eSefarad Noticias del Mundo Sefaradi
This is the weekly column of David Shasha in eSefarad.
Israel’s New War: Orthodox vs. Orthodox
By: Tehila Friedman-Nachalon
Reading this article out of Sephardic eyes I see a great irony in an Ashkenazi speaking about a fight between Ashkenazi groups while Sephardim remain outside the discussion.
Ashkenazim – as I have repeatedly said – are very taken with being Ashkenazim. Jewish identity is a monocultural phenomenon that is only divided when it comes to what kind of Ashkenazi one chooses to be. The single Jewish language is the Ashkenazi language. It is not strictly Yiddish, or Zionist, or Orthodox, or whatever. It is a monocultural identity whose conceptual roots are exclusively Ashkenazi-Eurocentric.
What I find particularly interesting in this discussion is the use of the term “humanistic.”
The rejected and despised Sephardic tradition – which is not at all on the Ashkenazi radar – is predicated on the values of Jewish Humanism:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/Davidshasha/d9Q4PNeOS0U/L8JjvNmL0cIJ
The tradition was embodied in great Sephardic figures – unknown in the contemporary Jewish world – such as Sabato Morais and Henry Pereira Mendes:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/Davidshasha/owdIgkaZHys/yoRvE37LOI4J
It is a tradition that has been denied and negated by many prominent Ashkenazi intellectuals and educators who do not admit its existence:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/Davidshasha/sarna/davidshasha/65-pgkt2JH0/LY5iAJI9QeEJ
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/Davidshasha/sarna/davidshasha/rY6tsM-gviU/Ev9p-Fui3wgJ
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/Davidshasha/sarna/davidshasha/GF8znQCzdnM/OX4TulLhNLQJ
While the Sephardic tradition languishes in obscurity under a toxic Ashkenazi hegemony – a dysfunctional system that has only served to undermine Jewish unity and the integrity of our cultural-religious tradition(s) – the Ashkenazi ideologues promote their positions and raise up their ideal leaders in a continuing battle that I have addressed in my article “A Broken Frame”:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/davidshasha/yj_4nB1nWTk/PSVcxzqBsKEJ
What we are seeing in Ms. Friedman-Nachalon’s article goes beyond the usual elimination of Sephardic Jewish Humanism; it is a valorization of Religious Zionism as a model for a “modern” form of Judaism. This argument is put forward in spite of the fact that Religious Zionism and Modern Orthodoxy have promoted radically anti-Liberal values closely connected to the Settler enterprise and its eschatological messianism.
It does seem to be a losing situation when it comes to supporting Ashkenazi Orthodoxy. There are no truly progressive values in Modern Orthodoxy. Modern Orthodoxy has been fighting a losing battle against the Haredim largely because “Modern” is a relative term while “Orthodoxy” is an absolute one.
We can see the point clearly in an article by the leading Modern Orthodox Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein on the contentious subject of “Da’as Torah” – rabbinical authority:
http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/faxes/daatTorahLichtenstein.pdf
In this tortuous article Rabbi Lichtenstein – as is usual given Modern Orthodoxy’s vacillating tendencies – upholds the concept of Da’as Torah, but decides that its practitioners are not worthy. This means that the idea of authoritarian rabbinic control of the community is legitimate, but the rabbis need to be “smarter” than they seem to be at present.
It is the sort of weak-minded compromise with the radicals that has plagued Modern Orthodoxy from the start and which serves as fodder for Haredi attacks as well as an implicit rejection of the Maimonidean-Andalusian tradition of Religious Humanism.
The renewed vigor of Modern Orthodoxy is bad news not only for Judaism, but also for the Sephardim who have been repeatedly victimized by its institutions:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/Davidshasha/a93EykBERUk/rA34Yg5U6oAJ
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/Davidshasha/UZ9tN7Z2TAY
Until Jews become aware of the wider historical context of their culture and find a way to include Sephardim, the ongoing acrimony being played out between competing Ashkenazi groups will continue to plague us and hurt any chance for intra-communal harmony.
DS
Israel’s «religion and state» battles have taken on a new character in recent years. It’s no longer the Orthodox rabbinate against the secular Supreme Court, or against the Reform and Conservative movements. Most of the battles of recent years are those of the Orthodox rabbinate against movements, organizations and phenomena that are themselves also Orthodox.
A run-down of some of these skirmishes provides ample evidence. The Orthodox Rabbi Avi Weiss was disqualified by Israel’s Chief Rabbinate for the sin of granting ordination to female halakhic arbiters; the rabbinate was forced to reverse itself (not least as a result of the battle waged by the Orthodox Zionist Ne’emanei Torah Va’Avodah movement). Also Orthodox and in the firing lines: A significant percentage of the Women of the Wall, the religious girls who enlist in the Israel Defense Forces (now deemed by the Chief Rabbis as an improper vocation), Rabbi HaimDruckman’s IDF-program conversion courts, the «community kashrut» project in Jerusalem which operates on trust rather than the Rabbinate certification process, and other movements and phenomena against which the rabbinate has declared war.
