An Eloquent Plea for Religious Freedom and
Equality in Israel
Allan C. Brownfeld
Issues
Winter 2015
THE CASE FOR A SECULAR NEW JERUSALEM,
by Ofra Yeshua-Lyth,
Hebrew edition, Nymrod Publishing House, Tel Aviv, Israel,
English edition, CreateSpace Independent Publishing,
N. Charleston, South Carolina.
Although Israel refers to itself as a “democracy,” and in many ways it is,
that term does not mean that there is genuine religious freedom. There is no
separation of church and state. Instead, Israel is a theocracy, with an
established religion, which is Orthodox Judaism. Reform and Conservative
rabbis have no right to conduct weddings, funerals, or conversions.
According to Hiddush, an Israeli non-government organization (NGO) working
toward religious pluralism. Israel is among 45 nations with “severe
restrictions” on marriage. Most of the others are governed by Islamic law.
Eeta Prince-Gibson, the former editor of The Jerusalem Report, notes that,
“This places the Jewish state in the dubious company of nations such as
Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan. The chief rabbinate,
which falls under the jurisdiction of Israel’s Ministry of Religious
Services, maintains and supervises a massive religious government
bureaucracy made up of a network of rabbinic courts consisting of regional,
municipal, community and neighborhood rabbis. In addition to marriage and
divorce, the rabbinate is responsible for all ‘personal status’ issues, such
as conversion, which is closely related to marriage; burial; kashrut
certification; supervision of ritual baths and other religious services.”
The Israeli government, Prince-Gibson points out, enforces a variety of
religious laws, such as one in Deuteronomy which holds that if a childless
woman is widowed, and has a brother-in-law who is single, she is compelled
to marry him: “It stipulates that the late husband’s unmarried brother must
marry the widow in order to produce a child who will carry on the name of
the deceased. If the brother doesn’t want to marry his sister-in-law, he
must stand before the elders of the community, which in modern Israel means
the rabbinate, and announce, ‘I will not marry her.’ The woman must then
perform a ceremony called halitzah by taking off her brother-in-law’s shoe,
spitting in front of his face, and loudly declaring, ‘So shall be done to a
man who refuses to build up his brother’s house.’”
Rabbinic Courts
In 1953, the Knesset passed legislation that placed all matters of marriage
and divorce for Jews in Israel under the jurisdiction of these rabbinic
courts. Religious leaders became civil servants. Religious court verdicts,
like civil ones, are implemented and enforced by the police, bailiff’s
office, and other law enforcement agencies.
In an eloquent book, part memoir, part plea for an Israeli society with
genuine religious freedom and pluralism, Ofra Yeshua-Lyth tells her own
story and that of contemporary Israel. She is a veteran Israeli journalist
and author and served as a foreign correspondent in Washington, D.C. and
Germany for the Israeli daily newspaper Maariv. Later, she founded a media
consulting firm.
In the Introduction, Aharon Amir, a leading Israeli poet and editor, noted
that, “Israel is one of the few countries that has yet to make a distinction
between religion and the codex of civil litigation. Internal conflicts —
communal, ethnic and social — are a result of this failure, which also lies
at the heart of the regional conflict. Ofra Yeshua readily understands that
‘only blindness or serious fatigue can explain’ why non religious Israelis
‘almost totally refrain from confronting the rigidity and sanctimoniousness
with which Judaism defines their national identity.’ She clearly sees that
‘Left and Right are united in their aspiration to fight for any price to
maintain a Jewish majority in the State of Israel,’ and the only difference
between them is that the ‘enlightened Left’ want to achieve this goal by
evicting Jews from parts of the country where non-Jews live, while ‘the
Right’ expect to achieve it by evicting non-Jews from those parts of the
country ‘coveted by the Jews.’”
Image of Israel Was Wishful Thinking
The author recalls that, “I had to drop the fantasy of becoming a ballerina
at a relatively early age, having realized that I was not properly designed
to dance for my living. It took much longer to realize that the image I had
of the wonderful, earnestly hardworking Jewish state I grew up in was also a
product of wishful thinking and grand desires, based on faulty architecture.
