Change the status quo on religion and state

Since the time of David Ben-Gurion, everything has changed. The next prime minister will have to take serious steps to prevent the rift between the religious and the secular in Israel from widening.

by  Itamar Fleishman, ISRAEL HAYOM

The fog of political uncertainty created by the recent election has yet to disperse, and it’s not at all clear if the current impasse in negotiations will result in yet another election. Still, one thing arises from the chaos we find ourselves in: it’s time to hold a national conversation about the status quo on issues of religion and state and reach a consensus agreement on changes to it.

That conversation is vital, even urgent – and not only for reasons of preserving unity. No one dismisses the importance of unity, but it would be naïve to think that any side will change its mind and give up its worldview on what kind of country this should be. The religious and the ultra-Orthodox won’t become advocates for civil marriage, and the secular won’t demonstrate in favor of the rabbinical establishment maintaining a monopoly on kashrut certification. The divisions will remain, but trying to solve them by coercion and passing laws is the worst approach. The only way to contain the dispute is by refreshing the existing “arrangements,” by consensus.

To understand the level of harm caused by dawdling over taking steps to address the status quo on religion and state, and how close we are to one side revoking it entirely, wiping out the shared fabric of life in Israel, we need only look at the results of the Sept. 17 election. A total of 46 seats – over 1.5 million citizens – went to Blue and White, the Democratic Union, or Yisrael Beytenu, lists that are standard-bearers of the war on the status quo. We cannot and must not ignore these citizens.

True, a venomous hate campaign the likes of which we have never seen was waged against the haredi and religious Zionist sectors, one that sometimes crossed the line to anti-Semitism. It’s nothing new, and this time it was distilled into a campaign about “religification” that was rife with ignorance and artificial panic. But on the other hand, it cannot be denied that the religious/haredi side has behaved hastily, and insensitively. Among their harmful actions we can count the needless law banning supermarkets from operating on Shabbat; the frequent crises about vital public work on Shabbat; and Deputy Health Minister Yakov Litzman’s absurd demand that the leisure spots in the Mahane Yehuda market in Jerusalem be closed, even on weekdays.

All these can be left aside. We are talking about a challenge that can and has been met in the past, under much more polarizing conditions. In a move that in retrospect seems improbable, David Ben-Gurion gave the religious and haredim immense power when he established the status quo on religion and state. Although he was an ideologue of secular Zionism, and despite the fact that he was in power when the haredi population was miniscule, the country’s first prime minister understood he had to make concessions that went against what he and the camp he led believed. The solution he came up with has stuck for 71 years.

Since the time of Ben-Gurion, everything has changed: The political balance of power, demographics, the attitude of the secular toward Jewish tradition as well as to those who follow it, and the attitude of the religious and haredim toward the secular.  The next prime minister, whoever it is, will have to be the wise elder and make all the factions – coalition and opposition – sit down together to come up with a plan to stop the religious-secular rift from widening further. He will have to do it not because he’s a nice guy, or conciliatory, or weak, or because he changed his mind, but to prevent unilateral steps and coercion. Mostly, though, because there is no other choice.