The central Jewish prayer, the Shema, extols the oneness of God. We wish we could similarly extol the oneness of the Jewish people, but lately we see deep fractures —fractures that could lead to an erosion of diaspora Jewry’s support for Israel.
Some signs suggest that erosion is well underway.
In the wake of recent decisions by the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, most notably freezing plans for an egalitarian prayer space at the Kotel, and a potential law recognizing only ultra-Orthodox authority over conversions, much of the liberal Jewish world is fighting mad.
And this week we learned that the Chief Rabbinate has a list of certain North American rabbis — including Orthodox rabbis — whose conversions will not be accepted in Israel.
The reaction from America was swift. Reform leaders say they’ll target their Israel giving to match their values. The head of the Conservative movement warned a Knesset committee of “very real, very serious and very dangerous distancing” of diaspora Jews from Israel.
Some prominent Jewish voices, among them Rabbi Daniel Gordis, went so far as to encourage boycotts of Israeli products and services to apply economic pressure on the government to change course. Other U.S. rabbis have defiantly claimed a measure of pride for having been included on the “blacklist.”
What we are seeing is a heartrending rift at the heart of diaspora Jewish identity, and the gradual normalization of positions that would have been unthinkable not that long ago.
To prevent calamity, the Netanyahu government, along with the ultra-Orthodox minority that wags the dog in Israel, must acknowledge the hurt and anger they are causing, and then take a long look in the mirror. Do they really want to be remembered as the ones who dissolved the bonds between Israel and the diaspora?
Some say this is an internal Israeli matter, and that Jews who live elsewhere have no right to weigh in. That is absurd. The whole point of Zionism was to establish a homeland for all Jews. The Kotel belongs to all Jews, Israeli and non-Israeli, and the same goes for Judaism itself, in all of its colors and flavors.
It is gut-wrenching to witness this dispute, which may yet grow worse. But the vast majority of world Jewry does not accept that the Chief Rabbinate and its enablers in the Knesset have the last word on Judaism.
That’s for the Jews of the world to decide.
no one is barred from going to the kotel. but like all places, there are rules. this would be like catholics living outside of the vatican, demanding the vatican changes its rules for proper etiquette
and most of the jews who want to change the rules, also want to give back the area to the arabs
none of you really feel a kesher to the land….you just want to impose your failed “egalitarian” style of faux judaism on israel
in any case, the entire subject is moot. read the pew survey. your children are marrying non jews, sanctioned by your faux clergy
in a gen, you wont be jewish and wont have a voice
You trying to be the exemplar of the problem the editorial discusses? Because your casual dismissal of half of the world’s Jewry is really not good for the Jews.
they have dismissed themselves when they turned away from torah and mitzvot. read this week’s thoughts on the parsha. it is an abomination. turn away from your crum leaders and come back to hashem
I am responding because I am concerned with the divisions among Jews. So I’ll ask you what your goal really is. If it is to get liberal Jews to join you, do you think that condemning us is an effective strategy? Why not try to present your views and educate? Both here and in your ad hominem response to the commentary, you miss that opportunity. Why not, as did Hillel, engage with the subject? Pinchas’ actions have been viewed both positively AND negatively in commentary. Why not explain those positions instead of condemning those with whom you disagree or whom you feel are ignorant?
Liberal jews have made a choice to leave traditional judiasm. Most diaspira Jews have made the choice to assimilate into their diaspira homes and abandon Jewish culture. Those are valid choices. And while they sadden me, I respect them.
That doesn’t mean that I have to remake Israeli culture to validate them. You’re always welcome to return to Jewish culture and join in. But you don’t get to dictate terms to us. To make us change who we are to accommodate you.
The sad fact is that diaspora judaism is dying. In a couple generations the ease of goyish life will have completed the seduction of the non orthodox world and there’s nothing to be done. Your grandkids won’t be Jews no matter what we do. They won’t be supporting Israel.
The issue is how to prevent the same thing from happening in Israel. We are worried about ourselves and our culture. We want our grandkids to be Jews.
We don’t want to end up like you.
You make some valid points but I also find it problematic that you are here in effect whitesplaining to Israelis who are in their majority people of color — well over 50% by now descended from Middle Eastern and North African Jews. So, while you have a right to your opinions, I think you should check your privilege and think twice before making people feel unsafe.
Divisions among Jews is nothing new. Just recall a shameful time when El Emanuel in San Francisco refused to allow Golda Meir to speak. Or even a more shameful time when American Jews were unable or unwilling to unite during Holocaust. Kotel controversy is just a storm in a teacup., a nothingburger
Once again the revisionist movements spin the truth to make Israel look bad in the media. An national religious anti rabbinut pressure group called itim who is interested in setting up their own orthodox bet dins (which would of course exclude American non-orthodox sects-they have about as much use for you guys as the haredim) found a list made up by a low level employee of the rabbinut containing a list of 160 out of thousands if diaspora rabbis that this employee decided needed extra scrutiny. Once the chief rabbi found out about it he said the list was a bad thing.
It’s not a rabbinut problem it’s an Israeli thing. Low level burocrats do this sort of crap here at the car inspection place. But itim knows you guys have no understanding of Israeli culture and you’d be off to the races bashing Israel.
This isn’t the “rift.”
The rabbinut has the authority to manage judiasm in Israel. Has for seventy plus years. Israeli voters haven’t seen fit to change that. American rabbis are free to manage judiasm in the United States. Local communities have always had that ability and right in the Jewish world. And when you travel to another community you live by their standards if you want to be a part of that community.
The “rift” is American revisionist sects deciding to try and use the goyish media to paint Israel in a negative light unless they are given the right to set religious policy in Israel, a foreign country. A country whose people have shown no popular interest in their sects at all.
It’s the religious version of the Vietnam war or Iraq or Afghanistan where Americans decide to come into a foreign country and try and remake it in their own image. Do what we want or we’ll get you.
And in a country surrounded by hundreds of millions of people just waiting to slaughter us and in a world awash with Jew and Israel hatred all it’s not like one more crisis might distract us from the business of staying alive.
It’s just name calling right now. But I wonder what the body count is going to be. Wonder if you’ll enlist support for Arab terrorists into the struggle calling it intersectionality.
Not that you guys really care. What are human lives compared to having yourselves validated on your jewcations in Israel?
The rift is the arrogance of diaspora Jews that dehumanizes Israeli Jews into political statements and turn a country full of real people where you choose not to live into a political football for your lefty fantasies.
Israel hasn’t changed anything. You guys just decided to go after us.
There is no rabbinic blacklist – totally manufactured controversy with no facts behind it. Here’s my piece in the Jewish Journal of LA: http://jewishjournal.com/opinion/221459/theres-no-blacklist-rabbis/
Archival images from the mid-1800s show that mixed prayer, with men and women praying together, appears to be the norm at the Western Wall. In fact, the idea of partitioning prayer between men and women at the Western Wall is relatively modern, and was only put into practice after the unification of Jerusalem following the Six Day War in 1967. http://www.timesofisrael.com/when-men-and-women-prayed-together-at-the-western-wall/
>… partitioning prayer between men and women at the Western Wall …
… is the islamization of Judaism
More and more Orthodox Jews are acting more and more like the islamic extremists