WASHINGTON — American Jews who oppose Orthodox control over Israel’s religious affairs are hoping that Prime Minister-elect Ehud Barak will champion their cause.
Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch, executive director of the Association of Reform Zionists of America, has high expectations for the new premier.
“He has been absolutely consistent” in his opposition to any laws that destroy Jewish unity, Hirsch said.
Barak made his position clear two years ago, at the height of a controversial bid to codify Israel’s ban on non-Orthodox conversions.
“I will never support — and the Labor Party will never support — any legislation that threatens to divide the Jewish people,” he said.
He apparently hasn’t changed his position since then.
The Reform and Conservative movements have spent the last three years playing defense in the Knesset while waging battles in the Israeli courts to win official recognition of conversions performed by their rabbis and to gain government funding for their institutions.
They now expect an entirely different dynamic.
But will Barak stick with his promises made as leader of the opposition or will he move to accommodate the fervently religious?
The answer will be determined by how dependent Barak becomes on the fervently religious parties that made significant gains in this week’s elections.
Some religious pluralism advocates believe that the last Labor-led governments, under Rabin and then Shimon Peres, sacrificed those issues in order to gain support for their peace policies from the Orthodox parties.
But proponents of religious pluralism believe Barak will be different. They point to Barak’s agreement with the modern Orthodox movement Meimad, which joined his Labor/One Israel party list.
Labor and Meimad reached an agreement that would significantly transform the role of religion in Israel.
Based on a document hammered out earlier this year dubbed the “New Covenant on Religion and State,” the agreement calls for public transportation on Shabbat, as determined by the local authorities; the establishment of a framework for civil marriages in Israel, something which does not currently exist; and the transferring of jurisdiction of the religious courts from the Interior Ministry to the Ministry of Justice.
At the same time, the agreement bars all business and commercial transactions on Shabbat with the exception of cultural, sport and leisure activities.
Ismar Schorsch, chancellor of the Conservative movement’s Jewish Theological Seminary, said he expects Barak to follow the agreement as he seeks to reduce secular-religious tensions.
But at the same time, Schorsch predicted, Barak will tread carefully because “this government is not going to turn against the Orthodox.”
During his campaign this year, Barak reiterated his opposition to any legislation that would delegitimize Reform and Conservative Jews, including the controversial conversion bill.
“We will block it, we will not let it pass, we will raise our hands against it, period,” he vowed.
In January, he voted against Knesset legislation that would prevent non-Orthodox Jews from serving on local religious councils.
At the same time, Barak has stayed away during some other critical Knesset votes on the issue in recent years, including one last May in which the Knesset overwhelmingly rejected legislation calling for the separation of religion and state.
He also skipped a February rally in Jerusalem in support of the Israeli Supreme Court. The rally was held to counter a 250,000-strong Orthodox prayer demonstration against what the organizers termed the “anti-religious” rulings of the high court.
Many of Barak’s future positions will hinge on whether he decides to bring Shas, the fervently religious party that garnered 17 seats in this week’s vote, into his coalition.
But some Orthodox Jews in America are not so quick to dismiss the influence of the religious parties in Israel. Rabbi Avi Shafran, director of public relations for Agudath Israel of America, is one of them.
“We’ll see when push comes to shove” whether Barak sticks to his campaign promises, Shafran said.
“We’re hoping he will be, as he put it, ‘everybody’s prime minister,'” Shafran said.
Mandell Ganchrow, president of the Orthodox Union, hopes that Barak will include religious parties in his coalition.
“It’s not going to be what it was, but we should not say automatically the Orthodox community has lost its political punch,” he said.