The Ramle Conference, the first of its kind, will deal with the relationship between the Jewish people and the non-Jewish minorities living in Israel.
Under the banner “Ramle Conference: Between Israel and the Nations,” the Komemiyut movement, together with the religious core group that has settled in the mixed Jewish-Arab city of Ramle, will host the conference on Sunday.
“Israel’s status as at once a Jewish state, which contains members of other peoples and other national minorities, which also provide labor pools, present Israeli society with difficult contradictions,” organizers stated. “The goal of the conference is to bring up for public discourse the extensive issues of this reality, to address the problems experienced on a day-to-day basis and to suggest both local and national solutions.”
Leaders in the relevant fields will address the conference, organizers say. “We see special importance in the involvement of educators and rabbis in the conference, be it in discerning the nation’s response to the problem of the Arab minority and the opening of the discussion from a viewpoint of Torah,” the added.
Rabbis taking part in the conference include Komemiyut’s Rabbi Zalman Melamed, head of the Beit El Yeshiva and chief rabbi of the Binyamin-region town of Beit El, who will talk about the Jewish legal aspects of the minorities’ residence in the Land of Israel. Prof. Aryeh Stav, who heads the Ariel Center for Policy Research in Israel and edits the Nativ journal, will address the living conditions of various minority groups living in Israel. Tzfat Chief Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu will address the dilemma posed by the seemingly contradictory precepts of “Lo techanem” (“Don’t allow them a foothold”) and “Darchei Shalom” (“Ways of peace”).
Also addressing the conference are several members of religious core groups settled in mixed Jewish-Arab and Jewish-Druze towns, who will present their experiences and dilemmas. Rabbi Yisrael Samet, who heads the religious core-group settled in Lod; Aviv Ziegelman, who headed the core-group living in the Galilee village of Peki’in prior to riots several months ago in which the homes of the core-group members were burned and looted; and members of the core-group in Acco will all appear.
Rabbi Dov Lior, Chief Rabbi of Kiryat Arba and Hevron, will address Jewish legal questions raised by those living in mixed cities, while MK Uri Ariel (National Union) will suggest ways to overcome problems Jews living in such areas are facing.
There is also a plenary session dedicated to the concept of Avoda Ivrit – Jewish Labor – an early Zionist ideal that has enjoyed a rebirth in the hilltop communities of Judea and Samaria, where residents eschew cheap PA Arab labor in favor of Jewish construction. Most recently, Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, one of the leading sages of the hareidi-religious world, ruled that hiring Arabs is a security-risk forbidden by Torah law.
Dr. Yitzchak Klein of the Israel Policy Center will address the question of whether such a concept is viable in today’s global economy. The panel will discuss the ramifications of Jewish labor and whether it has a place in the modern world, practically as well as ethically. Also taking part in that discussion will be Ramat Gan Yeshiva Head Rabbi Yaakov Ariel and Rabbi David Dudkevitch, rabbi of Yitzhar in Samaria.
The session is dedicated in memory of Ido Zoldan, a pioneer in the realm of Jewish labor who was murdered last November near his Shomron home by a terror cell that included a Palestinian Authority police officer. Ramle’s Chief Rabbi Yechiel Abuchatzeira, as well as Nachman Zoldan, Ido’s father, who runs the Kedumim 3000 construction company, will offer words of blessing to open the conference. Prior to his hospitalization, former Sephardic Chief Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu was scheduled to attend as well.
The conference is taking place from 10:30 AM to 6:30 PM at the Eshkol HaPayis community center on 6 HaZayit Street in Ramle Sunday, April 27.