But another dynamic was revealed in these struggles. As opposed to the image that Orthodoxy in Israel is becoming more extreme, more Haredi and more isolated, there is a strong and opposite trend. A significant strengthening of the Orthodox voice that is committed to all of Israeli society and all of the Jewish people. Which is committed to halakha (Jewish religious law) but also to human ethics; which does not follow every social trend, but is also unwilling to categorically reject modernism and its values.
The Orthodox community in Israel was never homogeneous. The most prominent and well-known internal dispute regards Zionism: The Haredim (ultra-Orthodox) on the one hand, and religious Zionism on the other. This dispute is still alive and kicking, and it is in fact at the root of some of the battles, for example on the subject of conversion. It is clearly possible to argue that the more the dayan (religious court judge) feels himself responsible for «all of Israel» and sees a value in the integrity of the Jewish people and mutual responsibility, the more he will tend to emphasize the convert’s desire to belong to the Jewish people, rather than how strictly the convert observes every marginal law on Shabbat. Such a dayan will seek to include rather than exclude.
The same is true of shmiTta, the sabbatical year that will begin next year, and the disputes and battles it will bring in its wake. The values-related question of the importance of Jewish agriculture in the Land of Israel, and what should be done to preserve its strength, certainly affects the halakhic policy regarding shmitTa. This assumption, that whether an arbiter or a dayan is «Zionist» has a decisive impact on his halakhic decision, and this is what lay behind the attempt by the religious Zionist Tzohar rabbis’ organization to promote Rabbi David Stav to the position of chief rabbi.
But Zionism explains only some of the battles. Others, such as the increasing closeness between the Haredim and the Hardalim (Haredi religious Zionists), originates in another inter-Orthodox dispute, which is less discussed and far more complex. Namely the dispute, or in effect the series of disputes, regarding liberal values and modern culture in general. Values of equality, and particularly equality of women, liberty, the autonomy of the individual – are they all invalid or at least suspect, or can they be «converted» to Judaism, fully or partially, or at least examined?
Do these values arouse suspicion and should walls be built to keep out «assimilation» into them, or are they a revelation of God’s will, a gradual redemption and improvement of the world? Does God speak to us only through the commandments and halakha, or through history and historical reality as well? And the modern world – is it entirely evil, full of temptations and dangers, or does it also represent a great blessing, and the chaff has to be separated from the wheat? What is the basic intuition – fear and seclusion, or integration? And tradition – is it a cosily static thing, beloved and cherished, which we must preserve, or is it living and changing all the time?
These disputes are less easily formulated and attract fewer headlines; they contain more shades of gray than of black and white, but they are alive and burning.
And when they are conducted «for the sake of heaven» and in a respectful manner they are also productive. Such disputes have always characterized the Jewish world, and indeed debates likes these built it. The problem is that most of the time these disputes are not conducted as disputes but as a battlefield where aggressiveness, force and delegitimization are all acceptable.
There really is a serious difference of opinion between the Haredi chief rabbis and Rabbi Avi Weiss on the question of what a women’s place is in Jewish ritual and leadership. But instead of conducting an in-depth conversation and a proactive debate, the Chief Rabbinate chose to leverage its legal authority on the issue of recognizing someone’s Judaism, in order to try to force its viewpoint about women on Rabbi Weiss. And the rabbinate is not alone. There have been repeated attempts to use various means to coerce or to «place beyond the fence» those with more liberal views.
But something is starting to change. Something in the public atmosphere within the religious Zionist community. The liberal voice, which for years was on the defensive and was almost totally silent, is once again being heard. And so religious feminism is expanding its influence, the attitude towards rabbis who have transgressed is no longer forgiving, and there is an open public discussion regarding it. The ongoing process of creeping gender separation in the schools has been halted, the attitude towards gays (as individuals, not necessarily the orientation) in the Jewish community is also undergoing a change, and there is increasing opposition to current socio-political phenomena such as «price tag» attacks, racism (for example the «ban» on renting apartments to Arab Israelis), as well as to separatism in general, all informed by an embrace of a more humanistic ethos.
This voice is not new: It has always been here, but it had some very quiet, hesitant, perhaps even stuttering years, years of retreat and an apologetic attitude towards other, more unequivocal and one-dimensional voices within the religious Zionist community. But now it is once again louder. Expressing itself more articulately and more clearly as a spiritual and cultural option in the broad Israeli experience and in the narrow «sectoral» experience.
And for me it’s a voice of hope. Hope for the State of Israel and for Judaism itself.
Tehila Friedman-Nachalon is a fellow in the Mandel Leadership Institute.
From Haaretz, January 28, 2014
From The Economist, January 22, 2014
by David Shasha to eSefarad.
Copyright David Shasha & eSefarad all rights reserved
Copyright David Shasha & eSefarad todos los derechos reservados.
David Shasha is the founder and director of the Center for Sephardic Heritage in Brooklyn, New York designed to raise awareness of the history and culture of Arab Jews. He publishes the Sephardic Heritage Update, a weekly e-mail newsletter available on Google Groups. He has written for publications such as the Huffington Post, Tikkun magazine, The Progressive Christian, and The American Muslim. You can contact him at david.shasha.shu@gmail.com
