T. Belman. Agreed. More than anything the dominance of the orthodox in Israel serves to alienate American Jewry. Including Shas and UTJ in the coalition was a huge step backwards. For reasons best known to Netanyahu, he sealed a deal with them before talking to any one else. He should have cut a deal with Liberman and Lapid or even Herzog to avoid bringing Shas and UTJ into the government.
Bibi should have made a deal with American Jewry to support his right wing policies in exchange for Israel accepting some measure of pluralism. Israel must partner with them rather than exclude them.
Just announced: Government to form Jewish denominations roundtable
When Israel’s current government was formed this spring after the March Knesset elections, there were a number of clear winners and losers in terms of the country’s political rivals. But one of the big losers from the reshuffling of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s cabinet was the overwhelming majority of American Jews who do not identify with Orthodox Jewry. Since then, a number of incidents have occurred in which government officials have made statements that have further alienated the many Diaspora Jews who bitterly resent the way their denominations are treated as non-Jewish religions rather than equal partners in the Jewish future. To date, Netanyahu, like his predecessors in both Likud and Labor, have tried to mollify American Jews with conciliatory statements. But after the latest such insult, it is clearly time for him to do more. Israelis on the left and the right, secular as well as religious need to come to grips with the fact that attacks on pluralism are more than an annoying public relations problem. They constitute a strategic problem for the Jewish state that needs to be addressed.
Though the Israeli political establishment, both on the right and the left, were primarily focused on the other implications of the new coalition, its formation ended a brief two-year period when the ultra-Orthodox political parties were left out of the government and attempts were made to ease the path to conversion as well as other efforts to begin to ease the country into acceptance of Jewish religious pluralism. This was a great opportunity for a country whose decisions on a variety of issues have often been held hostage by the views of the “black hat” minority. Though the collapse of the previous government had little if anything to do with the issue, the return of the two religious parties ended these experiments, returning Israel to a situation where the non-Orthodox rightly feel slighted.
As I wrote back in May, when I attempted to explain the situation in terms of Israeli political realities, the core problem is really not one in which there is a disagreement about “who is a Jew,” but rather who is a rabbi. That’s because the lack of a separation between synagogue and state means that in Israel the government pays rabbinic salaries making the right to be accorded official status is a political and economic issue rather than a purely religious one. Thus the right of the non-Orthodox streams to be recognized hinges on an ability to mobilize political support. Since they command the allegiance of few Israelis and the ultra-Orthodox constitute a powerful voting bloc in the Knesset due to the country’s proportional representation, the non-Orthodox inevitably are the losers in this tug of war.
Though a majority of Israelis are secular and most dislike the treatment they get from the rabbinate, the question of pluralism has always been secondary to a desire for civil marriage and disestablishment.
This is difficult for Americans who are unused to the lack of separation between religion and state in Israel to understand. To the extent that Israeli leaders understand how the Diaspora feels about this, they have still given it short shrift since the issue is always going to be overshadowed by the great debates over war and peace issues as well as those about economics.
While I agree with Reform and Conservative leaders who protest the lack of pluralism, I’ve also tried to counsel Jews living here to try to look at Israeli society in its own context rather than judging it by the standards of Jewish life in the United States. Until the non-Orthodox movements are able to convince more Israelis to back their appeal for equal treatment, an unsatisfactory status quo is likely to stay in place.
But in the wake of the collapse of the new effort to ease the path to conversion, as well as by the recent appalling statement of the country’s new Religious Affairs Minister that he does not consider Reform Jews to be Jewish, as well as another incident involving President Reuven Rivlin’s snub of Conservative rabbis, it’s time for a more pro-active response to the problem.
Orthodox Jews may take a dim view of their Reform or Conservative cousins because of doctrinal differences. They may also point, with justice, to the potential demographic collapse of Reform and especially Conservative Jewry in the United States that the Pew Survey highlighted in 2013. But what they and Israelis of all stripes must remember is that for all of the problems of the non-Orthodox, they still constitute approximately 90 percent of American Jewry. The Orthodox share of the American Jewish population may go up in the coming decades, but their triumphalism notwithstanding, they are going to be a minority here for a very long time to come. For the foreseeable future, the vast majority of people who call themselves Jewish in the United States are not going to be Orthodox.
