is ideologically inclusive, tolerant of political platforms serving the political right and left, religious and secular. Israel is the fruit of Zionism and agent of its mission. But over the years Israel’s status as a democratic and modern state, its identity as home and refuge to all Jews is increasingly threatened by a tiny and intolerant ultra-orthodox minority supported and encouraged by a political culture of expedience and self-interest. In recent months several incidents occurred which, if not redressed, threaten to change the character of Israel from Zionist to non-Zionist, or worse. Most recently a haredi anti-Zionist judge on the High Rabbinical Conversion Court, Rabbi Avraham Sherman, embarrassed, disrespected and all but excommunicated the court’s head, pro-Zionist Rabbi Haim Drukman. Sherman, backed by two other haredi judges, ruled that according to their understanding of Halacha all conversions conducted by Rabbi Drukman, or performed under his jurisdiction for the past ten or more years, are invalid.

Several days after that controversial ruling Rabbi Sherman and supporters returned with yet another challenge to the conversion process, this time ruling that persons hearing- or speech-impaired are unacceptable as candidates for conversion! Who will Sherman next determine unqualified by birth or infirmity to be acceptable to the Jewish nation? Might he conclude that "Halacha" demands that each and every Jew not of his narrow belief community prove our “purity of blood” by providing evidence that our mothers and theirs’ back three generations are truly Jewish according to his understanding of Jewish Law?

Rabbi Sherman and the Conversion Court controversy is only the most recent of a long string of haredi anti-Israel incidents to appear in the press. Take, for example, that visit by a delegation of Natorei Karta to Iran in support of Ahmadinejad’s anti-Holocaust conference. They were not only greeted by Ahmadinejad himself upon arrival, but were photographed with their grey beards and black coats smiling and embracing the sworn enemy of the Jewish state. More recently a gang of haredim physically assaulted a young man for attempting to raise the flag of Israel on the eve of Independence Day. And one day later, on Yom Ha'atsmaut, a reporter asked a haredi apparently enjoying the celebratory fireworks in Jerusalem how he felt and was told, "What can I tell you? You go ahead and enjoy your state for a few years longer!"

Individually such provocations as Rabbi Sherman and the Conversion Court controversy, the treasonous actions by Natorei Karta in Teheran are disturbing; together they represent a pattern and point to a serious disjuncture between the Zionist state and extremist detractors among its ultra-orthodox minority. Where is the boundary between the State of Israel and this anti-Zionist minority today; where should it be?

A headline from the 22 May on-line edition of Jerusalem Post reads PMO dismisses Rabbi Haim Drukman. The reason given was that the pro-Zionist rabbi, appointed by PM Sharon and reappointed by his successor to head and reform the Conversion Authority had passed the age of retirement. In fact Rabbi Drukman had passed that age before being asked by Olmert to reaccept the thankless position! So what really motivated Olmert to act now, to “retire” the rabbi within weeks of the mutiny by Sherman and his two supporters in the conversion controversy? Certainly it would have a thing to do with Olmert’s precarious political situation, his need to reinforce his position as head of the governing coalition by appeasing the haredim for support?

Two other examples of boundary confusion between state and religion are the perennial reappearance of “Who is a Jew” in the Knesset, and the move by the chairman of the Knesset Constitution and Law Committee to amend the Law of Return.

“Who is a Jew” is the effort by ultra-orthodox members of the Knesset to make their particular understanding of Halacha shape civil law for the state in matters of Jewish identity. Lest we forget, Halacha is not writ in stone but is reinterpreted by succeeding generations according to the realities of the day. Nor is there a single understanding of Halacha universally accepted by all rabbinic scholars of a given generation. So unless the Government of Israel is willing to adopt one group’s interpretation of Jewish identity and conduct above all others, thereby creating a state religion (the Rabbinate and the High Rabbinical Conversion Court already go a long way in this direction), “Who is a Jew” can never be adopted by the state, should not even be accorded legitimacy by being raised within the halls of the Knesset. It is no accident that whenever this issue is raised the Diaspora despairs and cries “foul.” Merely raising the issue, to say nothing of enacting it, is a slap at Diaspora Jewry, the vast majority of who, as in Israel, are not orthodox.

And finally, the Law of Return. Several months ago the chairman of the Knesset Constitution and Law Committee proposed eliminating the Grandparent Clause from the Law. The Law of Return is Israel’s commitment, its Zionist heart, as home to all Jews, as refuge to our Diaspora. The Clause was enacted by the founding fathers in response to Germany’s Nazi-era law defining as “Jew” a person with even a single Jewish grandparent. While history does not repeat itself it does serve as precedent, and the founding fathers understood that the German law would one day come to serve as precedent for a future Holocaust. To eliminate the Clause is to weaken the Law. A weakened Law combined with a narrow definition of “Who is a Jew” would disqualify all but those few orthodox who fit the narrowed Halachic definition. It would leave nearly all Diaspora Jewry to face a new Shoah as did our grandparents sixty years ago, alone and defenseless.

