Yehuda Bauer Is Israel’s Government anti-Semitic?
In
the Western world, even in its less laudable parts, violating the
rights of religious Jews to pray according to their own custom is
considered a clear sign of anti-Semitism.
As is known, the Israeli government has withdrawn from the agreement to
allow non-Orthodox Jews to pray in the area at the southern end of the
Western Wall – which is not part of the space controlled by the Orthodox
and ultra-Orthodox. Can we say, therefore, that the Israeli government
has adopted an anti-Semitic policy?
It’s true that the Western Wall
itself is a complicated issue. It was built on the orders of Herod – a
lackey to the Romans and a murderous despot – as the outer wall of the
Temple Mount courtyard. The late Yeshayahu Leibowitz considered prayer
at the Kotel and placing notes among its stones idol worship and the
sanctification of dead stones. Indeed, prayer at the Western Wall is
actually praying to stones, and a religious person has no reason to
assume his God will hear prayer directed at those stones any more than
prayer recited elsewhere.
However,
liberal religious Jews don’t see things like that and accept the
problematic Orthodox assumption that this is a holy site. One can, of
course, ask whether the fact that the Temple stood a certain distance
from this wall 1,943 years ago really makes these stones holy, and
whether such an idea can be part of any religious Jewish outlook.
Ostensibly, no; in practice – and very surprisingly – yes.
In
any case, the decision to prevent liberal Jews from praying there is
like a resounding slap in the face – from a government that presumes to
be Jewish, but is controlled by the Haredim and religious Zionists – to
the majority of people in the world who identify as Jewish.
What
is the political background to this situation? Orthodox Zionists and
Haredim together constitute about 10 percent of world Jewry. In Israel,
these two religious groups, according to data and surveys, account for
some 21 percent of Israeli Jews (40 percent see themselves as secular,
and the rest as traditional with varying degrees of religious
observance).
The
representatives of the two ultra-Orthodox parties in the Knesset (Shas
and United Torah Judaism) hold 13 seats, while the religious-Zionist
Habayit Hayehudi has eight – in total, 21 (17.5 percent) of all Israelis
lawmakers. According to various reports, there are another seven MKs
who identify as religiously observant, meaning a total of 28 (or 23.3
percent) of all MKs. This division quite accurately reflects the results
of the abovementioned polls. So we have a situation in which a small
minority of Haredi and religious-Zionist Jews prevents other Jews from
enjoying freedom of worship.
In
addition, non-Orthodox Jews in Israel cannot marry or divorce, except
in an Orthodox context. The insult to most of world Jewry and the denial
of the right of (non-Orthodox) Jews to enjoy their basic freedom and to
marry according to their worldview is a unique phenomenon. Israel is
the only Western country in which the government adopts such
anti-Semitic positions.
At
the same time, we are witnessing a dramatic rise in anti-Semitism in
the United States, which is home to nearly 6 million Jews. It is highly
likely that the present U.S. administration has released the latent
anti-Semitism that has existed all along in the United States from its
shackles. The fact that part of President Donald Trump’s family is
Jewish doesn’t make any difference here. Aside from his daughter and
son-in-law, his government includes a Jewish secretary of the Treasury
and a Jewish economics expert. There’s nothing new about this
phenomenon, which anti-Semites use against Jews because it is convenient
for them for a number of reasons. But that doesn’t prevent
anti-Semitism from flourishing.
American
Jewry – which, as noted, is liberal for the most part, both in its
religious and political outlook – is in a very difficult situation: In
Charlottesville, the racists and neo-Nazis demonstrated not against the
blacks, as they have done in the past, but against the Jews (the mayor
of Charlottesville is Jewish). Trump’s partial identification with these
protesters (“There were very fine people on both sides”) has created a
sense of siege.
This
was expressed last week in the declaration by organizations
representing Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist rabbis that they will refuse to speak to Trump
if he calls them for the usual round of greetings ahead of the upcoming
Jewish holy days. The Orthodox Rabbinical Council of America condemned
the white supremacists and their supporters in Charlottesville, but
announced it couldn’t refuse to speak to the president of the United
States if he wanted to greet them before the high holy days.
Liberal
American Jews are caught between the worrisome situation in their own
country – exhibitions of anti-Semitism with the partial support of the
president – and the attitude of the Israeli government. They can’t rely
on it, either. As opposed to the harsh condemnations heard from European
leaders against the far right in Charlottesville, the Israeli
government made do with a brief, perfunctory statement.
There’s
nothing new here. The Israeli government also responded with weak
statements against recent policies of the Polish and Hungarian
governments, which justified the anti-Semitic behavior of some citizens
(Poland) or the government (Hungary) during the Holocaust. It’s not the
fault of Israel’s Foreign Ministry, a large majority of whose employees
are experts in their field and are doing their best – especially when it
comes to combating anti-Semitism – without budgets or support from
above. What we have here is government policy in the name of economic
and security interests.
It
would be an exaggeration to say there’s an anti-Semitic government in
Israel. But it probably wouldn’t be a mistake to say this is a
government that’s adopting a policy that shows clear signs of
anti-Semitism toward the vast majority of the Jewish people.
Prof. Yehuda Bauer is a Holocaust scholar and academic adviser to Yad Vashem, the world Holocaust remembrance center.
Yehuda Bauer
Haaretz Contributor
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