Renegade Jews in Israel
Filed under: A New Reality, coexistence, General, Israeliness, Life, Religion
The community where I live is religiously mixed along the lines of most Israeli neighborhoods – mostly secular, some observant, some traditional. The religious establishment is very conservative, with a small C, and run under the stringent guidelines of the local chief rabbi. While synagogues dot the neighborhoods as frequently as mahkolot (convenience stores), there has never been an non-Orthodox congregation in the community, until my wife and I were involved in establishing an egalitarian minyan an number of years ago.
After meeting exclusively on Friday nights for years, one of our congregants took the initiative and launched every other week Shabbat morning services a few months ago, to resounding success. In a room donated by the local community center, upwards of 25-30 adults have been meeting and praying together under the auspices of the Masorti Movement (the Conservative Movement of Israel).
Things have been kept pretty word of mouth and grass roots, until in an effort to boost attendance, our sparkplug initiated a story about us in the local newspaper, including a photo of two people who help lead our services (male and female rabbinical students) holding a Torah.
Evidently, when the religious establishment saw the photo and story, they were none too pleased. And we heard through the grapevine that the chief rabbi was planning on paying a surprise visit to our Shabbat morning service. We weren’t sure whether he was going to try and disrupt it, or attempt to speak to us about the ills of men and women sitting and praying together. We were quite sure he wasn’t going to sit down among us and put his arm around the woman next to him and sing ‘Adon Olam.’
Ahead of the expected event, we made contingency plans as to how to react – do we let him in? Let him speak? Confront him if he attempts to cause disruptions? In the end, he didn’t show, so we didn’t have to implement any of our plans, but they’re ready for next time.
It’s just a little weird that in the Jewish state, we have to develop contingency plans against a rabbi who is hoping to prevent Jews from holding a Shabbat morning service in a format that is recognized and respected everywhere in the Western world.
Hazal Yellow Pages
Filed under: education, General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Life, News, Politics, Religion
The email life brings interesting tidbits to one’s mailbox. This one came the other day, from the Masorti (Conservative) movement in Israel.
Depicting a page from the Yellow Pages, it says Workers at the top of the page and the acronym Hazal, which stands for Hachameinu Zichronom l’vracha, or Our Sages May Their Memory Be Blessed, and refers to all sages from the Mishnaic, Talmudic eras and other rabbinic commentators. The listings, are of many great Jewish sages, and their ‘day jobs’, which they all held. Under Tailors, there’s Abba Ben Zimna and Rabbi Yehuda; Rashi, Rabbi Hanina, Shamai and Rambam have their own ‘ads,’ as vineyard owner, shoemaker, builder and doctor, respectively. There’s Resh Lakish, the orchard guard, Rav Ada, the land surveyor, Rabbi Yossi, the maker of fish nets, and many others.
The concept behind this clever ad? Well, as the tagline reads: “Hazal Yellow Pages. If only today’s rabbis walked in the footsteps of the truly great ones.”
The ad is in response to the current yeshiva student stipend issue, the latest battle between Israel’s secular population and the powerful ultra Orthodox community, whose politicians Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is struggling to keep in his coalition. The ultra Orthodox community is small but growing rapidly, and shuns secular studies and service in the army and often does work, with the men continuing to study into their adulthood despite large families.
As a result, many Israelis greatly resent the Haredi or ultra Orthodox community, but Netanyahu has been looking for a way to pay a stipend to yeshiva students after the High Court barred a budget line that gave money to them. He needs the ultra Orthodox parties in his coalition in order to work his way through the Palestinian peace process, and this is one way to win their approval.
As for the rest of the Israeli population, it’s hard not to resent a community that lives off the state, without serving in the army or working for their own bread and butter. After all, our ancient sages were learned men who also worked for a living.
Freedom of religion for all in Jerusalem – except women?
Filed under: A New Reality, coexistence, General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Life, Politics, Religion
Relations in Jerusalem between the haredi community and virtually everyone else seem to be at its nadir. In addition to almost weekly protests by hundreds of haredi demonstrators against hi-tech giant Intel’s operation of its Har Hotzvim factory on Shabbat and the Shabbat opening of parking lots outside of the Old City to accomodate the multitudes of visitors, last week another incident took place which raised the wrath of the city’s more tolerant residents and prompted a response.
