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| Yisroel Beiteinu leader, Avigdor Lieberman (JOL) |
Although a huge proportion of Israelis (probably most) are traditional; have a strong sense of Jewish identity; and actually have a variety of Jewish practices (such
as fasting on Yom Kippur and having a Seder on Pesach) - forcing them to be
fully observant would be a prescription for disaster.
As I often say, you can’t
shove religion down peoples’s throats. You have to show them the beauty of
observant Judaism and let them experience it for themselves. Trying to force someone
to be fully observant by Orthodox standards will cause them to run the other
way.
On the other hand, a Jewish state must have the basic
elements of Judaism in order to be called Jewish. Without that, there would not be anything Jewish about it.
Judaism at its core is Halachic. While it is also cultural,
that is merely a by-product. For a nation to retain its enduring character, it
must have enduring values that are not subject to change with the winds of time
– as is the case with Jewish culture. The enduring values that have kept us a people
for centuries is the Torah. By following its immutable laws over the centuries,
we have persevered. That is how we perpetuated ourselves as a people.
Bearing these two disparate ideas in mind, what should Israel
do? On the one hand they cannot be fully Halachic and expect everyone to toe
that line. On the other hand if it is Halacha that defines Judaism, how can it
NOT be Halachic?
As I have mentioned many times before, both the Chazon Ish who
was considered the Gadol HaDor of his time by many Jews - and the state of Israel’s founder, David Ben
Gurion who was decidedly secular recognized that conundrum and agreed to a compromise
that has become known as the status quo agreement. Which meant that whatever conditions
were in place in both religious and secular terms would define the Jewish state
from that point forward.
Among other things that meant that Shabbos would be the
official day of rest; Jewish holidays would be legal holidays; Kashrus would be
observed in every government agency (including the military) and that full time
Yeshiva students would be officially exempt from army service.
It is no secret that the last one is currently one of the
biggest issues facing Israel right now. That agreement was
intended for the select few that were full time Yeshiva students. Which if
I understand correctly was about 400 students strong back then.
Indeed that exemption paralleled a similar one in
the United States where at the time students studying for the clergy were exempt (the famous 4D clergy exemption)
from the draft. The idea being that a country needs spiritual
leaders... that it was a calling which required full time dedication and
training. I doubt that there was much if any opposition back then to such exemptions
(with the possible exception of the few truly anti religious political leaders in Israel.)
Things are a bit different today. With well over 50,000 exemptions
which is the vast majority of Charedi young people, it has become a real bone of
contention between the religious parties and the secular ones.
I – for one – agree that it is a grossly unjust system that
exempts an entire class of people from the obligations every other class of
people (with the exception of Arab Israelis) are subject to. While there is no official exemption of Charedim as a class, that is in effect how it all shakes out.
The problem is the status quo agreement. In theory it
exempts all full time yeshiva students. Which in practice exempts them all. While that is slowly changing as the Israeli government
tries to accommodate Charedi sensibilities in all Charedi army units, the fact is
that the vast majority of young Charedim still do not serve.
Making matters worse is that army service is denigrated by much of the Charedi world with claims that they disabuse religious recruits from observance.
Which has spawned some of the more extreme Charedim in places like Meah
Shearim to verbally and even physically assault Charedi recruits when they spot
them in their neighborhoods!
As an aside in my view a just solution to this problem would be to eliminate
the draft and make an all volunteer army. But I do’t see that happening any
time soon. In the alternative, the ideal would be to exempt only the most elite
students among them. The rest should be subject to the same draft as everyone else. What proportion of students should get that exemption is a good question. But clearly not all
of them. Perhaps not even most of them. Especially now that the government is
bending over backwards to accommodate them.
Meanwhile there are factions - or should I say individuals -
in Israeli politics that have another agenda. I appreciate that as a
secular Jew, Avigdor Lieberman has no interest in religion. But he is currently
on a tear to eliminate religion from the state. It appears that he doesn’t care that much about his Jewish heritage. Nor does he apparently care about the Jewish state really.
He only cares about himself.
It was not all that long ago where Lieberman got along nicely with
the religious parties. But now he wants a state free of them.
Lieberman is responsible for destroying what should have been
a clear victory for a center-right ruling coalition government. This is how
the population voted. Unfortunately it came by way of a number of parties, both
large and small. From center–right to extreme right.
Likud, the party with the
most votes (and thereby the most Keneset seats) needed to cobble together a coalition with the smaller parties in order to form the majority (61 seats) needed form a ruling coalition. The Charedi parties agreed. Lieberman refused to join such a coalition
unless his demands of eliminating all Charedi exemptions from the army were met.
The Charedi parties were even willing to
compromise on their own demands and allow for a quota of Charedim to be drafted. Lieberman refused. He now
insists that he will not join in any coalition that includes the Charedi
parties. Status quo? What status quo?! Without Lieberman, there are not enough seats to
form a coalition. That means new elections. Here (from JOL) is what he wants to
accomplish:
‘We will force a government with the Likud and with Blue and White, which will be an emergency government, a national-liberal government. And we will do everything to block the ultra-Orthodox, who will not be allowed into the government,” he said.
I have no love lost for the Charedi parties. I neither love
them nor hate them. Sometimes I support them and sometimes I don’t. But this
time they are not the villains. Lieberman is. If I were an Israeli voter that in
the past supported Lieberman – I would drop that support like a lead balloon - and
vote for Likud. Let Liberman’s party die by virtue of not meeting the minimum
number of seats required by law to secure a place in the next Keneset. That would be poetic justice.
