Issues of religion and state are expected to be on the new government’s agenda on a regular basis, from questions of kashrut (kosher) supervision and conversion, to public transportation on Shabbat and the “supermarkets law” (regulating commerce on Shabbat). The Israel Hayom newspaper reports that members of the new “unity” government now intend to establish a commission that will examine all these issues and expand government intervention in affected areas – despite assurances given in the past by the Yamina party that they had no intention of dramatically altering the state-religion status quo.
A number of the issues they intend to examine – for example, that of public transportation on Shabbat – go to the very heart of the debate on clashes of religion and state policy. The incoming government now wants the new commission (which is to be established within the Ministry of Religious Affairs) to set new objectives in the area of state and religion, and to focus its efforts in a different direction from how things were done in the past.
A senior government official has confirmed that the government intends to advance discussion and reach agreements on matters pertaining to public Shabbat observance, as was attempted more than 20 years ago by Justice Ruth Gavison and Rabbi Yaakov Meidan. Their aim was to regulate, once and for all, the relationship between secular and religious behavior in the public sphere – an attempt that was considered groundbreaking in its time. Their conclusions were never adopted, however, due to the necessity of obtaining the consent of sectors from across the spectrum – which never materialized.
“Unfortunately, the Gavison-Meidan program was not adopted,” the official told IsraelHayom, “which is why we have reached this situation we now find ourselves in. If their program had been adopted, there wouldn’t be any problems today,” he claimed.
According to him, there is no intention of harming the haredi sector, even though the government does intend to deal with issues considered explosive. “The Gavison-Meidan plan succeeded in developing an excellent solution for the issue of public transportation on Shabbat, and we should implement that now,” the official said, adding that, “the solutions we develop should be overall, not patchy or ‘salami-style’ [i.e. making only one small move at a time in order to reach an ultimate goal without arousing intense opposition].
“Look at what happened in practice over the past years,” he continued. “What do we see now? There’s public transport on Shabbat, there’s commerce – so in effect, they eroded the image of Shabbat in Israel. We need to establish a commission that will decide – yes to this, no to that. And it is indeed possible to reach agreements that will satisfy everyone.”
He adds that, “The haredim always prefer to freeze things as they are, but they end up losing out. The fact of the matter is that there is commerce on Shabbat, and the reason is that there haven’t been any attempts made to provide a solution. If you say ‘all or nothing,’ in the end, you end up with nothing.”
The government allegedly plans to do something like what has happened, for example, in the city of Harish, where an agreement was reached between the religious mayor and the religious local council that there would be no commerce in the center of town on Shabbat, but the mall at the entrance to the city would be allowed to remain open. “We want to move in this direction,” the official says. “Ultra-conservatism doesn’t get us anywhere. We have to downgrade this debate and reach agreements.”
Incoming Religious Affairs Minister Matan Kahana (Yamina) has already indicated, at the ceremony of the ‘changing of the guard’ in his ministry, that he is interested in implementing changes. “Judaism has become a polarizing factor,” he said. “Judaism should be something that joins us together and unites us. We are going to implement new policies, and I want to see things being done differently from now on.”
The new government is expected to advance reforms in the areas of conversion and kashrut supervision, attempts which in the past were responded to by intense attacks on the part of the haredi political parties. In addition, a process of identifying with a view to appointing new local rabbis has already begun – as part of another initiative that will happen in the near future, to alter the status of the Chief Rabbinate, and also to change the nature of the body that chooses the country’s Chief Rabbis, such that national-religious candidates can be appointed to the positions.
Members of the Yamina party have indicated that they intend to implement wide-reaching changes in areas of state and religion, and that they hope to obtain support from across the spectrum including from relatively liberal sectors, which is likely to arouse the opposition of the haredi sector. In the past, attempts to change the law as it pertains to conversions aroused strong opposition from the haredim, leading to the proposed changes being abandoned. Despite significant differences between the various parties in the current coalition on all manner of other issues, the issue of state and religion is largely one of consensus, and it is therefore expected that they will reach understandings that could bring about revolutionary changes in issues at the very heart of orthodox Judaism – from conversion and kashrut to public transportation and commerce on Shabbat.