1. Two handsome and well-dressed men smiled wide smiles at me from the pages of the newspaper Hebrew Yisrael Hayom's weekend magazine. The tall one, the one whose shirt had tiny checks that matched his blue sweater perfectly, was Rick Jacobs, president of the American Reform Movement The shorter one at his side, the one with a winning smile whose burgundy colored tie had gray dots the exact shade of the gray in his suit jacket, is Jacob Blumenthal, CEO of the Conservative Movement.
My first thought was – I wonder if a rabbi who is not good-looking could be chosen for a high level position in the Reform Movement, if good looks are a prerequisite for leadership of an attractive and progressive form of Judaism. But never mind, why am I talking about color coordination, when that is not the problem I have with them. The problem is not the picture, but the headline: "Bennett was the architect of the current outline, now he has to take the next step," they say-cum-demand, and the subtitle goes one step further: "We received a promise from the government that there would be progress." Oh, and there is another quote, another statement from the handsome visitors from abroad: "Israel is becoming more extreme and less pluralistic." That is worrying. Who wants to live in a state that is turning extremist?
2. In the confused age of "inclusion" in which we live, there are people who do not understand why we have to fight the Reform or Conservative movements. Fine, we don't agree with them, so what. Who says we have to agree with everyone? Let's concentrate on what's good about us – and we can do the same for what is good about them. Why, aren't they Jews by their definition? True, there in America the Judaism is somewhat different, the main thing is that they stay connected to their kind of Judaism and attend their Temple every Shabbat. Or drive there. It's better than nothing. After all, their intentions are good. So why go to those mass prayers at the Kotel every Rosh Chodesh [and clash with the self-styled "Women of the Wall"]? And why does MK Dudi Amsalem insult Reform MK Gilad Kariv like that from the Knesset podium?
Fine. This is a serious topic with a long term history and a great amount of background data. We can go back almost 200 years to the period of Rabbi Samson Rafael Hirsch, the major thinker of enlightened German Orthodoxy, who spearheaded an impassioned no-holds-barred battle against the Reform Movement. We can go back just a few decades to the uncomprising and resolute battle of that great lover of Israel, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, against Reform conversions. But I am not the type to delve deeply, I haven't the strength to search archives and I have no patience for long texts. So I will simply quote from last week's newspaper. Believe me, we don't need any more than that.
3. The Reform Movement adopts lenient definitions for the question of "who is a Jew." Reporter Chana Greenwood writes that in a 2017 survey 84% of Reform clergy admitted that they would perform intermarriages. "Research proves that Judaism attracts many people," Jacobs explains, "and they see our tradition as a wonderful way to raise a family and promote values such as charity and the Sabbath. Judaism is very popular because of our way of things – a nice way to live a meaningful life. We spread our arms to embrace people instead of pushing them away."
I would stop here for a minute and dwell on Jacob's choice of words. Every word needs to be studied. Take the sentence "to promote values such as charity and the Sabbath." His not using the word "mitzvah" is not an oversight." Because "mitzvah" means t here is also "aveira", transgression. And that means a proscribed system of commandments, laws and prohibitions including that outdated and off-putting one forbidding marriage with non-Jews. In contrast, words like "values" and "meaningful life" are more embracing and do not push people away as much.
But again, why am I going into small details when Blumenthal, the ostensibly more traditional of the two, is not Reform, just Conservative, and says clear things praising the inclusion of those who assimilate: "It is hard for people in Israel to understand this, because here the majority are Jews. But in other places we are a small minority. People meet different partners, and we have to choose whether to push them away or embrace them. When we open our arms to embrace them, we see the next generation of Judaism." This is a supreme value, repeated in almost every answer, which trumps every other Jewish value, even circumcision: opening your arms to embrace.
4. So what do Jacobs and Blumenthal want from our extremist country? After all, they do not live here. Not they and not their flock. Well, they came for a visit with other hotshots in their respective movements in order to get the Kotel agreement moving. The realize that the current political constellation, with the Jewish majority removed from power and a government composed of parties even more progressive and liberal than they are, grants them an opportunity that will not repeat itself any time soon. "It was fantastic to speak with the prime minister and discover that he understands our problem," gushed Blumenthal. "We realize it will time time, but believe that there will be progress, we believe that this government encourages the varied voices in Israel and the Jewish world."