A member of the Women of the Wall female prayer group was arrested and the group was expelled from the area of the Kotel for reading from a Torah scroll.
“We debated among ourselves whether or not to read from the Torah at the Kotel itself or to take the Torah to Robinson’s Arch,” Nofrat Frenkel told The Jerusalem Post. “In the end we decided that because nobody seemed to mind, we would go ahead and read the Torah at the Kotel.” She was arrested and later released by police.
The women were actually violating a compromise reached two decades ago with Supreme Court mediation, where it was agreed that women who wished to wear tallitot and kippot and read from the Torah would be allowed to do so at Robinson’s Arch, adjacent to the Kotel, and not directly in front of the Kotel, so as not to offend Orthodox worshipers.
Last week’s service, however included there was a contingent of women from North America who are here to attend a rabbinical ordination ceremony to take place at the Reform movement’s Hebrew Union College, and the women decided to hold their service at the Wall.
Rabbi Felicia Sol, of the B’nai Jeshurun Synagogue on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, said that the attempt to read from the Torah was an experiment with “pushing the boundaries.”
“It is ridiculous that in a Jewish state that is supposedly democratic, women cannot pray the way they want to and only one definition of Judaism is accepted,” Sol told the Post.
Indeed. As a result of the incident and the ongoing Shabbat protests by the haredim, a coalition of secular, Conservative, Reform and modern Orthodox residents of Jerusalem marched in the streets on Saturday night in an attemtp to ‘take back’ the city.
According to Rabbi Barry Schlesinger, who heads the Masorti (conservative) congregation in East Talpiot which I attend, the demonstration wasn’t anti ultra-Orthodox. The message was positive, calling for religiouls pluralism in the city.
“When Gen. Motta Gur proclaimed that “the Temple Mount is in our hands” [in 1967], he never thought to exclude women wearing talitot in the Kotel plaza,” he wrote following the march.
However, according to some participants, the rally was sort of railroaded by Meretz anti-haredi sentiments, and that the average kippa sruga Orthodox resident of Jerusalem failed to support the idea of women being allowed to pray as they wish at the Kotel. An editorial in The Post asked where Orthodox rabbis like Michael Melchior and Bennjamin Lau were.
According to Rabbi Yosef Rosenfeld, whose group, the Council for the Protection of the Sanctity of Shabbat, is one of those leading the haredi protest, the counter-demo will do little to stop their cause.
Rosenfeld explained to the Post that some of the signs carried by protesters, including, “Iran is here” or the phrase “religious coercion,” were offensive to members of the haredi community, and would mobilize further demonstrations.
Meanwhile, the one person who could be coming down heavy on the haredi demonstrators who are disrupting life for the rest of Jerusalem’s residents – Mayor Nir Barkat – is sticking to platitudes and diplomacy.
He issued a statement after the raucous weekend which said, “We must live in Jerusalem alongside each other. The partnership between us is larger than it seems, and if we would only unify, and treat one another with mutual respect, we’d succeed in facing the major challenges that stand before Jerusalem.”
Somehow I don’t think a resident of Mea Shearim is going to unify with talit-wearing Nofrat Frenkel and dance around the Kotel holding a Torah together.
Celebrating Purim
Filed under: Food, History and Culture, Holidays, Israeliness, Life
It’s Purim time, and here’s a couple photos from our annual Megilla reading. My family belongs to an egalitarian ‘havura’ – one of dozens around the country connected to the Masorti Movement (Conservative in the US).
About 50 revelrers gathered to hear the mitzvah of the reading, which was shared this year by Rachel, a member of our congregation who learned how to read the Megillah for the first time, and by Liron, a rabbinical student from the Conservative seminary – Neve Shechter – in Jerusalem. There was a lively Purim quiz in between chapters for the children, and some major nosh time after with oznei haman (Hamentuschen) and drinks.
These days, with Iran and Hamas and Hizbullah breathing down our shoulders, it’s always reassuring to hear the story of how an enemy of the Jewish people got his just rewards. Happy Purim to all.
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