In the 1950s and 1960s, thoroughly dipped in innocence and devotion, nobody
had any reason to worry that by its definition of being the Only Jewish
State in the world, the State of Israel was doomed to be serving aims that
have little or nothing to do with the welfare of most of its inhabitants. We
had a rich national folklore, we had venerable traditions; it was not to be
expected that a few anachronisms in this tradition would so soon be leading
to a dead end.”
In Yeshua-Lyth’s view, the many hardworking immigrants who arrived in the
Middle East from Eastern Europe about a hundred years ago had an opportunity
to start the kind of liberal democracy they seemed to be pining for.
“Instead,” she writes, “they stuck to a Messianic vision intended to redeem
only people with a supposedly similar blood group. Religious identity had
always been the only common denominator for the so-called Jewish self-
determination. It was therefore a religious code, lacking any functional
relevance to most of the state founders and to the majority of the
population at the time that became the single valid ingredient determining
‘Israeli nationality.’ No wonder it soon became the dominant element in
Israel’s political structure. … the combination of separatist religious
ideology and a vigorously built military ability created a political reality
dominated by unacceptable principles. The builders of the supposed ‘New
Society’ allowed themselves to be swept far into the gloomy regions of their
forefathers’ past, chained into the patterns from which Zionism was supposed
to have set them free.”
Orthodox Judaism is not merely a monopoly for the business of religion in
Israel, but is also the exclusive ingredient in the definition of the
national identity and state entity. “Orthodox Judaism,” the author points
out, “is perfectly programmed for the mission of preserving a religious
minority that lacks a sovereign territory. It is a paradigm totally
inadequate for — and until recently, totally disinterested in — running a
state apparatus … The revolving doors of traditional Jewish society cannot
stop its sons and daughters from turning their backs on it, but they
effectively block anybody from entering. The Jewish state fully adopted the
principles of the Jewish religion. As a result, Israel turned into a
political entity devoid of any ability to sustain internal partnerships. It
would not accept non-Jews as equals. As a side effect, it alienates Jews who
object to blatant discrimination. The state is, therefore, a handicapped
entity, acting in a self-destructive manner. The citizens belonging to the
caste identified with the state’s religion live in constant anxiety of
becoming outnumbered. Their attitude to the others who live with them and
around them is shaped accordingly.”
Religion and State Power
Once religion and state power become intrinsically connected, the hope for a
society welcoming and embracing diversity becomes increasingly difficult to
achieve. “Judaism is neither meaner nor more fanatical than any other
religion,” argues the author. “But all religions are faulty in one way or
another once they are allowed to possess real political power over a
community … Although rooted in the small towns of Eastern Europe, veteran
Israelis — otherwise known as Ashkenazi Jews — are convinced it (Israel) is
based on the highly prestigious ‘Western liberal’ model. And while the Arabs
of the land are stigmatized for their ‘Islamic, non-liberal culture,’ Jews
of Arab origins have always been considered to be affiliated with this
undesirable population … The indigenous inhabitants of the New Country and
their offspring have been expected, from day one of the Zionist settlement,
to accept the status of second-class citizens that was accorded to them by
the newcomers. This is the attitude that culminated with the declaration of
a Jewish state in 1948, when hundreds of thousands eventually lost their
houses and became permanent refugees.”
It is not only Palestinian Christians and Muslims who have been treated as
less than equal citizens. Jews from Arab countries have faced widespread
discrimination at the hands of Jews whose origins were in Europe. Ofra
Yeshua-Lyth’s father was an immigrant from Yemen and her family felt less
than equal in Israel as she was growing up. She notes that, “The Arab Jews
landed in the new country with a mother tongue and cultural traditions that
were embarrassingly similar to those of the native Arabs who had just been
kicked out. They were met with a double message that would characterize
their life here for the past decades: they were welcome by the veteran
immigrants from Eastern Europe, as members of the specially privileged
Jewish nationality, and therefore superior to the local Arabs. At the same
time, they were openly despised as culturally inferior, patronizingly
defined ‘The Second Israel,’ chastised for their blatant Arab manners, and
thrust into the deep end of poverty, humility and ignorance of the new
Israeli society.”
