Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, April 1998, Pages 85-86, 93

Jews and Israel

Israeli Religious Intolerance and Rejection of the Peace Process Alienating Majority of American Jews

By Allan C. Brownfeld

As a result of growing religious intolerance in Israel and of the Israeli government’s move away from the commitments made in the Oslo peace accords, American Jews have become increasingly alienated.

The fact that there is no Western-style religious freedom in Israel and that Reform and Conservative Jews have few legal rights in the “Jewish” state has been a matter of contention for some time.

In Israel, the religious attacks on non-Orthodox Jews have grown more rabid in recent days. United Torah Judaism Knesset member Moshe Gafini attacked both the Reform and Conservative movements in Judaism. “Letting a Reform rabbi sit on the Tel Aviv religious council is the equivalent of letting a terrorist into the General Staff headquarters,” he declared. “The reform are terrorists, not rabbis.”

Religious attacks on non-Orthodox Jews have grown more rabid.

Recently, on the occasion of the Jewish festival of Tisha b’Av, a group of Orthodox Jews attacked men and women visitors from an American Conservative Jewish delegation at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. The Israeli police, instead of taking action against those interfering with the prayers of the visitors, evicted the Americans.

Writing in the U.S. Jewish journal Sh’ma, Rabbi Scott White, who teaches at the Hyman Brand Hebrew Academy in Overland Park, Kansas, declared that, “Placating the fundamentalists erodes the bond between Israel and the Diaspora and deepens the polarization between the Orthodox and non-Orthodox in Israel.”

Within Israel itself there is growing criticism of the lack of religious freedom and, in particular, the lack of civil marriage. With no civil marriage, the right to marry Jews in Israel remains an official monopoly of the Orthodox rabbinical courts. But the rabbis refuse to register marriages if they suspect that one of the parties is not fully Jewish, according to halakha, or Jewish religious law. This problem has become more compelling with the arrival of some 500,000 immigrants from the former Soviet Union. Most of these new Israeli citizens are secular. An estimated 150,000 are not considered Jewish by halakah and cannot be married at all.

Goyim and Shiksas

Ze’ev Chafets, associate editor of The Jerusalem Report, has written of his personal difficulties in this regard: “On the 17th of September...I entered the state of matrimony…My American bride, Lisa, is beautiful, smart and fearless (as evidenced by her willingness to marry me). She is also a shiksa, which is why the ceremony was held in Massachusetts and conducted by a Federal judge...Jews who would rather cut off their tongue than say ‘nigger’ or ‘spic’ and consider ‘Kike’ and ‘Hymie’ fighting words, talk about ‘goyim’ and ‘shiksas’ with blithe indifference. They assume that we can’t be guilty of prejudice because we are victims…But terms like ‘shiksa’…no longer sound like charming Yiddishisms to me; they seem like slurs…I could not marry Lisa here, at home, in my home country…I have, for the first time, become acutely aware of how infuriating and alienating…it is to be forced to leave my country like some sort of criminal in order to get married.”

Chafets notes that, “Israel bills itself as ‘the only democracy in the Middle East,’ but in matters of personal status it is a theocracy, pure and simple. It is easy to imagine the contempt we would feel for a country that prohibited Jews from marrying gentiles in the name of ethnic or religious purity…It is infuriating to be subjected to such discrimination, and humiliating to have to explain to my wife why she is unfit to marry a Jew in a Jewish country…All I can do is call it what it is: a disgrace.”

Matters have escalated in recent months. Last April, Israel’s three Orthodox political parties, which are members of the coalition of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, won preliminary approval in the Knesset for a bill that would codify Orthodox control of the conversion process. In June, that effort was put on hold as a special commission appointed by Mr. Netanyahu studied the issue to see whether a compromise might be possible.

Since no compromise was reached, however, those Jews who are converted to Judaism by Reform or Conservative rabbis in Israel will not be considered Jews in Israel. The inability of Reform and Conservative rabbis to perform weddings and funerals in Israel will continue. All non-Orthodox Jews will, in effect, be considered “second class.”

Reform leaders in America, who quietly accepted second-class status in Israel in the past, are now determined to combat the Orthodox monopoly. If unsuccessful, they appear prepared to distance themselves from Israel.

