Separation of Synagogue and State

Separation of Church and State is considered an essential characteristic of the modern democratic nation. Here are a few thoughts on separation of synagogue and state in Israel:

1. Yeshayahu Liebowitz was in favor of the separation - he believed that mixing religion and politics was unhealthy, and tended to corrupt religion. This has proven true; rabbinic courts are corrupt - if not financially, then at least they're corrupt religiously - they rule in favor of the status quo and in order to enhance their own power. A good example is the reluctance of the rabbinic courts to use their powers to help agunot - the rabbis have no desire to change the status quo and its patriarchal values.

2. When politics and religion mix, the non-religious start resenting the religious. Many secular Israelis are especially upset about the control the rabbinic courts have on marriage and divorce issues. This resentment contributes to the rift between the religious and non-religious.

3. A problem with complete separation of synagogue and state: If the separation is complete, then what makes Israel a Jewish state? This question comes from thinking of Judaism as a religion, but Zionism is not concerned with Judaism, but with Jewishness - and Jewishness is defined as belonging to the Jewish nation. So, while Israel should separate between religion and state, it should not separate between culture of the Jewish nation and state.

What is that culture? For thousands of years, Jews have celebrated shabbat, rosh hashana, yom kippur, etc - those are national Jewish days of rest and celebration, and so should be the state days of rest and celebration.  Public schools should provide adequate Jewish education: Jewish history, the Bible which has shaped Jewish culture, and the rabbinic laws - which, whether one observes them or not, are a major part of Jewish culture by virtue of the fact that they were observed by our ancestors for thousands of years. Bios of famous rabbis should be included in Jewish history. Students must be taught about the historical and biblical relationship between the Jewish people and the land of Israel. They must also be instilled with the Jewish values that are part of our culture: charity, loving-kindness, not oppressing the stranger, etc. These values are essential to a successful society. Part of having a Jewish state is expressing those values in government policies. A government that ignores the poor is, in my opinion not a Jewish government - because Jewish culture has always considered it important to help the poor, probably because of the influence biblical passages about charity had on the culture, and because the exile existence forced Jews to take care of their own - the local governments were often not merely apathetic, but actually hostile, to the Jewish community.

If one defines a Jewish state as a state where the majority of citizens are Jews, placed upon the traditional Jewish homeland, that has a unique Jewish national culture, then the complete separation of Judaism and state, with the complete integration of Jewishness and state, is the way to go. This definition is more in keeping with secular Zionism than religious Zionism, but I believe it could have positive benefits for the religious Zionist movement. It would lessen the Orthodox/non-Orthodox rift, lessen people's resentment towards the Jewish religion, and possibly encourage them to adopt cultural practices that often overlap with religious practices simply because the Jewish culture is so strongly influenced by the Jewish religion.

The power of the Sinai experience is that the Jews voluntarily accepted the Torah by saying "We will do and we will listen". Trying to force religion on people negates the power of their religious acts - the Orthodox community should let each Jew stand at their own metaphoric Sinai, with the freedom of choice to say those words. Ultimately, the Sinai covenant is about choice: the choice to accept the national covenant thousands of years ago, the choice to do right or wrong - it is choice that makes the mitzvot meaningful. To paraphrase Maimonides: If people didn't have freedom of choice, then why would God bother giving them commandments, or enacting a system of justice, with reward and punishment? For the sake of the Jewish religion, the religious establishment should stop trying to force people into being religious. 

Barack Obama and the media hype

2 things came to my attention today: 1. Barack Obama's  prayer-note in the Western Wall was removed and published by some opportunistic American who was there for his gap year. 2. The New York Times refused to publish an op-ed by John Mcain about the Iraq war, which was a rebuttal to an op-ed by Obama published in the Times a while ago.

Both of these things point towards the same phenomena: Media-hype about Barack, and forgetting that politicians are human.

As a human being, Barack Obama was entitled to leave a personal prayer-note between him and God. Removing the note violated his human right to privacy. (as well as a bunch of other ethics and Jewish commandments - rabbis condemned the removal of the note.)