While Zionism has generally been considered part of Western civilization, it
is, in fact, a religious entity, although some of its founders did not
anticipate the direction it would take. Yeshua-Lyth makes the case that,
“The thin democratic veneer that is used to disguise the uncompromising
nature of this religious state of ours is much cracked already. While the
so-called civilized world regularly panics over the belligerence of violent,
religious fanatics, it has for years failed to pay attention to the growing
religious fanaticism that characterizes this supposed ‘spearhead of Western
civilization,’ as Israel’s lovers would have it described … Israel is one of
two states that were started during the 20th century with an official
intention to create an ethnic-religious homogeneous political entity. The
other state is Pakistan, which is also still struggling under this legacy.
Nothing but a full separation of church and state might put an end to the
present messianic frenzy that carries the ‘Jewish state’ into ever more
dangerous abysses … Taking religion out of politics would mean the removal
of the mechanism that allows the state to rob over a fifth of the citizens —
and all the inhabitants of the occupied territories — of their equal, legal
civil liberties. It is a move essential for the abolition of the special
privileges granted to one favored religious (though it insists on calling
itself ‘national’) group.”
Herzl’s Original Vision
In Theodor Herzl’s original formulation of Zionism, the Jewish state he
envisioned would have equal rights for all of its citizens, regardless of
their faith. And in his imagined state, the rabbis would have no political
power whatever. The State of Israel which has emerged is quite different
from what Herzl thought he was in the process of creating. It was Herzl’s
vision that Jews and the indigenous Arab population would live peacefully
together in a well-integrated society.
Instead, writes Yeshua-Lyth, “In Israel today one would not find a single
affluent, well-educated Arab who had integrated well into the local Jewish
elite. The reasons for this have nothing to do with Herzl’s colonialist
vision and everything to do with serious deviations from its original
layout. Reading ‘Altneuland’ today, one is struck by the adequacy of its
economic and technological predictions, compared to the seeming irrelevance
of its social and political vision … Herzl spoke out unequivocally against
any religious meddling in the affairs of the state, and he warned against
tampering with his design. He clearly foresaw the risk that certain Zionist
leaders might be attracted to a national religious ideology that he was not
prepared to tolerate. But he could not guess that this, eventually, would
become the winning ideology in the Jewish state.”
Herzl had no intention of letting the rules of the ghetto be involved in the
actual running of his future Jewish state. He wrote: “We shall keep our
priests within the confines of their temples in the same way as we shall
keep our professional army within the confines of their barracks. Army and
priesthood shall receive honors as high as their valuable functions deserve.
But they must not interfere in the administration of the State which confers
distinctions upon them, also they will conjure up difficulties without and
within … And if it should occur that men of other creeds and different
nationalities come to live amongst us, we should accord them honorable
protection and equality before the law.”
Herzl’s Values Are Rejected
While Herzl is hailed in contemporary Israel, his vision has been rejected
by those who have been in control of the State of Israel since its creation
in 1948. In this regard, the author writes: “No priests interfering in the
administration of the state? No professional soldiers allowed out of the
barracks? No wonder that ‘men of other creeds and different nationalities’
are unable to be accorded ‘honorable protection and equality before the
law.’ Religion and the military are the predominant forces of Israeli
politics and society. Together they devour the lion’s share of the country’s
resources … It would have been inconceivable to Herzl that rabbis should
have sovereign status in the bureaucracy of the state, and that an enormous
religious-political establishment should openly and successfully oppose the
very idea that non-Jews might become citizens with equal rights.”
While Israel continues to congratulate itself on being the “only democracy
in the Middle East,” Yeshua-Lyth reports that, “… when the principles of
democracy clash with Jewish edicts, as interpreted by the Orthodox school of
Judaism, democracy inevitably gives way. Above it all hovers the specter of
the ‘Demographic Problem’ that paralyzes the good judgment of secular
Israeli liberals … Cultivating cultures and religions is one thing, but
enforcing the special whims of these cultures and religions on others with
the heavy hand and the armed forces of statehood … is something else
altogether, As soon as religion is, once and for all, banned from the realms
of the economy and the legal system of the State of Israel, once religious
considerations no longer dictate building regulations, food regulations,
taxation, budgeting, leisure patterns, and funeral arrangements, it will be
possible to turn the Holy Land into the flourishing haven it was meant to
be. … A hundred years ago, Theodor Herzl’s plan seemed just as unlikely, but
this did not deter him. The bottom line of his book is the golden rule of
every successful entrepreneur, ‘If you really want it, it is no fairy
tale.’”
