Happy New Year! A month ago I led a Lunch & Learn with one of our local Hadassah chapters focused on the challenges surrounding issues of pluralism in Israel that included a conversation about the monopoly that the Chief Rabbinate and the Ultra-Orthodox political parties have on issues of Jewish identity in Israel. The following two minute video, produced by the Masorti (Conservative) movement in Israel, delivers a powerful message, asking how it is possible that Israel is the only state in the Western World where a Jew may not live a fully Jewish life; where a Jew lacks the freedom to choosewhen it comes to many religious issues such as marriage, divorce, or conversion.
With this conversation at the forefront of my mind, I was unfortunately not surprised in recent weeks to hear the stories coming out of Beit Shemesh, Jerusalem, where an eight year old girl named Naama Margolese (the daughter of modern Orthodox American immigrants to Israel) became terrified walking to her elementary school after some Ultra-Orthodox men spit on her, insulted her, and called her a prostitute because she was not dressed “modestly” enough in their eyes. To read about these incidents, check out the following articles from the NY Times and Ejewishphilanthropy.com.
And if this was all not bad enough: In response to the negative press, a group of Ultra-Orthodox Jews protested in the streets of Jerusalem, choosing to demonstrate their outrage through a truly despicable display–by wearing yellow stars and striped prison camp uniforms in an effort to communicate their own feelings of being religiously oppressed. Not only were these demonstrations insulting to the majority of Israelis whose religious lives are controlled by the Ultra-Orthodox minority, they also completely demeaned all victims and survivors of the Holocaust through their chosen symbolism ( see article).
The only good to come out of these incidents and others like them recently is that they seem to have brought the issue of religious pluralism and tolerance in Israel out into the public square in a more vocal way than we have seen for a number of years. I was also pleased to read that there were members of the Orthodox community in the United States, such as Rabbi Shaul Robinson, of The Lincoln Square Synagouge who wrote essays condemning these acts of intolerance and senseless hatred and calling on the Orthodox community to condemn this type of behavior in the clearest possible terms.
These issues are not new. I was in a group that was spit upon, called names, and had trash thrown at us nearly fifteen years ago as we were forced out of the Western Wall plaza by Ultra Orthodox Jews who did not like to see men and women praying together. It was and remains the most Anti Semetic attack I have ever experienced. But perhaps this year will be different. Perhaps this year, Israeli’s will begin to fight back against the religious intolerance that all too often makes Jewish life in the Jewish state unnecessarily painful, complicated, and distressing. No one type of Jew has a lock on God’s love. Let us pray that incidents like this remind all Jews, to remember that we are all made in God’s image. And that Hillel’s famous advice thousands of years ago is still relevant today: “What is hateful to you, do not do unto your neighbor.” The rest is commentary, go and study (Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 31a).”