The fact that the note's removal was on CNN international, as well as all over a variety of media, especially news web-sites, demonstrates how obsessed with Obama the media is.

Not publishing the op-ed by Mcain, after publishing an op-ed by Obama, shows bias by the Times. Providing news reports is a public and civic service essential the fiber of a healthy democracy. As such, the Times is obligated to show all sides of the story. It doesn't matter whether the op-ed by Mcain was good or bad. What matters is that once they gave the democratic candidate the right to speak, they are obligated to give the republican candidate the opportunity to do the same.

The Times' pro-Obama bias is counterproductive. People will wonder what it says about Obama if his supporters feel the need to hijack the media in order for him to win. If he truly is the stronger candidate, then shouldn't the simple, unbiased truth, with him and Mcain having equal air-time, be enough to convince us he's the better candidate?

Furthermore, if Obama wins in what many feel was a case of mass-mis-information due to media bias, he will not have the popular support necessary to enact true change in the white house - and change is what Obama is all about.

Our country desperately needs change. It would be a pity if, at the beginning of his term, grumbling about a brain-washing and stolen election aided by the media deprived the next president of the power to enact the platform on which he was elected.

To get true change in the white house, first we need to change how the media is reporting the race to the white house.

Yitzhar: Settlements

"I have no other country, even when my land is burning. Just one word in Hebrew sharpens my heart, my soul." - Ehud Manor, courtesy of my friend Y.

A recent bout of clashes between police and settlers in Yitzhar, near Hebron, is once again shrouded in confusion. Who picked up the gun, and why? Apparently, a man who happened to be there that day - and he fired into the air. Did Palestinians throw stones at the settlers? Depends on which news source you read.

But the Yitzhar incident points towards a new trend: The radicalization of settlers, the political radicalization of Orthodox Israelis, the willingness of the radicals to raise their hands against IDF soldiers and police if they disagree with the political action being carried out by the soldiers and police.

This situation could lead to civil war in case of large scale evacuation. While the fear of civil war was highly overplayed by the media before the Gaza evacuation, the evacuation itself, as well as the treatment of the settlers after the evacuation, has angered the settler movement and further radicalized them.

A few arguments, from the Orthodox right-wing perspective, against absolute dedication to holding on to settlements:

1. According to Jewish belief, the temple was destroyed, and the Jews exiled, as punishment for the Jews' inability to get along with each other - sinat chinam. Raising arms against other Jews, even if they be the limbs, and not metal weapons, is a clear manifestation of the negative value that led to our nations' exile once - and could lead to it again.

2. Most settlers are Orthodox, and most Orthodox support the settlements. Unfortunately, many Israeli non-Orthodox internalize "most" as "all". The settlement movement is increasing non-Orthodox animosity towards Orthodox Jews - and towards Orthodox Judaism itself. Doing something that causes fellow Jews to look down on religious Judaism is a chilul Hashem - a desecration of God's name. This animosity is increased when settlers' perceived animosity towards the IDF is factored into the equation.

3. Maybe the violence and peace process are signs God wants us to give up the land. But how can I know the will of God? None of us can. So saying its God's will for us to keep the land, at all costs, is just as ridiculous as saying its His will to give it up. The Bible does not address the specifics of modern day Israel, and drawing legal analogies from thousands of years ago to today is hard. Drawing values however, from an ancient holy document is easier. One of those values is love of the land of Israel. Another value is loving your fellow human like yourself, and loving the people of Israel, even when you don't agree with their actions. The height of love for the nation of Israel is Moshe praying for them after the sins of the golden calf and the sin of the spies.

4. Demographically, Israel can't keep the settlements without becoming a racist state. The number of Palestinians in the West Bank continues to sky-rocket, and Jewish birth rates just can't keep up. Barring some sort of mass aliyah, which could be imminent if Mashiach comes today, Israel would eventually find itself with autonomy over a non-citizen population nearly as large as its citizen population. This would be a physical burden on the army, as well as a moral burden - both within Israeli society and abroad.