Traditionally, Orthodox Jews opposed Zionism and the concept of a sovereign
Jewish state. Some still do. While in the U.S. as a correspondent for the
Israeli newspaper MAARIV, Ofra-Lyth visited the ultra-Orthodox enclave of
Monsey, New York, where she interviewed and spent time with Rabbi Abraham
Weinfeld. He was very critical of the Israeli National Religious Party (NRP)
and its declaration that “Jewish national unity counts more than religious
teaching.” She recalls that he was, “passionate and entertaining” and “made
no secret of the fact that as far as he was concerned, there was little
affinity between people like myself — a secular Jewish woman — and his own
flock.”
Torah Lived Before the State
Rabbi Weinfeld declared: “The Torah lived in our people before the state was
established. we do not need you (the nonbelievers) to take care of it. Do us
no more favors. We wish to have no more crumbs from under your table. We do
not want any compromises and humiliation. The time has come to break up this
unnatural partnership between Orthodox Jewry and the institutions of the
Zionist state.”
He scornfully rejected the common pious warning, often used by those of the
NRP, that the country risks a “rift” in the Jewish people in Israel, if
civil procedures for marriage and divorce ever should be allowed. Truly
religious Jews, he said, have no business worrying about how secular Jews
marry and divorce. He expressed support for civil marriage for those
Israelis who do not wish an Orthodox wedding. He noted that anyone who does
not adhere to the Torah is considered unacceptable to the Orthodox community
in any case.
At the time of the interview with Rabbi Weinfeld, the new legislation on the
agenda in Israel was the so-called “Pig Law,” aimed at forbidding the sale
or consumption of pork in any Jewish-populated area. “He understands
perfectly why people like most readers of the newspaper I was writing for
were angry at the very idea that the law should have a position on what we
are allowed to eat, and when,” writes the author. “He considered it a
complete waste of time. Eating pork or not did not make the slightest
difference to the fact that we were already outside what he considered the
proper Jewish community.’ The sad reality is that you are no longer children
and we have no authority over you,’ he said. ‘We cannot enforce things upon
you. One cannot use state law to interfere in the private affairs of people,
other than in extreme cases of violence and crime. We cannot send a
policeman to arrest every person who lights a cigarette on the Sabbath.’”
Nationalistic Manipulation
Those who are educated in Orthodox religious schools, a growing number in
today’s Israel, have not, Yeshua-Lyth notes, been educated to have an
interest in democracy, human rights and civil liberties. These schools, she
laments, “… are a fertile ground for nationalistic manipulators of the worst
possible kind, the likes of ‘Rabbi’ Meir Kahane supporters and groups
worshipping the ‘martyrdom’ of mass murderer Baruch Goldstein.” In promoting
this agenda, many in Israel are reverting to a kind of religious extremism
mainstream Judaism has rejected.
She cites William Winwood Reade’s 1872 book, The Martyrdom of Man, which
surveyed the rise and demise of the West’s major religions. In the chapter
dedicated to Judaism, Reade expressed admiration for Diaspora Jews following
the destruction of the Second Temple. He considered them a uniquely
important intellectual elite who had contributed greatly to the cultural
progress of both the Middle East and Europe. He compared them to the
provincial religious extremists of Judea who did not go into exile.
Reade wrote: “Those Jews of Judea, those Hebrews of the Hebrews, regarded
all the Gentiles as enemies of God: they considered it a sin to live abroad,
or to speak a foreign language, or to rub their limbs with foreign oil. Of
all the trees, The Lord had chosen but one vine; and of all the flowers, but
one lily; and of all the birds, but one dove, and of all the cattle, but one
lamb; and of all the builded cities, only Sion; and of all the multitude of
people, he had elected the Jews as a peculiar treasure, and had made them a
nation of priests and holy men. For their sake God had made the world. On
their account alone empires rose and fell. Babylon had triumphed because God
was angry with her people; Babylon had fallen because he had forgiven them.
It may be imagined that it was not easy to govern such a race. They
acknowledged no king but Jehovah, no laws but the precepts of their holy
books … It is only in severity that the Jews can be admired.”
