Free Israel!

By Benjamin Lau

Birthdays are generally times for soul-searching and
clarifying one's wishes for the next year. From my
narrow world, I look out at the face of the religious
establishment in Israel and wish that my fellow
citizens and I could manage to break free of the
tyrannical regime of ultra-Orthodox Judaism that
has nothing to do with the State of Israel.

The Israeli political system is holding all the Jewish citizens
of this country hostage to the religious institutions controlled
by the Lithuanian (non-Hasidic) ultra-Orthodox, which is
doing everything in its power to keep the light of the Torah
away from Israeli Jews. According to this worldview, only
members of their own internal circles need to help one
another; the fate of the State of Israel does not appear
on their radar. They do not send their sons into the line
of fire, they do not send their daughters to perform
national service, they make a living off charity, and
refuse to take part in shouldering the burden of the
Jewish people. They cynically undermine the little
being done by religious Zionist rabbis, who try to
chip in and help resolve the general problems of
society.

At the beginning of the Jewish year, a Sabbatical year
[during which religious law mandates that Jewish-owned
land in Israel must lie fallow], the heads of the Chief
Rabbinate - which is hostage to Rabbi Yosef Shalom
Elyashiv - attempted to financially damage the agricultural
sector and flood the country with imports.

Only the struggle of the rabbis of the Tzohar organization
and a High Court of Justice ruling put a halt to the disgrace.
Now religious court judges - who also follow Rabbi Elyashiv
- have found another reason to mistreat the country they
are supposed to serve: The conversions carried out by
Zionist rabbis are not valid, they ruled, and people
converted by them are not considered Jews, even 15
years later. This is inflexibility for its own sake. Had
one of those converts been a relative of one of those
ultra-Orthodox judges, no one would have spoken up.
But what do these judges, they think, have in common
with all those goyim, who were imported by the
Zionist State of Israel?

The ultra-Orthodox position on the conversion issue is
oppositional, uninteresting and irresponsible. But it is
the ultra-Orthodox who sit at the crossroads of
decision-making, and the entire country is subjected to
their rule. There are many rabbis in Israel who served in
the army, sent their children to the army, and are full
partners in all the challenges of Israeli society. The country
deserves to have religious court judges who are committed
to its future and its fate, and to free itself of judges estranged
from the public.

Religious Zionism has so far been restrained in its criticism
of the ultra-Orthodox, out of a feeling of respect for the Torah
sages and a desire to maintain a united religious camp.
No longer! In honor of the state's 60th birthday, we must
free Israel, strengthen the Zionist camp - including among
the religious - and establish religious services and religious
courts that are fundamentally identified with the values of
the country in which they operate.

The writer is rabbi of a congregation in
Jerusalem's Katamon neighborhood, and heads
Beit Morasha of Jerusalem.