Advertisement
July 30, 2009
Jewish history is replete with threats from outsiders who sought to annihilate the Jewish people or the Jewish state. From the Amalakites to the Babylonians to the Romans to the Nazis, Jews have felt threatened from without. Yet, according to the Talmud, the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 CE because of unbridled hatred between and among Jews. The tradition asserts that God permitted the Romans to succeed in their siege and attack of Jerusalem because Jews could not get along with other Jews.
A brief review of some recent news demonstrates tragically how prevalent, still, is the hostility today between segments of the Jewish community. The venom and actions of various segments of the religious denominations remain appalling.
For example, protests by some members of the fervently Orthodox, or haredi, community in Jerusalem have engaged in violent protests over a decision to keep a parking lot opposite the Jaffa Gate entrance to the Old City operating on Shabbat for the benefit of secular and non-Jewish drivers. Never mind that the protests themselves, which include rock throwing, can be seen as a violation of the Sabbath.
Haredim also protested the Jerusalem bus company’s decision to provide separate buses for men and women along routes serving their communities.
Religious Zionist authorities, representing Modern Orthodoxy, are slowly losing both their grips on communal and political power as well as religious authority in Israel. Religious Zionist schools, having failed to recruit their own, are now being staffed by more religious rabbis and teachers. Observers worry about students forsaking their religious Zionist upbringing, or becoming so alienated that they opt out of religious life entirely.
Some rabbis are demanding largely and more generous subsidies for haredi, non-Zionist schools as the political price for their remaining in the government coalition. At the same time, some rabbis are instructing their soldier/students not to participate in public ceremonies which include singing by female soldiers.
And as open, religious outreach decreases secular defiance increases.
On the larger matter of “church”-state relations in Israel, a complex trend has begun to develop. More and more Jews, across the religious spectrum, favor some form of separation between religion and government in Israel. But with the locus of religious power shifting to the right, the coming debate could ignite a major new round of recriminations. This, in turn, affects millions of Jews in the Diaspora. Clearly, amicable ways need to be found to address the religious controversies over matters involving personal status, such as marriage, divorce, and conversion.
Increasing the potential for misunderstanding and hostility, even in the United States, is the fact that fewer and fewer Orthodox Jews, both haredim as well as Modern Orthodox, have meaningful interaction with their coreligionists of other denominations. And it’s not just an “Orthodox” issue”: Turf fights and political clout have more appeal among all the denominations than finding common ground. In a recent travel program to Israel involving young American rabbinical students and their American protestant seminary student counterparts, both the Jewish and Christian facilitators made a startling observation: The Jewish participants not only came without having interacted with Protestant clergy-in-training, but few had any prior substantive interaction with Jews of other denominations.
Too many Jews do not respect each other, in the United States and Israel. On Tisha B’Av one must contemplate whether internal divisiveness among Jews is so bitter today that Jews may not need help from anti-Semites and radical fundamentalists to destroy the Jewish people.
Gilbert N. Kahn is a professor of political science at Kean University in Union (e-mail gkahn@kean.edu).
For more on issues of religion and state in Israel see Joel Katz’s blog, http://religionandstateinisrael.blogspot.com.
Comment: comments@njjewishnews.com
--TOP--