In its questions about support for Israel, the Pew Survey illustrated that the decline of Jewish peoplehood and the rise of a new large unaffiliated group within the community in the United States is having a serious impact on identification with Zionism or the need to speak out in defense of Israel even at times when the media and the political left are attacking it. There is no magic bullet that will solve that problem, and there is little doubt that support for Israel is declining among the liberal Democratic constituencies that non-Orthodox Jewry support. But attacks on Reform and Conservative Judaism don’t help ameliorate the problem. To the contrary, the willingness of some Israeli leaders to speak of the bulk of American Jewry as alien outsiders deepen the already growing gulf between the two communities that need each other so badly.
American Jews need Israel because it is the spiritual center of Judaism and the place where the core principles of Jewish identity flourish. But Israel needs American Jews too, not least because of the vital political support they can furnish for a Jewish state that remains under siege. To those who say Reform and Conservative Jews must be written off because most support President Obama, I would answer that they still are the core of Jewish life here and political support for Israel. Moreover, growing numbers of secular and even religious Israelis are starting to recognize that their appeals for pluralism are justified.
Thus, the dustups between Haredi leaders and American sensibilities aren’t just meaningless spats but part of a genuine strategic threat to Israel’s security.
What can be done? American Jews can’t compel Israeli politicians to treat their needs as priorities when the electoral math points in the other direction. Yet Netanyahu must do more than merely publicly disagree when insults are hurled at the non-Orthodox. The prime minister and others in power must make it clear to the ultra-Orthodox parties that what they are doing is endangering the nation’s ability to mobilize support that props up the country’s vital alliance with the United States. That means Netanyahu must take some key issues, like the future of renovations to the Western Wall plaza in order to follow through on Jewish Agency Chairman Natan Sharansky’s plan to create a non-Orthodox section, out of the hands of the Haredim.
Genuine pluralism may not be in the cards in the immediate future. But unless Israel’s political establishment starts acting as if it cares about maintaining support from most American Jews, they will be worsening a problem that is undermining communal unity and making it harder to maintain a united front behind the defense of the Jewish state.
“Agreed. More than anything the dominance of the orthodox in Israel serves to alienate American Jewry.” OK, Ted, you have a blind spot about our religion and its importance for our survival.
@ babushka: I know people who are what some describe as liberals who serve in the IDF and live in Israel but in the world where some are glued to rigid definitions of people who they do not personally know they can not past labels this would not fit their perception.
That liberals Jews embraced an anti-Semite, an atrocity that cannot be rationalized by party affiliation. Just because someone is a Democrat does not obligate them to vote for a Jew-hating prick. Capisce?
It is a good thing that you are Economist (undoubtedly for Zimbabwe) rather than Rocket Scientist because all our astronauts would have disappeared into a black hole.
@ Economist:
Proves what? Proves what most people learned during the Holocaust: liberal Jews are Jews who think nothing of betraying their own people.
And that proves what, exactly? That most Jewish voters are Democrats?
@ Economist:
Your pathetic characterizations only betray the shallowness of your argument and your denial of Jewish liberal’s hand in Obama’s betrayal of Israel and the Jews. You may have not voted for Obama but 78% of USA Jews did – twice.
Dream on.@ babushka:
Monomaniacal views of “liberals” neglects both revealed voting polls, the possibility that O’s true colors were only revealed over time, and that one need not support all policies to support some. As for me I knew the guy was a liar during his first campaign when he told AIPAC that Jerusalem would be the undivided capital of Israel only to take it back the next morning when the Arabs didn’t like it. And I never voted for him, but that doesn’t make me a nut case about “liberals”.@ Dandaman:
American Jews prefer Leon Trotsky to Theodor Herzl, Lenin to Moses.
78& of all American Jewish voters.
100% of liberal voters who identify themselves as being Jewish.
Not a single prominent Jewish liberal has publicly disassociated himself/herself from Obama.
This is why Economist must resort to pejorative diversionary tactics.
He is channeling Louis Nizer, who said that when the facts are on your side cite the facts, and when the facts are against you deride the opposition.
Same technique Obama uses.
@ Economist:
All depends what you mean by “monolithic.” But by me 78% is pretty close.
Please continue your phantasm that supporting a Jew-hating reprobate is compatible with being pro-Israel. Your ineffectual flailing provides a useful contrast with reality.
babushka continues to demonize “liberal Jews” as if they were a monolithic group. That is lazy brain-dead thinking.