Actually, I agree with them on this point. Entirely. I also believe with complete faith that this government's term is going to see progress in those spheres. More accurately, a most dangerous retreat. By the way, this was their first meeting with an Israeli prime minister in six years because Binyamin Netanyahu had no contact with them. "Prime Minister Bennett was the architect of the Kotel agreement in its original form, and built the area that is at the Kotel today. Now he has to take the next step," says Blumenthal. "It is an opportunity for him to head not only Israel but all of world Jewry."
Amazing how the heads of the Reform Movement know how to discern Bennett's weaknesses. More than some important Orthodox rabbis do. They went straight to his ego. You've become prime minister? Your dream came true? That's nice, but now you have the chance to be the leader of the entire Jewish world, from India to Ethiopia (a quote from the Megillah, ed.) Wouldn't it be a shame to miss out on it?
5 But just a minute, what do they actually want from Bennett? Back in 2013 when he was Diaspora Minister (and head of the Jewish Home party!) he built them a respectable area of their own at the Kotel. Well, that's the whole point. The area built at a cost of millions is not good enough for them. They want a place that is part of the Kotel Plaza (it is important to know that what they have now is already part of the Kotel, which is sanctified along its entire length, but they want to be at the Kotel Plaza).
Why? I will have to digress from the theme of this article and quote a few sentences, with your permission. Not from the article in Yisrael Hayom but from a pr video that the Reform Movement in Israel put online several weeks ago: "The Kotel plan is in the headlines again, but who cares about the Kotel?" Reform women leaders ask, one saying: "I have only been there once or twice in my life for a bar mitzvah or IDF swearing in ceremony. So why should you care about what they are all fighting about?
And here is the shockingly frank answer: "Because it is not about the Kotel. Not at all. Not carrying out the Kotel agreement makes having public transportation on Shabbat and civil marriages harder to attain as well. The battle over the Kotel plan is syumbolic, because that is the holiest place for the Jewish people and it is in the hands of extremist haredim (not so, ed.) who think the Kotel is an inheritance from their father and act like hooligans towards anyone who prays differently, both men and women. So why is the Kotel in the headlines again? Because this is a one-time opportunity, we have a government without haredim (and the Religious Zionist party, ed.) when the heads of the parties in the coalition, like Lapid, Michaeli and Liberman, are committed to the Kotel agreement."
"But those opposing the agreement are going wild again," they end as the background changes to those gentle sweet women at the Kotel with their colorful Sifrei Torah contrasted with the black fanatic haredim who are not inclusive to them. "They also know that the minute the haredi monopoly on the Kotel is freed, it will finally allow us to move on civil marriages and public transportation on Shabbat, and in general reduce the haredi control of all of our lives. Then, just as you are not willing for the Rabbinate to dictate your plate, your womb and your transportation, you will not allow the Rabbinate to control the Kotel."
(Ed. For the record, Religious Zionists are against changing the prayer tradition at the Kotel, and the principles of Religious Zionism are diametrically opposed to the plans for transportation on Shabbat and civil marriage, etc. Also, not one of the ethnic groups of Jews who were part of the Ingathering of the Exiles, who actually live in Israel and whose customs vary greatly, wanted to change the tradition for praying at the Kotel]
6 Plate, womb, car. No one can beat those Reform Movement copywriters. That's how it is when your campaign has unlimited funding from foreign NGOs that want to change Israel, the one Jewish State, to a "country of all its citizens" (an Israeli euphemism for not being a Jewish State, ed.) With what ease they succeed in marketing deep and serious issues such as kosher food (plate), surrogate motherhood (womb) and the Jewish identity in the public sphere of the Jewish State (transportation) – well, it is not so certain that they are succeeding in marketing this, but they keep trying. Non-stop.