The fact is, there's no credible Palestinian leadership at the moment. The fact also is, the settlers have limited political capital. The movement should prioritize which settlements it wants to convince the Israeli government to keep. It should push for unilateral withdrawal, with massive benefits for displaced settlers, and cut a deal so that the withdrawal is accompanied by Israeli annexation of major settlement blocs surrounding Jerusalem. Furthermore, if it is ethical to kick out Jewish Israelis with compensation, it should be ethical to kick out Palestinians, assuming they're offered exactly the same compensation as the Jewish settlers. Using this moral equation, Israel could kick the Palestinians out of Bethlehem and Hebron, the two disputed holy cities - but that option could prove economically and militarily impossible.

It is important to understand that the mass displacement of settlers will cause a humanitarian crisis. Jews abroad and governments who favor settlement evacuation should create a fund to aid settlers post-evacuation. The Israeli government can not afford to provide proper compensation to the displaced settlers without outside help.

The picture I've presented above is not a pretty one. People against settlements must recognize that mass evacuation of people from their homes is a tragedy, no matter what the reason for that evacuation. This recognition of the legitimate pain felt by the settlers could help ease the road of reconciliation. Just as settlers must do more not to alienate themselves from general Israeli society, general Israeli society must try to understand the plight of the evicted settler - and that the settler does what he does because of a love of Israel. That is something that he and the Peace Now protester might have in common - and soccer, of course. Because who doesn't love a good game of real futbol?

Bulldozer Attack

"We Jew have developed an attitude of looking down on physical labour...but labour...is the basic energy for the creation of national culture...we seem to think...it does not matter- let Ivan John or Mustafa do the work while we busy ourselves with producing a culture, with creating national values and with enthroning absolute justice in the world...I think that everyone of us ought to retreat for a moment into his innermost self, free himself from all outside influences -both from those of the gentile world and even from the influence of our own Jewish past -and ask himself with the utmost simplicity, seriousness and honesty: What, essentially, is the purpose of our national movement?"

AD Gordon, writing in the early 1900s, already understood that the link between physical labour and ideology would play a key role in Israel's destiny. Given the recent bulldozer attack in Jerusalem, the second in a month, the interplay between the two has become even more important.

First of all, the fact that most construction workers are Arabs reflects a truth about Israeli society many of us are not comfortable with: While officially Israeli Arabs have full rights, much discrimination exists. Arabs, whether Israeli or Palestinian, tend to be at the lower end of the socio-economic scale and have blue collar jobs. (For some context: Israeli Arabs are more proportionally represented both in the Knesset and in Israeli universities than African-Americans and Latinos/as are represented in both Congress and American universities.)

Given that fact however, the question becomes: How can Israel prevent future construction attacks from happening, while not depriving the innocent Arab construction workers of their livelihood?

Some would argue this question is irrelevant. The Arabs brought it upon themselves. If they are so against terror, let them protest the terrorist attacks. Let them take to the streets of E. Jerusalem. There are plenty of unemployed Jews who could use the jobs that would be created by the vacancies left when the Arabs are fired. Point taken, but, given aside my moral discomfort with stereotyping, I believe that such insensitivity would be harmful to Israel.

First of all, let's think of one of the basic definitions of a Jewish state: A state that encapsulates Jewish values. Judaism has many values, and here two of its major values contradict each other: The importance of human life (after all, from a security point of view, not hiring Arabs is a fool-proof way of preventing bull-dozer attacks) verse the importance of not oppressing the stranger, loving ones fellow human as oneself, and recognizing the tzelem Elokim - the godliness inherent in each individual, regardless of religion, race or nationality. If the terrorists force us to violate Jewish values in the struggle for self-preservation, then they have won not only a moral victory, but also an anti-Zionist victory: They have forced us to act directly against the Zionist vision.