The Chosen People
The author remembers that, “Expressions like ‘the Chosen People’ or ‘Thou
hast us Chosen’ were used sneeringly when I was young, merely to express
some dismay about the less appealing aspects of contemporary society. These
days it is no longer amusing. Too many Israeli Jews sincerely believe that
boons and privileges have been designated for them personally by the good
Lord, who had marked us as his special favorites. The dominant versions of
present-day Jewish Orthodoxy have very little in common with the Spanish
Golden Age poets and philosophers who considered their Jewish faith a
spearhead of progress and morality for all mankind … The Halacha’s rituals
keep religious Jews busy most of their waking hours. To outsiders, the
multitude of rules and regulations in Judaism seems tiresome and bizarre.
But a simple analysis indicates that almost every one of the commands of our
religion is cleverly conceived to achieve two chief strategic goals: the
preservation of the community in isolation from its non-Jewish environment,
and the preservation of community control in the hands of the elders.”
Despite the fact that the majority of Israelis do not consider themselves
Orthodox and secular political movements have emerged calling for an end to
the domination of civic life by state-employed Orthodox rabbis, this has not
changed the fact that, as the author explains, “Our country is the only so-
called Western-style place where one may not become legally married without
religious certification. Interdenominational marriages are therefore
impossible. Nonreligious Israeli Jews have long given up complaining about
this infringement of their personal freedom … Cyprus and Tuscany are the
most popular destinations for the growing number — some say 20 per cent — of
Jewish Israeli couples (and obviously all mixed couples) wishing to or
having to be legally wed without a rabbi officiating.”
For thousands of Israelis, marriage abroad is the only way to
institutionalize their relations, due to a variety of state-enforced
religious taboos. “For a start,” Yeshua-Lyth points out, “Non-Jews may not
marry a Jew. A Jewish man may not marry a divorcee or a convert if his name
is Cohen or Kaplan, or any other derivative of the tribal name of Jewish
priests. Nobody is to be married if his or her father is not the man his or
her mother had been legally married to at the time of … conception … The
marital laws of the State of Israel make a maze of unintelligible
instructions that might be mildly amusing if not for the hassle and real
pain they inflict on so many innocent people.”
Zionism as a Colonial Movement
While many have referred to Zionism as a colonial movement, Yeshua-Lyth
identifies an important distinction between the colonialism practiced by
imperial powers such as Britain and France, and that embraced by Theodor
Herzl and his followers: “Zionism was making its first moves in the era when
colonialism was considered an act of progress, which is why it was such a
source of inspiration for Theodor Herzl. The father of modern Zionism was
convinced that the tragedy of Eastern European Jews would be solved if these
people were to reinvent themselves as enlightened colonial people. There was
only one problem: the Jewish religion blocked any chance for colonial
dynamics of the kind that might have been beneficial for the indigenous
inhabitants of its new territories … Just like their parents in the small
towns and in the allocated Jewish regions of Poland and Russia, the Jewish
pioneers of Palestine were committed to the legacy of self-segregation.”
Traditionally, national and ethnic groups moving to new lands — such as
Greek, Roman and Muslim occupiers or European empire builders, never failed
to make efficient use of their deities on the way to achieving control, and
preferably cooperation, of the indigenous population. “Priests and
missionaries always came along with either armed forces or settling
civilians,” writes Yeshua-Lyth, “effectively supporting the territorial
takeover with the word of whatever god they had on offer. Judaism, a
religion that for hundreds of years has devoted most of its energies to
fending off the ‘danger of assimilation,’ could never offer even the
pretense of opening arms and ranks for newcomers. The new, dynamic,
ambitious, ethnic-national group that landed in Palestine with the Zionist
message was hermetically sealed to outsiders. It had nothing to offer the
veteran inhabitants of the land or any newcomers who were not Jewish …
Zionist ideology adopted the view that Jews were the ‘true natives’ of the
land it settled, and managed to regard the non-Jewish natives as invaders;
with the great taboo on any social mingling, the Zionist paradox started its
unholy, precarious role.”
