RISHON LEZION, Israel — The Jewish State may soon have to decide what it means to be, well, Jewish:
Israel is essentially a secular country, but it ceded its sovereignty on issues of personal status and conversion to the rabbinic establishment. In Lieberman’s vision, the state would be the sole sovereign, and even the rabbis would be subordinate to it. Thus no separation between religion and state would be possible. Lieberman is the first politician to declare that the state should be religious, but the rabbis should not be the ones who determine what this means.
As I noted in prior Letters from Israel (see here and here), the Jewish State was founded by secular Zionists who focused on Judaism as an ethnicity rather than a religion. Israel became both officially Jewish and officially secular. The founders gave the Orthodox establishment the right to rule in religious and personal affairs like conversion and marriage as a political play to gain their support. (The founders also assumed, wrongly, that religion would slowly fade away anyway following the Holocaust.)
Although the Israeli rabbinate is part of the Interior Ministry on paper, they are independent in practice. Governments rarely interfere. However, the strength of the religious community grew over the ensuing decades because most immigrants to Israel were religious Jews from the Middle East and the West. Only extremely religious people, it is assumed, would sacrifice the comforts of the West for a harder life in the Jewish State, but this is increasingly false as immigration from the West is growing as a result of anti-Semitism in Europe and the financial crisis.
Fundamentalism has been increasing throughout the world’s three monotheistic religions, and Israel has been no exception. The rabbinate has essentially come under the control of ultra-Orthodox Jews, called charedim, and more and more secular and modern Orthodox Israelis are upset at this fact. This is one reason why Israeli Beiteinu leader Avigdor Lieberman has skyrocketed in popularity.
But the whole debate focuses on how Israel should maintain itself as a Jewish state. Even if we set aside the question of Jewish ethnicity or Jewish religion, the central issue remains: Who has the responsibility to preserve Israel as a Jewish state? So far, it has been the responsibility of an independent rabbinate. In Lieberman’s vision, it would become the concern of the government. But there is a third possibility as well: Take the government and the official rabbinate out of the equation, and leave it for the people themselves. Each individual would chose whether or how to live as a Jew in Israel.
Each of these approaches has potential negative outcomes. The current rabbinate is corrupt and extremist. If the government were to rule in these matters, then Judaism would change to suit whatever party happened to control the government at a given time. If the people were free to choose for themselves, then Judaism might slowly lose its hold in Israel since roughly sixty percent of Israelis are secular. Religion in Israel — like everything else in the Middle East — is very complex and controversial.