Second of all, while unofficial discrimination of all sorts exists in most human society, once there is an officially discriminatory policy, whether in hiring Arabs for construction, or in any other sector, then what was formerly a dangerous societal trend now becomes official government apartheid, making a country liable for sanctions and all sorts of international punishment - punishment that Israel is barely avoiding as it is.

Thirdly, and most importantly, it is in Israel's best interest to have an Israeli Arab population that loves Israel. This is because Israeli Arabs have power at the polls, they move around relatively freely in Israel and could be of great use in planning terror attacks and transporting weapons, and also, the less people in Israel with access to weapons who hate Israel, the better. Basically, to quote Lincoln: "A house divided among itself can not stand." Enacting discriminatory hiring practices will anger the Israeli Arab population and further the rift between them and the Israeli Jewish population.

How does Israel stop this rift? Here are a few suggestions:

1. Better and more equitable spending on social services for areas with heavy Arab populations, like E. Jerusalem.

2. Bettering the Israeli Arab schools, while providing Zionist education aimed at making Arabs that they too, have an important role to play and are wanted in the Jewish state.

3. Job initiatives for young unemployed Arab men - young unemployed men is the demographic group most prone to violence.

4. Dialogue between Israeli Arabs and Israeli Jews. Partnering of Arab and Jewish schools to engage in bi-weekly or monthly inter-student dialogue about the future of the state.

People often focus on the security threats to Israel from without - Iran, Hezbollah, etc. But it is time to start focusing on the threat from within - the bulldozer attack should serve as a wake-up call, that we have Arabs in this country, and failing to  learn how to make them part of of our society could prove fatal. If we treat Israeli Arabs like the other, then they will act like the other.

That being said, there is no justification for terror attacks. Other groups, such as African-Americans in the US, when confronted with unfair treatment, have risen in non-violent protest and succeeded. India rose up against the militarily supreme British in a non-violent manner, thanks to Ghandi. The Palestinian liberation movement seems to have skipped that step, and gone from nothing to terrorism. Personal problems are also not excuses for terrorism. Many people have terrible lives, but don't resort to killing others. Terrorism is never justified. To quote Ghandi, "The bomb-throwers have discredited the cause of freedom, in whose name they threw the bombs."

A final note on the Jews-need-jobs argument for not hiring Arabs: The way to give Jews jobs is to strengthen the economy and start addressing the fact that the income disparity in Israel has been widening. Poverty is not fought by taking jobs away from one group of people and giving them to the other. Poverty is fought by creating a better economy that has jobs for everyone. One of the main things that Israel must do is better its elementary and high-school systems, and help retrain adults in blue-collar sectors so that they can seek new jobs and new career paths. In these retraining programs, bread-winners of families must be given priority.

Intro

After perusing too many papers and news websites, I decided to start this blog. I hope it will be a place to discuss certain current events, societal trends, and newspaper articles that interest me. It may occasionally touch upon Israel. So, a few notes on that topic by way of introduction:

I support Israel's right to exist. I make no apology for this, just as I do not apologize for my support of the USA's right to exist, or India's right to exist. Support of a country's right to exist does not equal support of that country's policies. Indeed, I have many problems with policies of the current Israeli and American governments. I don't know enough about India's government to comment, though I'm sure that if I did enough research I'd find something to disapprove of.

I've often been told that because I never served in the army, I have no right to comment on Israel's domestic and foreign policies. As a human being however, I have the right to comment on the behavior of any country. I do not however, have the right to enforce my opinion by voting. Israel is not exempt from this rule merely because it has compulsory military service.

 As a Jew, I arguably have an extra right to comment on Israel's policies, since it is a "Jewish State". The question then becomes: Given that Israel is a Jewish state, what are my obligations to it as a Jew, and what are its obligations to me as a Jew? I am not sure there is an answer to that question, but I do think it is one worth pondering.

In any event, I shall comment on events in Israel as I see fit, while keeping that question in mind. Perhaps this blog will help me find an answer.