Many outside of Israel see a major distinction between the Labor Party and
Likud but Ofra-Lyth shows that in their attitude toward the Palestinians,
both parties are largely in agreement. She points to the fact that, “The
socialist secular Israeli Labor Party continued to run the political scene
for ten years following the Six Day War. It did not even occur to a single
Labor leader that the new, devoted laborers from Judea, Samaria and the Gaza
Strip should be given access to the Hebrew ‘Melting Pot.’ This was not
because they spoke Arabic, or because they were poor or different
culturally, or too dark skinned for the ruling classes in Tel Aviv and
Jerusalem. After all, this also characterized most of the Yemenites, the
Moroccans, and the Iraqis in the shack camps that still decorated the
cities’ fringes. The Palestinians actually learned Hebrew very fast, many of
them were well paid, and their standard of living rose accordingly, some of
them had skins as fair as any Israeli Jew, and quite a few had academic
qualifications or academic ambitions. But they were not of the Jewish
religion, which meant they did not belong in the Jewish Israeli nation.
There was no way that even a single one of them could make his or her way
into the society that took their services for granted.”
Orthodox Judaism and Islam
Ironically, in the author’s view, Orthodox Judaism and Islam have a great
deal in common, particularly when it comes to the treatment of women.
“Islam, very much like Judaism, considers itself a religion of charity and
mercy, but is entrenched in a staunch masculine hierarchy. Both religions
force a very strict modesty code on women, dictating dress instructions that
should neutralize the sexual provocation that they are supposed to embody.
In both religions, women may not be actively involved in public prayer, or
any other form of worship except within the home environment, while serving
husbands and other family members. Mosques are men-only areas, while the
synagogues have special alcoves to keep women concealed.”
The immigrants from Russia have reinforced Israel’s right-wing politics.
“These newcomers,” writes the author, “have developed a political frame of
mind fervently supporting the occupation and passionately hating the
‘Arabs.’ In heavy Russian accents, they recite the worn-out mantras about
our ‘rights over the country’ … Never mind that so many of them have nothing
to do with Judaism, except sometimes having a grandmother who married a Jew
many years ago and forgot about it until it was discovered to be a key to a
better socio-economic future for her all-Russian or Moldavian grandchildren.
… At the roadblocks that make their lives miserable in the occupied
territories, our Palestinian cousins often come across Russian-speaking
Israeli soldiers who find it hard to follow their own fluent Hebrew …”
Yeshua-Lyth finds it difficult to “fathom Israeli liberals who are truly
appalled by the spirit of their fellow nationals; who are prepared to
demonstrate, protest, and sign petitions against the land grabbing, the
separation fence, the checkpoint harassments, the looting of olives, the
destruction of homes … but they do it all to protect their fantasy of a
would-be proper, democratic Jewish state. It never occurs to them; they
would adamantly deny that by making our religion the law of the land, we
renounce any claim to proper democracy.”
Separate Religion from State
She tells her readers that, “Religious and cultural communities, just like
bird flocks, need no state laws to preserve their unique heritages. Jewish
preservation of the last 2,000 years is the best proof … In this small area
blessed by God as a meeting of three continents, some of our ancestors
managed to launch useful social paradigms and produce truly sublime texts.
The whole of humanity took notice … They have little or nothing to do with
the present, weird, flawed, political-religious regime … If you want to save
Israel, you might as well just declare it a normal state and start to
consider all people under its sovereignty as equal citizens living in one
territory. It is not such an impossible mission. The world is full of such
states and of such nations, which do not waste time and energy grading
inhabitants according to what religion that their mothers were born into.”
The author concludes that, “I know for a fact that my fellow Israelis — some
of them my dearest friends and beloved family — honestly believe that we
‘happen’ to live in a complicated, unstable, explosive area. I try my best
to make them see that there is nothing wrong with the area or with the
neighbors, our ‘cousins’ of other denominations. It is our own peculiar
choice of differentiating people according to their mother’s religious
affiliation that created most of the present mess. How dare we criticize the
Muslim Brothers for trying to change the Egyptian Constitution in favor of
Sharia--when our own state never even ventured to produce a constitution,
for fear it might not be compatible with the Halacha? Would our own ‘dear
brothers’ of the faith ever stand up for equal rights for their sisters? And
as for my so-called secular Israeli Jewish fellows: why are the only Halacha
laws they truly respect and follow the reshaping of baby boys’ organs and
the strict bans on fraternizing with non-Jews?”
This book is an eloquent plea that Israel separate religion and state and
move toward becoming a genuinely democratic society. It comes from one who
loves her country, but wants it to become the kind of society in which she
can truly take pride.
— ALLAN C. BROWNFELD
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