And despite it all, despite the progressive narrative promoted by the media, we know where lie the hearts of most of the Jewish people here – haredi, religious Zionist, traditional, and, yes, secular – on the issues of the Kotel and on guarding Jewish traditions in general. According to the sympathetic and supportive article, there are 53 Reform congregations in Israel. There are tens of thousands of Orthodox synagogues, and hundreds of yeshivas (Mir Yeshiva alone has 6000 students). The Reform have failed miserably here, they are seen as bizarre, and it's time Israelis knew that in the USA they are dwindling constantly, intermarrying and assimilating. Less than 50% of Amerrican Temple members are halakhically Jewish and that includes their clergy. More and more Reform and Conservative Temples are closing, renting out rooms or selling, some to churches.
Still, these handsome clergymen think, with not a small amount of chutzpah, that they are the ones who should be deciding how the Jewish state, in which they do not live, should operate. Ah, there is another issue upon which they refuse to compromise: The Conversion Plan put forward by Matan Kahana, passed by the Knesset Law Committee, has a paragraph that the plan will not affect non-Orthodox conversion. This is the first time this kind of "conversion" is to be found in a law of the State of Israel. That, however, does not satisfy them. Because this recognition is only for the purpose of obtaining citizenship, and they want their "conversions" (that don't even require circumcision, remember?) recognized as affording entitlement to every religious right in the State of Israel.
"I respect the right of Orthodox congregations to decide who is a Jew within their community," says Blumenthal graciously, also referring to the Gentile refugees that are expected to arrive from Ukraine. "But how can it be that there is only one way to decide who is a citizen in the State of Israel? The state has to embrace everyone, including those who converted by our standards." Hey, we haven't been hugged in a while. It's been a long time since the majority of those living in the State of Israel and our Chief Rabbinate were turned into a "group of Orthodox congregations."
There is one issue not mentioned in the article that reached the headlines this week and from which a great deal can be learned: The fight over allowing leavened bread, chametz, into IDF bases on Passover, which has not been allowed since the early days of the IDF. We were somehow not surprised to discover that the main claimant in the lawsuit filed in Israel's courts, accompanied by several extremist anti-religious groups, is none other than Uri Regev, a Reform rabbi who is president of the World Organization for Progressive Judaism.
Let's say there are Jews who do not refrain from eating chametz on Passover ("karet", the biblical punishment for that transgression is not an inclusive word, I know). Is it necessary to go to court to have it order IDF bases to allow chametz to be freely on display on Passover? Don't you trust the soldiers themselves, who serve alongside their friends and are willing to risk their lives on the battlefield with them, share the same tent and the same mess tin out in the field, to get along with each other and respect Passover? I want to see the soldier, even a Druze one, who wants to eat a sandwich next to his Jewish friend, davka, purposely, during the week of Passover. Is this really an issue in which the courts should be involved? Judicial activism has to be forced into passing judgment on this selfless sign of friendship?
Perhaps this is the underlying method, the system. Let's take values on which there is wall to wall consensus, those that have a tradition of being widely accepted - like the Kotel, chametz in the IDF on Passover, not marrying goyim – and start eroding them, little by little, until we are all made to think that there are "two sides" here.
Pay attention to the tactics. Like in the imaginary "dispute" over chametz in the IDF, at the Kotel everything has been peaceful for decades, both for the most stringently religious and the most extreme secularists. The holy Kotel plaza there knows how to be inclusive for everyone. Not to mention the consensus over the dangers of assimilation. How many Israeli mothers and fathers do you know who would not be deeply saddened if their children married non-Jews?
But when the narrative is changed in this way, then those who stick to the truth, the Torah, tradition, are suddenly extremists and divisive, while those who fly in from America, push themselves into Israel's mainstream - which knows how to get along tolerantly and tactfully - and try in every possible way to stir up controversy, are considered inclusive and well-bred.
Yedidya Meir is a well known Israeli journalist, lecturer, moderator,and media host, who is married to Sivan Rahav-Meir and lives in Jerusalem. He has a popular weekly column in the Hebrew weekly, BeSheva. Comments:. [email protected]
This article was translated by Rochel Sylvetsky from the Hebrew weekly BeSheva.
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