Rights and obligations

Editorial

As we voted in the provincial election and celebrated Shavuot this week, we at the Jewish Independent were reminded of how lucky we are to live in Canada, where practising our religion is a fundamental freedom and voting is a right enshrined in our Constitution.

Democracy is not an easy endeavor. Freedom can seem more like a constant exercise in self-restraint, as we perceive others breaking rules, attacking our values, or achieving success that we desire for ourselves in business, politics or the personal realm. Doing the right thing can mean not doing something you would like to do: not giving into your first instinct or an initial bout of regret or fear, not trying to shut someone else down or scare them into silence. But, of course, doing the right thing also means taking positive action, such as being a good neighbor, caring for the sick, ensuring the dignity of the vulnerable and investing in strong and healthy public institutions.

In this respect, we can be proud of Israel’s recent actions to end gender segregation in the country’s public spaces and institutions, a court ruling allowing women to wear tallitot at the Kotel, and the Knesset’s drafting of legislation to bring the ultra-Orthodox into the army and into the workforce.

We must be less proud of the reaction of hundreds of ultra-Orthodox to such initiatives, notably those ensuring that women are treated as equal citizens. Over the last couple of years, there have been incidences of illegal and/or immoral behavior by fundamentalist ultra-Orthodox men in Israel, including, but not limited to, spitting on an eight-year-old girl for “immodest” dress, vandalizing billboards featuring images of women and, last Friday, not only busing in their daughters to block Women of the Wall and other women from praying at the Kotel, but catcalling, cursing, and throwing water, garbage, candy and chairs at the worshippers at Judaism’s holiest site.

Some of the country’s ultra-Orthodox might be upset and fearful of the many (overdue) changes that seem to be coming, but such a disgusting display of aggression and the abusive use of one’s children to make a political point – Rabbi Israel Eichler, an ultra-Orthodox MK is quoted by the New York Times as having said, “There were thousands of seminary girls there today. Each one of them will have 10 children. That is our victory.” – disgraces the very religion they profess to want to protect.

Everyone in a democratic society has, as stated in Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms, for example, “the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.” We have a legal system that attempts to balance individual rights with our obligations as members of a civil society. We have the right to be treated equally under this system and it is a right to be accorded to everyone, “without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, color, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.” These are not aspirational values.

In response to the situation in Israel regarding women praying at the Western Wall, law professor Ruth Halperin-Kaddari, director of the Rackman Centre for the Advancement of the Status of Women at Bar Ilan University, said in the same NYT article: “What’s at stake here is the very characteristic of the state of Israel. Are we part of the Western world or are we part of the fundamentalist world?” A very good question – and not just for Israelis.

The defacing of women’s faces on advertisements, the harassment of girls and women and other such misogynistic actions should not be tolerated by any government, certainly not by a democratic one. In Israel, as in Canada, citizens of a democratic country have the right to gather or protest peacefully, to lobby government, to put forward candidates, to publish material that explains their point of view, etc. Threats and intimidation fall outside of these acceptable forms of participation – and dissent.

An example from our community is relevant here. In the week or so prior to the election, several members of our community attempted to “out” NDP candidate George Heyman’s so-called “real” views of Israel. Most community members, thankfully, acted within the bounds of civility when they brought notice to Heyman’s support on CanPalNet petitions. Others went beyond that boundary though into bullying and an attempt to silence the candidate by sending threatening letters to Heyman and/or spreading unsubstantiated rumors about his purported beliefs.

It is interesting to note how the holiday of Shavuot reinforces the idea of individuals’ rights – and obligations – in a democratic country.

Shavuot is a harvest festival as well as a celebration of being given the Torah, in which our obligations are laid out – and which are then open to human interpretation. The festival culminates in the offering of tangible sacrifices, the bikkurim (first fruits). This process of accepting obligations and making sacrifices is what being a Jew and being a member of a civil society is all about.

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