Inching towards ideal

Editorial

One small step for Israel. One giant leap for religious pluralism. The recent decision by Israel’s government to pay salaries to a small number of non-Orthodox rabbis is a very small step, but it represents a giant leap forward from the Orthodox-exclusive institutionalized religious structures of that country.

“This is a big step for religious pluralism and democracy in Israel,” said Rabbi Miri Gold, a Reform rabbi who brought the issue to the fore and who will be the first non-Orthodox rabbi recognized under the changed terms. “Israeli Jews want religious alternatives and with this decision the state is starting to recognize this reality. There is more than one way to be Jewish, even in Israel.”

The last line of Gold’s statement is jarring, and speaks to the distorted reality of the Jewish state’s relationship with Jewish religion. It has long been a very sore spot between Israel and the Diaspora that non-Orthodox Jews – who make up the majority of Diaspora Jews – until now have been effectively unrecognized as Jews by the religious establishment of the Jewish state. While it is not quite true to say that Jews outside Israel are more free to practise non-Orthodox forms of their religion than Jews in Israel, the message from Israeli government authorities has always been clear: Orthodox Judaism is the definitive Judaism. With this policy change, this is no longer true in theory. In practice, things will take time to change.

The latest decision on rabbis is not merely symbolic. It is significant because it is the first time that Conservative or Reform rabbis have been recognized as, well, rabbis by the Israeli state. It is less significant because it does not reduce the absolute control wielded by Orthodox authorities over marriage and other aspects of religious law, but it is a start.

It must be remembered that Reform and Conservative Jews are a tiny minority in Israel. The country has about 100 Reform and Conservative congregations, claiming membership representing about eight percent of the country’s population. (Overwhelmingly, these congregations are in cities. Conversely, only rabbis in farming communities and in regional councils are eligible for funding under the new rules; another weird twist.)

As many as 15 non-Orthodox rabbis will be accepted onto the payroll to start. By contrast, about 4,000 Orthodox rabbis serve as government-recognized religious heads of communities and receive government pay. Estimates are that Orthodox institutions and rabbis receive between $400 million and $600 million in public money annually, while the two other movements up until now have received less than $200,000.

The conflicted relationship between the ostensibly secular Jewish democracy and the religion of most of its people goes back to the first moments of the state, whose founders found common ground in the ambiguous terminology of “the Rock of Israel” in the Declaration of Independence. For some, this meant God. For the more secular, it referred to the physical reality of the landscape.

The conflict between competing ideas of Israel’s Jewishness has dogged the country since the start, with various compromises leading to unintended consequences. One consequence is the Tal law, the legislation that excuses ultra-Orthodox from military service and which is to be revised this summer. Excluding ultra-Orthodox from military service was intended to allow the small Charedi communities, surviving remnants of what a decade earlier had been the flourishing Jewish civilizations of Eastern Europe, to focus on their studies and revive their culture. This succeeded fabulously, of course, with concomitant unintended social, demographic, political and religious consequences. This history is peripheral, but not irrelevant, to the recent decision.

In what may be another “only in Israel” vignette, funds for Reform and Conservative rabbis will be diverted through unconventional channels. Non-Orthodox rabbis who receive a salary from the government will get cheques from the Culture and Sports Ministry, not the Religious Services Ministry, which pays Orthodox rabbis. Presumably the government deems Reform and Conservative Jews to be culturally Jewish, if not sufficiently Orthodox to be eligible for funding from the religious services envelope. We assume the government does not perceive Reform and Conservative davening as a “sport.”

Joking aside, the change is incremental, but monumental. It is the cracking open of a door that had been securely slammed tight until last week.

“We have a long-term goal to have an inclusive, democratic, pluralistic Israeli society,” said Rabbi Daniel Allen, executive director of the Association of Reform Zionists of America. “We’re going to be patient and persevere until the ideal meets the real. This is one step forward in that effort.”

Allen’s words are appropriate. Reform, Conservative or Orthodox, it seems a distinctly and unifyingly Jewish approach to patiently persevere “until the ideal meets the real.”

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