Dandaman’s ad hominem hand waving about Saban does not affect the refutation of the claim that not even one liberal is a supporter of Israel.
@ Economist:
You need to get a grip, economist. Sabin was a major supporter of Obama and he’s raising millions for Hillary of Benghazi.
Liberal Jews are easily understood. They support a president who is facilitating the explicit Iranian agenda of annihilating Israel. Failure to understand requires twisting yourself into a pretzel so you can avoid unpleasant truth.
Some on this site would have you believe that liberal Jews “support” Israel…except for that little thing about embracing a president who hates Israel. Other than that, Missus Lincoln, how was the play?
I am not contesting your response to BB, but I want to flesh it out from my own standpoint. I rate myself as a Jewish Zionist, or, at least, my online rants rate me thus. But my Zionism is focused on Jewish nationalism, of which the State of Israel must be seen as the chief manifestation of that nationalism.
Am I a practitioner of Judaism? Nobody who has seen a Friday afternoon approaching Shabat would doubt that. I recite the Shabat blessings in good Israeli Sfardi modern Ivrit that I learned in Israel. We have two identical loaves of home-baked bread protected by a small tablecloth. There are two candles lighted by my wife, who covers her eyes as she recites the blessing. Our eldest son, who lives with us, leads the blessing of ntilat yadaiim. I don’t know of very many American Jews (or are we Jewish Americans?) who do any of that, other than the Lubavitchers and other orthodox Jews. But I specifically avoid most other Jews in this country, because I sense they are enemies of nearly all that I consider vital for the well-being of our Jewish nation.
But all of us represent the sum of a lot more than what I have described above. For example, I am a member of the American gun culture, which I have taken sufficiently seriously over many years to have served the National Rifle Association’s Institute of Legislative Affairs (NRA-ILA) as an election volunteer coordinator in our upper midwestern state. Additionally:
— My wife and I are devotees of Amtrak overnight sleeping car travel, and we want funding to support rail passenger and freight transport to some reasonable extent comparable to the billions of dollars poured into endlessly crumbling concrete and blacktop highways and airports that now treat waiting passengers as though they were escaped convicts.
— We have strong interest in stopping the growth of American cities in such a way that they eat up our rural homesteads and otherwise viable family farms for purposes of urban sprawl.
— We support the development of a viable system of private schools, religious or otherwise, along with revitalization of public schools by adding Montessori programs at both the elementary and high school levels; that based on the assumption that the purpose of schooling primarily should be the teaching of children how to think for themselves, rather than falling into the patterns of mental sloth which is the result of much of the outcome of John Dewey’s 19th century ideas of publich schooling.
And more. Too much more than Ted Belman could allocate online space to talk about.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
@ babushka: The trouble with labels or putting people in little boxes is it is easy then to demonize them and not try and understand them or seek what one may have in common. One looks for differences and not commonality.
I myself am liberal on a few issues and very conservative on other issues. The only label I accept for myself is very broad a Jewish Zionist.
Labels are used to divide and say the other guys are inferior or bad and the we (whatever one labels their own group or tribe) are the good guys.
This occurrence within Am HaYisrael and the State of Israel is not furthering Israel or the Jewish People. It is actually one of its major problems.
@ babushka:
Me too. Even Iron Feliks.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Unlike the classes in Great Britain or India, the so-called classes in America are in a perpetual state of flux. The poor become middle class. The middle class become rich. The rich crash and burn. It is not the dystopia chronicled in Das Kapital. However, Obama had made huge strides in eliminating upward mobility, and Hillary would doubtlessly accelerate America’s decline. So chin up, commie!
It seems improbable, given that the real world application of Marxism has created such misery for billions of people, but the Muzzies have somehow created an even more sadistic philosophy that masquerades as a religion.
Well!!! In that case, I am no longer flattered.
Supporting a genocidal maniac who ultimately murdered 20 million of his fellow Soviets.
To conclude on a positive note, I love the name “Felix”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Id9vsIQIcmg
and
the point where you equate the liberals with the Communist Party in the 1930s
Would say what you think the Communist Party in America int he 1930s was all about?