While the proposal by the committee chairman may merely have been an over-reaction to a short-lived domestic issue (young Russian expat hooligans desecrating synagogues), such cannot be said of Rabbi Sherman and the Conversion Court scandal, or of those promoting “Who is a Jew.” Both clearly are exclusionary in intent and strike at the heart of Jewish identity. Both are intended to serve the limited and selfish needs of a minority community regardless of cost to state and Diaspora. Both would widen the rift between orthodoxy and all others within Israel, would further erode trust by the Diaspora which Israel was created to protect.

And so the unavoidable question: how do anti-Zionists, a community intent on undermining, even destroying modern Israel and its Zionist underpinnings come to be appointed to positions of authority regarding questions of personal and social identity? How is it that openly-professed opponents of the State of the Jews come to represent Israel in any official capacity? Are Israeli policy-makers so insensitive to their responsibilities to Israel and the Diaspora beyond immediate political need and expediency, of coalition politics, to appoint so divisive a minority to sit in judgment, so divisive an issue as “Who is a Jew” to even enter the legislative process?

All Jews concerned for the Jewish People and Zionism, living in Israel and the Diaspora, should be concerned about the corrupting influence of the anti-Zionists as a political force within the state. As Jews they deserve the same rights under the Law of Return, the same obligations under the laws of the state as exist for Jews of all persuasions. But as opponents of the State of the Jews and its Zionist commitment; as, for all practical purposes, a fifth column within the state, they have no place within the government or bureaucracy, cannot be allowed political influence beyond the right of any other Israeli to peaceful public protest, and the ballot.
Jews today are no less threatened than when Herzl sounded the alarm sixty years before the Holocaust.

Zionism’s mission is as relevant today as it was in 1898 (see my webpage, http://jewishdenial.blogspace.com/). For Israel to forget our history, her mission, is to reduce the State of the Jews to the state of the Israelis, but one more tiny and isolated Jewish island within an ocean of real and potential enemies.

Hands off the Law of Return!

21 October, 2007

The Law of Return is the single most important document defining the character of the Jewish State and its relationship with the Jewish People. The move to amend it represents the most serious assault on that relationship since Ben-Gurion proclaimed statehood in 1948.

Menachem Ben-Sasson, chairman of the Knesset Constitution Committee announced that he would hold 12 hours of discussions with the intention of cobbling together a constitution in time for Israel’s 60th Independence Day celebration. Among the controversial issues the committee is to consider is a “compromise” version of the Law of Return. According to Ben-Sasson all sides will be taken into consideration, all sides will be represented in the final document. This is not encouraging since “all sides” to be considered includes the Rabbinate’s push for a Halachic-only definition of Who is a Jew. Such a definition would potentially alienate the majority of Jews living in the Diaspora. The third rail of Israeli-Diaspora relations, Who is a Jew must have no place in redefining the Law or Return.

I

How much influence the Diaspora should have on issues of an existential nature regarding war and peace is, so far as I am concerned, not a question. Israelis benefit or suffer the consequences from such issues and those decisions should be theirs alone to make. But issues existential regarding Israel’s relationship with the Diaspora is an area in which the Diaspora must be included on an equal basis. The Law of Return and the Grandchild Clause fall into this category. In fact the consequences of changing the Law are of such importance to both State and Diaspora that it must remain out of the reach of Israeli politics and politicians, since these represent transient attitudes of an immediate nature, while the Law is 2,000 years of history projected into the future. The Law must be protected from the influence of persons and groups with more immediate and selfish agendas.

The Law of Return is a Basic Law, among the first enacted following proclamation of statehood. It was no coincidence that such a law was in the forefront of thought at the time since statehood followed by a mere three years the liberation of Auschwitz. The need for enacting the Law was obvious at the time, as was the need to include a Grandchild Clause. Since Germany did not follow Halacha in determining who is a Jew, the Law had to conform to the German Holocaust definition.

The Grandchild Clause is also fundamental because it recognizes a basic psychological, sociological and historical fact, something almost culturally deterministic: once a traumatic event occurs the memory does not just fade into history but serves as precedent for future behavior.

But what has this to do with Israeli law, with Israel celebrating 60 years of independence, with Israel finally enacting a constitution? Everything! Because the Law of Return defines Israel’s relationship with the Diaspora, her acceptance of responsibility for the mission which Zionism bequeathed to, and for which the movement created the state. Will Israel evolve into a Jewish state, a country defined only by internal self-interest, its uniqueness that it is the only country with a Jewish majority? Or will Israel continue to identify with its historic responsibility as the state of the Jews, the only country whose purpose, beyond survival itself, is to serve as refuge and protector of Israel dispersed? This is the real issue surrounding the Law of Return: the Zionist heart, the very reason for the creation and existence of the Jewish State.

