Israel's Orthodox Jews: The New Holy War Uri Huppert t is an unfortunate fact that today Israeli society is no • The public-religious educational system, which inculcates longer merely threatened by the spectre of a Kulturkampf Orthodox religious dogma, was established alongside the secu- I between the goals of religious orthodoxy and those of a lar system by the Public Education Act of 1953. Jewish state. It is now an unhappy reality. • Local Jewish religious councils compete for authority with Perhaps because they receive so much media attention, the secular municipal authorities. ultra-Orthodox Jews (the non-Zionist Agudat Yisrael and anti- • The democratic vision embodied in Israel's Declaration Zionist "haredi" groups, who attack the very idea of a Jewish of Independence is now routinely attacked by the Orthodox. state) appear to be responsible for Israel's present religious Said one such extremist: "Democracy is not a Jewish value." extremism. But in fact it has been the so-called moderate, • In many settlements roadblocks are set up on the Sabbath religious-Zionist parties (the Mizrachi, Hapoel Hamizrachi, and day in violation of freedom of movement. their successor, the National Religious Party—the NRP) that • Economic pressure is exerted on places of entertainment have brought about the present situation and profit from it by the Rabbinate—by virtue of the authority granted to it by today. the secular Knesset—in violation of one's freedom of expres- The NRP and its predecessors have had a long association sion. with the Zionist movement and have been granted special privileges by it almost from the beginning—privileges that were ong before the issue reached its present, explosive propor- the forerunners of today's "coalition" compromises. Already in tions, Orthodoxy was the dominant voice for dormant 1920, for example, the Mizrachi was given total autonomy in ethnicity. It was largely due to the religious Orthodox pressure, educational matters by the World Zionist Organization—and for example, that sovereign state structures, as well as programs the seeds of today's public-religious school system were planted. financed by the state budget, became institutionalized along By 1934—fourteen years before the Israeli state was founded— ethnic lines. the Mizrachi party forced the Jewish National Fund to mandate Israel's Family Courts, for instance, are explicitly based on Sabbath observance in all leases for new settlements. It was the principle of ethnic balance. There, the division between not long before the Mizrachi began setting up alternative Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jew is sharply emphasized, a separa- Orthodox-religious institutions parallel to those established by tion that is presented as ostensibly the legacy of Ottoman rule the secular Zionists, the Yishuv, and afterward the state, in all but is in fact a direct expression of Orthodox policy. And, spheres of life. For example: indeed, state funds are not distributed to the Reform syna- • A system of religious courts was developed in opposition gogues, which avoid blatant ethnic division; yet funds are to the secular system by the Jurisdiction of the Rabbinical poured into Orthodox synagogues and institutions, including Courts Act of 1953. burial societies, that manifest ethnic divisions the Jewish Israeli is supposedly inextricably entangled in from birth to death. Uri Huppert, a Jerusalem-based lawyer, is former National he achievements of Orthodox religious politicians have Chairman of the League Against Religious Coercion in Israel, Tbeen enormous—and ought to be noted more often, and as well as a former member of Jerusalem's City Council. This with criticism, by the rest of the world. Today in Israel, issues essay is excerpted from Back to the Ghetto, to be published by concerning "personal status"—that is, of marriage and Prometheus Books this fall. divorce—have been transferred exclusively to the tender mercies of the rabbinical judicial system. Although the Marriage and 46 FREE INQUIRY Divorce Act of 1953 states that "marriage and divorce of Jews Office revealed that the Israeli government allotted about 2.6 in Israel will be performed according to the law of the Torah," billion shekels for the rehabilitation of eighty-two neighbor- the monopolistic rabbinical Family Courts adhere to an even hoods, where approximately 600,000 Israelis lived. At the same stricter orthodoxy. They render judgment based solely on the time the government allotted 2.8 billion shekels to Orthodox most rigid of its tenets, negating any ceremonies held according religious institutions—study centers for approximately 50,000 to other shades of religious Judaism, such as Conservative or yeshiva students. What does this mean? Each yeshiva student Reform. was given, for study purposes, a sum ten times greater than the These religious institutions are empowered by a secular amount given to a resident in need of rehabilitating his home institution, the Knesset. Yet they are kept exclusively for and town. representatives of orthodoxy. To