Babushka
If I say youa re a “subjective idealsit” that sounds quite a nice thingto be. What it means is that you begin with the ideas in your brain and ignore objective reality. That is not good at all, or nice, and alows you to make “pronouncements” which may be divorced from reality.
The antidote tot his disease is to insist on starting with reality.
But what then is reality? reality lies outside of the human individual brain or consciousness.
Conclusión it may be more productive to start with reality rather then with what comes out of Babushka’s brain!
Babushka
Obama should not take all the blame. In many ways Obama was merely carrying on the policies of George Bush, especially Bush in his second term, in relation to Israel and to Islam.
The problema with your positions is that you do not seem to deal with actual history and instead of dealing witht he facts of history you replace with “pronouncements” … a kind of subjective idealism actually!
The person who pinpointed the Fascist essence of Islam was Karl Marx. Not quite the first but among the first.
Is it not strange then that anti-Jihadists like Robert Spencer have never made a reference to Marx on Islam, not even once in the many books they have written on this?
Or have you Babushka?
Babushka
Do you oppose my understanding of America as having a working class, a middle class, and a capitalist class (owning the capital) a more useful explanation. It took me a long time to understand that for an American a middle class person is really a workign class person
This article hardly elucidates what is meant by a liberal if anything makes it harder to understand
http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/schleslib.html
Economist
“starting as a young MIT student watching the McCarthy hearings on TV in the 1950’s”
What did you think was happening then?
What do you think now as you look back?
“
The US liberal Jews are “the loser”. Who cares? They do not support IL anyway! The non-Jewish liberal are probably for Israel.
@ Economist: By the way, in order to get a U.S. President who will undo the damage done to Israel by Obama, we will need a substantial portion of the liberal vote. It’s always a bad idea to shoot yourself in the foot. At this point Shabbos is coming in Los Angeles so I need to sign off to get ready.
He supports Israel and Obama? That is like supporting Abraham Lincoln and John Wilkes Booth, and no amount of polysyllablic sophistry can change that.
@ babushka:
Since it only takes one counter-example to refute your “nary a one” Haim Saban.
I do not care if you “understand” me or not.What I care about is accuracy of thought and history. What I oppose is irrational and illogical demonization of an entire group (in this case “liberals”). It is the same mental disease that led to the demonization of the Jews, and still does in some quarters.
Nary a one.
Name one.
Liberals uniformly march in lockstep behind Obama. In doing so, they slavishly support his entire radical socialist Alibnskyite agenda. No amount of sophistry can camouflage that fact.
Liberals march in uniform lockstep behind Obama, and in the process support his entire radical socialist Alinskyite agenda. No amount of sophistry can camouflage that fact.
@ Economist:
As a loyal member of the Jewish nation, and as a man who has never resented authentic Judaism, even if I never have fully practiced it, I have no interest in understanding you. The type of Judaism you appear to espouse has no future, either in the Jewish state or in the gilded shtetls of the West — most of which have no permanent future. The Jewish liberals represent nothing more than the flash of false expectations.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
@ babushka: Pseudo-speciating liberals, many of whom are strong supporters of Israel in thought, word, and deed, is both foolish and dangerous.
Sophistry. Obama is not supported partially by the liberal movement – they march in lockstep behind him. In doing so, they support the radical Alinskyite socialist agenda.
There is no need to demonize liberals. They accomplished that task decades ago. However, I do appreciate your irascible,truculent demeanor and ad hominem approach. Please continue in that vein.
In your eagerness to demonize liberals you misrepresent my comment, which clearly was about two particular common attributes, not all. Thus your associative argument fails. By the way, my view of liberals comes from a conservative position as an American observer over many years, not from a liberal position, starting as a young MIT student watching the McCarthy hearings on TV in the 1950’s.
Given your recession, let us address point 2.
My debonair interlocutor, if liberals have been manipulated by progressives into toeing the party line, and it is the communist party line they are toeing, then liberals are now indistinguishable from communists.
What exactly is the difference between Harry Reid and Gus Hall ? Nancy Pelosi and Ethel Rosenberg? Hillary Clinton and Alger Hiss?
@ Economist: I recede from some of the details of my first point. It has been over 50 years since I lived in London and my understanding of British Judaism may be limited. To clean up a couple of typos, 1959’s should read 1950’s and of course Rorah should read Torah.