Rabbi Mordechai Liebling, executive director of the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation, states that, “Non-Orthodox Jews are second-class citizens in Israel…It is still difficult to have a Conservative, Reconstructionist or Reform rabbi officiate at a wedding or a funeral. The Orthodox religious establishment is supported by the state, with tens of millions of dollars going to finance rabbinic salaries and religious schools.

“American Jews have had to subsidize the salaries of liberal rabbis in Israel. The vast majority of local religious councils will not allow non-Orthodox representation. There is continual verbal harassment. Liberal Jews are demeaned and insulted by leading Orthodox rabbis, who are in fact government employees. Non-Orthodox synagogues have been vandalized and the police have never arrested anyone.”

There has always been much irony in the fact that American Jewish groups vigorously pursue a policy of complete separation of church and state in the United States, and are leaders in the campaign against such manifestations of religion in public life as school prayer, yet support a theocracy in Israel. Now, in reaction to Israel’s preparation to codify the theocratic rules which have been in effect for many years, and to which Jewish groups have quietly acquiesced, some consistency is finally appearing in the rhetoric of non-Orthodox religious leaders.

Thus, the chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, Rabbi Ismar Schorsch, has called for the dismantling of Israel’s chief rabbinate, stating that Israeli religious authorities are “dysfunctional” and “without a scintilla of moral worth.” Rabbi Schorsch is seeking the separation of synagogue and state in Israel.

Similarly, Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, described the Israeli chief rabbinate as “extremist and radical and fanatic…a medieval chief rabbinate, that is a disgrace to the Jewish people and its religion.”

As a result of these developments, American Jews are reassessing their ties to Israel. San Francisco’s Jewish community quietly slashed its support for traditional Israeli charities by $1 million. The intensity of feeling on the issue is reflected in a letter distributed by Rabbi Ted Alexander of San Francisco’s B’nai Emunah congregation. The letter tells Jews to curtail their donations to Israel. “If we are not recognized by the people in Israel, they have no right to recognize our money,” said Alexander.

He urged those who want to donate to Israel to send the money to non-Orthodox institutions “so it does not end up in the hands of those who don’t recognize us as Jews.”

Jewish federations in Boston, Newark, Cleveland and several Florida cities are also scaling back their donations to Israel. Wayne Feinstein, head of the San Francisco Jewish Federation, said the decision has received “near unanimous support” from donors to its annual fund-raising campaign,

While American Jews are contributing record sums to Jewish causes at home and abroad, thousands are withholding or diverting up to $20 million in donations this year, reports The New York Times (Nov. 17, 1997) in a front page story, “partly to protest the religious and peace policies of Israel’s…government.”

The Times reports that, “in dozens of interviews in the last few days with Jews from every religious stream across the country, many Reform and Conservative Jews said they are hurt and outraged at what they see as attempts by the Orthodox rabbinate to cement its control over religious life in Israel. With Orthodox authorities in Israel exerting their political muscle and some declaring that Reform Jews are ‘apostates’ and ‘infidels,’ increasing numbers of American Jews are voicing disenchantment with Israel...”

Professor Gary Tobin, of Brandeis University’s Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies, declares that, “American Jews, like all Americans, don’t like extremists, and they don’t like theocracy. So the notion that one branch of Judaism controls the political scene and disenfranchises them is totally at odds with their democratic, pluralistic American identity and values.”

Mark Heller, senior research associate at the Jaffe Center for Strategic Studies in Tel Aviv, argues that American Jews used to see their ideals and beliefs reflected in Israel but that the policies of Prime Minister Netanyahu have “destroyed this connection.” Writing in The Jerusalem Post (Nov, 4, 1997) he states: “The use of state power to define ‘authentic’ religion and enforce compliance with it completely contradicts the American ethos...It is anathema to most American Jews, for whom religious communal affiliation, in general, and personal status, in particular, are—or should be— matters of personal choice...”

Retreat From Peace

At the same time that concern is rising about Israel’s theocratic domination by the Orthodox rabbinate, American Jews are also expressing dismay with Israel’s retreat from the peace process. When Secretary of State Madeleine Albright visited the Middle East in September and made demands upon the Palestinians to crack down on terrorism, and on the Israelis to halt “provocative” unilateral acts that jeopardize peace talks such as the construction of new West Bank settlements, she was supported by most American Jewish leaders.

Theodore R. Mann, former chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, said: “I’m very happy…that Madeleine Albright did what I hoped she would do, which is that she would emphasize not only Arafat’s obligation to give 100 percent effort on the security issue but to emphasize as well that there isn’t going to be a peace process with unilateral actions by Netanyahu.”