satisfy the Orthodox business Even the pragmatic mayor of Jerusalem, Teddy Kolleck, community, Israel created a local-government system parallel has bemoaned the ruthlessness of the extremists. He was re- to the secular, municipal system. In many instances the religious cently quoted as saying that they behave "like the Italian mafia." councils' jurisdiction overlaps the municipal's, leading, obvi- And the late Professor Yigael Yadin, who gained world-wide ously, to duplication and waste. Although positions on these renown as an archaeologist and served as deputy prime minister religious councils are theoretically open to all religious Jews, during Menachem Begin's first term, described the activities of no Reform or Conservative-affiliated Jew has ever been the ultra-Orthodox as "terror." To be sure, the incidence of appointed to them. Recently, a test case was brought before assault and violence by the Orthodox towards secular and non- the Israeli Supreme Court to resolve the matter judicially. The Jewish institutions is so high that it has almost become the Court endorsed the right of non-Orthodox Jews to membership social norm. on these local-business councils. But that is where it remained— An example: In 1983 Dr. Uzi Ritta, a lecturer at Jerusalem's the fact is that non-orthodox Jews are still excluded from these Hebrew University, was driving on the Sabbath with his small councils. Principles of law and orthodoxy do not mix. daughter. His car was pounded with stones and he was gravely Even more pointed is the discrimination against non- injured. Hospitalized for long time, Ritta is now permanently Orthodox institutions in the distribution of funds. All money brain-damaged. Yet just as appalling as this act of this Jew- allotted for religious affairs is given to the Orthodox—non- against-Jew violence was the response of the "Jewish Moral Orthodox religious Jews stand no chance of receiving what Committee." Wrote Rabbi Marvin Friedman: "Dr. Uzi Ritta should be their due share. ... is the infamous protagonist of the heretical theories of But perhaps the Orthodox Jews' most profound success is evolution. In keeping with his theories, he reverted to the in the area of education. Education in Israel is divided into primate sate by deliberately crashing through the Sabbath police three streams: the public-secular, public-religious, and indepen- barriers.... Indeed, it was moral justice!" dent-religious (the non-Zionist and haredi Orthodox). Unfail- The hooligans who disabled Dr. Ritta received no punish- ingly, every year contests are waged for the souls of potential ment. Following this tragedy, Police Inspector-General Arye students. It is usually the Orthodox groups who get the best of Ivtzan said that "Police treat ultra-Orthodox groups according the deal, even over their fellow religionists. They lead in every- to their own discretion, while the rest of Israeli society is thing: government and private contributions, influence, educa- handled strictly according to the law." tional and rabbinical positions. And, with the educational While militant Orthodox Jews are receiving increasingly system under their power, Orthodox Jews can much more tolerant treatment from civil and police authorities, they are easily lay claim to other institutions. now targeting secular academic and scientific institutions for All theological institutes, for instance, theoretically are repression. For the Jewish conscience, ever since its emergence entitled to receive state-owned land for their buildings. Yet in from the provincial ghetto, the freedom of scientific research practice it has remained a very restricted right. The Tel Aviv has had special significance; for the modern Israeli it is even Reform Jews fought a ten-year struggle for land for their more important. After all, the Israeli is weaned on the outlook temple. And in Jerusalem, Conservative Jews have been trying that a special scientific, technological, and military quality has for six years to build a synagogue in their neighborhood. given their state an advantage over her more than 100 million Members of Jerusalem's religious council, who alone are re- warring Arab neighbors. Moreover, that Israel has been able sponsible for supplying the city's "religious needs," and who to develop agriculture in a desert environment is largely due to have sole control over the financial means of doing so, have uninhibited scientific research. But science and technology are been in the vanguard of the struggle against allocating any hallmarks of the modern Western world, and, by its very nature, land to their Conservative fellow Jews. Orthodox theology rejects this world. Indeed, it seeks to stifle If they are usually not permitted to receive land for their wherever possible Western traditions, even sports, which the buildings, Reform and Conservative rabbis are never permitted Orthodox condemn as "Hellenic." to officiate there at ceremonies once they have them. They Why do these Jews fear what they call "alien" cultures? can't marry, divorce, or bury their own congregants.