II

Orthodox Jews had for centuries sought to fulfill their Halachic obligation to live in the land of our forefathers. But it was not until the late 19th Century that some among us took a critical look around and concluded that Jews were not, never would be safe living in Christian society. They saw Palestine ideologically as sanctuary, future homeland and refuge. Later, around the turn of the 20th Century an assimilated Jewish journalist named Theodor Herzl, while covering the Dreyfus Affair in France, came independently to the same conclusion. If France, the country which led the way towards “emancipating” Europe’s Jews after 1800 years of serfdom could so quickly turn virulently antisemitic in response to the fraudulent but assumed treason of Dreyfus, how secure could we be in other, less philosemitic countries of our Diaspora? Herzl concluded that Christianity’s “Jewish Problem” could only be solved by Jews creating and living in our own state. Thus was Zionism born, the movement of Jewish self-emancipation. Forty years before the event Zionism recognized the physical threat that was soon to engulf the Jewish People in Holocaust.

III

While the rebirth of Jewish sovereignty was already in process before the crime, the murder of our six million forced sobriety, sanity and conscience upon the countries of Christendom that had directly committed the murder, or had stood by lending silent support to the slaughter by refusing refuge to its victims.

The legal precedent and need for the Law of Return was established in pre-Holocaust Germany. According to German race theory Jews were classified as biologically distinct from humanity, separate and sub-human. But since Jews and Aryans both appear human to the eye, Germany’s legal system had to devise a way to define the separation. For purposes of classification it arrived at the definition of “Jew” as an individual with a single Jewish grandparent. No matter that the grandparent was a Christian convert, that the child’s parents were both committed Christians; that the grandchild was third generation and baptized Christian. Once the child’s link to the grandparent was established the child was defined Jewish and condemned by the state for Final Solution. Jew was Jew and, to remove the threat of pollution from the true human family, death the final solution.

IV

The Law and the Clause and, for that matter Zionism and the Jewish State are necessary so long as the threat to our people continues; so long, put another way, as Diaspora exists. Is Christianity an irremediable threat to Jewish existence? This is the question that since the Holocaust has occupied not only Jews, but Christian scholars and the Catholic Church itself.

Twenty years after the ovens cooled the Church did a self-evaluation of its historical and textual role as possible inspiration and collaborator in the murder of our six million. The resulting document, Nostre Aetate, acknowledged that basal Christian texts refer to Jews and Judaism in ways that inspire hatred and incite violence. But the Church also concluded it could not eliminate or change those textual references without, it decided, undermining the very foundation of Christianity. So the Church settled on a middle ground of retaining the texts as holy while encouraging they not be taught or read literally. Clergy and faithful were directed to pass over the excesses of the offending passages. But recent surveys indicate that not only has there been no change in the way those passages are read and understood, but that anti-Semitism is more, not less prevalent today than before Nostre Aetate. This realization has led Church leaders to schedule a second conclave in 2008 tasked to revisit the problem of scripture-inspired anti-Judaism. But Church sources involved in its planning admit that, once again and for the same reasons, the offending passages will not be touched.

So the Law of Return continues necessary to Jewish survival; to serve its essential function in Zionist theory and practice. The Law defines Israel’s Zionist mission, our state as protector and refuge for threatened Diaspora Jewry.

V

Today, with but six decades separating us from that nearly successful effort to rid the world of Jews we, both resident of Israel and Diaspora, continue to deny the relevance of our recent history, choose to see Jewish life in Diaspora as normal, safe and secure. And at present it is relatively so. We convince ourselves that the past is aberration, our country in Diaspora exceptional. But when we lived in Germany before Shoah we felt exactly that same sense of safety and security, considered our fatherland also exceptional. In those days also we identified with and felt accepted by our country and neighbors, Germans first, Jews second. As in the United States today, in pre-Holocaust Germany we were leaders in the arts, academia and politics. Just a few short years before the ovens of Auschwitz we provided as many leaders of party and government in Germany as we do today in the United States.

Which is why the Grandchild Clause is, and will ever remain, such a necessary, no the key element of the Law of Return; and why it must never be tampered with. Because just as the Clause anticipates our future based on history and precedent, so too does the comfort we felt in Germany pre-Holocaust stand as yet another precedent: No country of the Diaspora is truly exceptional regarding antisemitism; no Diaspora “homeland” will for ever be secure for Jews.

VI

It appears that the Ben-Sasson Committee motivation to water-down the Law of Return is fed by two streams, the orthodox-Haredi interest in Who is a Jew; and political reaction to the recent spate of swastika synagogue desecrations by alienated Russian émigré youth. The parents of these self-styled neo-nazis, brought to Israel under the Grandchild Clause, apparently had little previous identification with Judaism as religion, destiny or state prior to leaving Russia. In other words, both parents and children were poor candidates for assimilation. If there is a problem with the Law it is not in the wording but in the way it is administered in times of non-emergency. As to joining the destiny of the Law with that of the Who is a Jew controversy, the two are distinct and must remain separate. Who is a Jew is part of the struggle for Jewish identity between religious orthodoxy and the majority secular citizenry of the state. The Law of Return defines Israel’s Zionist mission, her identity as the State of the Jews, her responsibility as haven for our threatened. Who is a Jew is political, and threatening as the controversy is to Diaspora Jewry, an internal Israeli debate. The Law of Return is national and must be insulated from Israeli politics and politicians.

Menachem Ben-Sasson must be brought to understand the distinction, to guarantee and protect the integrity of the Law of Return as Israel’s Zionist mission.