In reply to several:
1. Just as Israelis say foreign Jews don’t understand, you don’t understand us. In England “liberal” Jews are the equivalent of US “Conservative Jews” and are in the main completely supportive of Israel. The problem is with Reform Jews.
2. Obama, Valerie Jarrett, and most of their key hires are progressives, not liberals. Liberals have been coopted by fancy rhetoric, lies, and the ideal of a good Black president, which Obama and his cronies are not. Progressives are indistinguishable from their 1959’s American communist friends in their hate of capitalism and use of “Power to the people” to mean ‘power to me and my friends’.
3. In refuting Wellhausen and other advocates of the multiple authorship theories of the Rorah, Rabbi Hertz (Chief Rabbi of Britain) and others have pointed out that the different names of Hashem are associated with different attributes: strictness and judgment on the one hand, and mercy and forgiveness on the other. It is apostasy to claim Hashem is only one of these.
I did not mention Reform Jews. I am referencing Jews who have forsaken Torah in favor of liberal politics. For them, FDR was God and Obama is God. No one can read Jewish Scripture and rationally argue that the God of the bible is liberal. With all due respect, in today’s world God would have to be classified as a right wing nut, what with His anachronistic moral code and insistence upon personal responsibility and all that righteousness of His.
That is why the term “liberal Jew” is oxymoronic. You can follow the teachings of Marx, or you can follow the teachings of the Lord, but not both. They are not merely mutually exclusive. They are diametrical opposites.
@ babushka: Yes some of these Jews do act as if Liberalism is a religion. To say this about all reform Jews is wrong and detrimental.
American liberal Jews, the same ones who (still) support Obama, BDS, same-sex marriage, and lady cantors have their eyes set on bringing their catastrophic Jewish failures to Israel next. If Israel allows this to happen (in the name of diversity and pluralism) it will be making a tragic mistake.
There is no need to ostracize religiously the apostates who have repudiated Judaism in favor of liberalism. They have disassociated themselves from the Jewish faith and the Jewish State to the point where they now enthusiastically align themselves with anti-Semites. Why bother excommunicating those who have already deserted? Good riddance.
Allowing the most inflexible and intolerant positions of power where they can try and enforce their view of Judaism on other Israeli Jews and draw needless lines in the sand between Jews in the USA and Israel is very bad for the Jewish people and Israel.
Rationalizing that many liberal Jews voted for Obama so they deserve to be religiously ostracized is ludicrous.
Yes those that support Obama and his policies should be criticized but for those positions and the error of that support. By the way many who voted for Obama now see the error of their ways (Jews and non- Jews).
What supporters of Israel should do is tell the truth. “Liberal” and “progressive” are distinctions without a difference. Three quarters of American Jews voted for an anti-Semite who is facilitating the nuclear destruction of Israel, and then they voted for him again. The “liberals” voted for this enemy of Israel. The “progressives” voted for this enemy of Israel.
Liberal. Progressive. Synonyms for the same mental disorder. Let us not tolerate manipulative word games where the survival of our precious Israel is concerned. Just as we must challenge those who are anti-Semitic, we must also challenge those who are anti-Semantic.
You were doing well until your last sentence. What supporters of Israel should be doing is strengthening each other, and marginalizing the “Progressive” elements of Reform Jewry and people like J street. The problem lies mainly with such “progressives” and their attempt to co-opt liberals.
Was it the fault of the Orthodox that American Jewry remained silent during the Holocaust? Or when American Jewry embraced Yasser Arafat as a peacemaker? Or when American Jewry twice voted to elect as president a miscreant who spent twenty years attending an anti-Semitic church?
American Jewry is alienated for reasons having nothing to do with the Orthodox, and everything to do with worshiping the false idol of Leftism. Seeking to appease American Jewry is a fool’s errand because it is impossible to appease blasphemous cowards.
What happens 20 years from now, when the higher birthrate of the Orthodox and Haredim make them an even bigger percentage of the population than they are now, and eventually a majority?
Even if you think you can counter that with immigrants from Europe, keep in mind that it is the more religious French Jews, for example, those who are religious enough to wear kipas, that are disproportionately leaving for Israel; not the less observant Jews.
This begs the issue: What does it mean to be a Jewish State? Surely it is not a secular association of those who happen to be Jews by descent. And who are such Jews; those by Halacha or those by assertion?