Post to Maskil_Activity 01/01/2010

• Column: Can Israel be both Jewish and democratic? (Columnists Jerusalem Post)

  tags: Religion and State

  • Which interpretation and which rabbinic authorities would be put in charge? The revolution that the Western world underwent in the last few centuries was a revolution in which religion and state were separated, in which power was given to the people and not to religious authorities, in which individualism and pluralism were recognized as legitimate. Israel was founded on those principles as well, but unfortunately they were not carried out fully regarding the religious establishment and religious freedom.
    

  • THE SOLUTION to these problems is also well known but has been successfully avoided by all the governments because of political pressures and lack of resolve. It requires as a first step the enactment of civil partnership legislation which would then permit people to be registered as partners with all the civil privileges thereof, while any religious marriage would become a private decision, a religious ceremony to be conducted by whatever religious authority the couple would choose. Such legislation has already been prepared, but has always been put aside at the critical moment. It is time for it to be tabled and passed.
    

    The second step is the abolishment of the monopoly of the current Chief Rabbinate - not the abolishment of the Chief Rabbinate but the change of its status from a governmental monopoly into a privatized NGO which would exist alongside other rabbinates. These would be funded in part by tax money on the basis of the number of those who adhere to them. Individuals would have the right to choose their own religious affiliation.
    

• Shooting the Jewish Press (Jewschool)

  tags: Continuity

  • Okay, I admit that for me, Jewish continuity isn’t worth fundamentalism and literalism of narratives.

    
    

    “Look for Vos iz Neias to take over the Jewish Week’s offices…”

    
    

    I’d rather have Unitarian grandchildren than Monsey chassidim. You know why, ck? Because they are closer to the paradigm of my ancestors than these fundies. And that’s something you will never admit to understanding. Keeping kosher, a strict shabbos, taharas mishpacha are less important to many of us than the deeper, universal messages within Judaism. And frankly, those deeper messages appear to be utterly lost in today’s black hole of fahfrumpt.

    
    

    If Bait Shammai is set to utterly take over Judaism — and that could be the case — then the path of Hillel must be adhered to outside the tents of Jacob.

    
    

    So be it.

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