J.J. Goldberg, author of the book Jewish Power, points out that, “What we’re seeing is a much greater willingness by mainstream Jews and Jewish groups to distance themselves from Israeli policy. These groups are becoming more willing to encourage American pressure because there’s a widespread anger at the Likud…over the perception that it’s undermining the peace process.”

A “sea change” in American Jewish opinion concerning U.S. Middle East policy is now taking place, declares Michael W. Sonnenfeldt, chair of the Israel Policy Forum. He notes that a majority now favors “even-handedness” and does not oppose U.S. pressure upon Israel to move forward with the peace process,

Sonnenfeldt provided this assessment in The Christian Science Monitor (Nov. 19, 1997): “As an ardent supporter of Israel, I, for one, find any disagreement between U.S. and Israeli governments very painful...At the same time, American prodding of both Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA)… is the only way to foster the mutual compromises to stop more bloodshed. I support it. And a new poll shows that, contrary to conventional wisdom, the vast majority of American Jews do. A survey* shows that 84 percent agree that the U.S. should ‘apply pressure’ on both Mr. Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to get the peace process moving…”

Whatever precise policy path is taken, it is Sonnenfeldt’s view that “one thing is beyond dispute: the U.S. has the leeway from American Jews to praise, blame, cajole, criticize and even make explicit suggestions to both Israel and the PA about ‘final status’ issues...A sea change has taken place in the American Jewish community. America’s Middle East policy has begun to change along with it. But it must transform itself even more to stave off catastrophe.”

Discussing President Clinton’s refusal to invite Binyamin Netanyahu to the White House during the prime minister’s U.S. visit in November, Douglas Bloomfield, writing in The Washington Jewish Week (Nov. 20, 1997) makes this point: “The most remarkable thing…was the uncharacteristic silence of American Jewry. In fact, the community has given the tacit approval for the cold shoulder to a politician who was once its darling—another sign of how far Netanyahu’s political fortunes plunged...Most American Jews are siding with President Clinton. There is no doubt this politically sensitive president...would not be snubbing a prime minister of Israel unless he felt confident the Jewish community was on his side, and he had evidence to support that.”

The future of relations between Israel and American Jews is, at best, uncertain at the present time. As the harsh rhetoric of Israeli rabbinical leaders escalates, so does the negative response among Americans.

Sephardi Chief Rabbi Eliyahu Bakshi-Doron—who has initiated a dialogue with the fundamentalist Islamic Hamas—dismisses Reform Judaism as “a fabricated religion.” Referring to Reform Judaism as “a joke,” he states that, “The Reform have no future. They’re bankrupt.” Former Sephardi Chief Rabbi Mordechai Eliahu compared Reform Jews to “Karaites,” members of a medieval Jewish sect which rejected rabbinic law and was considered by the rabbis as virtually a separate faith.

Another prominent Orthodox rabbi, former Sephardi Chief Rabbi OvadiaYosef, the spiritual leader of the Shas Party, told thousands of supporters at a Jerusalem rally in October that the Reform and Conservative movements to which most American Jews belong have abandoned Judaism. Also in October, Jerusalem’s Harel Reform Synagogue was covered with swastikas and the words “Damned Wicked Ones” were written on the glass-enclosed billboard at the entrance to the temple. On Aug. 31, a firebomb was thrown through the window of a kindergarten operated by the Reform movement in Mevasseret Zion, a suburb of Jerusalem. The private school was almost completely destroyed.

An Israel in the grip of a militant Orthodox establishment which is intolerant of other streams of religious thought is not the kind of Jewish state most American Jews thought they were supporting. Similarly, an Israel dominated by fundamentalist political parties which believe that any compromise with Palestinian aspirations for statehood is a violation of biblical commands, is at odds with the thinking of the vast majority of American Jews.

As the realization that American Judaism and what is the official Judaism of Israel are quite different in their moral content and their larger views with regard to freedom of conscience grows, the current alienation is likely to grow as well. “Israel right or wrong” was never the view of the majority of American Jews, although a number of organizations which attempt to speak in their name often seemed to embrace such an approach.

Current developments are healthy both for the integrity of American Judaism and for the ability of U.S. foreign policy to pursue a genuine peace agreement in the Middle East. Only those who oppose religious freedom and a compromise peace settlement need be concerned about these trends.