US Jews concerned about religious coercion in new Israeli gov’t

After advances for non-Orthodox streams in previous Netanyahu coalition, new agreements with Shas, UTJ set a different tone

Times of Israel

As the dust settled from the coalition talks this week and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition agreements with member parties were revealed, American Jewish non-Orthodox streams looked with concern at a coalition that seemed likely to call into question recent advances toward religious pluralism in Israel.

“It is with concern that we view the new coalition,” said Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism. “At the same time, our commitment to the state of Israel is deep and profound, and we want to figure out ways that we can advance the things that not only matter to Reform Jews and other non-Orthodox Jews, but also will amount to strengthening the Jewish people worldwide and to create that deeper sense that we’re connected.”

Noting that in recent years, “we have been making progress on some of the most important issues of pluralism in Israel, whether its slight liberalization of Orthodox conversion, even the possibility of advancement on civil marriage and building an egalitarian prayer space at the [Western] Wall to be symbolic of a country with one wall for one people in all of our diversity,” Jacobs said that he doesn’t think that “anyone can look at the current government and not be concerned that those issues may not go forward or might go backwards.”

The coalition agreements with the two ultra-Orthodox parties in the coalition, Shas and United Torah Judaism (UTJ), both include a number of clauses that change the current status quo regarding religious practice and institutions.

The agreement with UTJ ensures that a party member will be included in the seven-person Committee for the Appointment of Rabbinic Judges and rolls back a liberalization of conversion laws passed by the previous government. A cabinet decision last year gave additional conversion powers to local municipal rabbinates — some of which are controlled by modern-Orthodox rather than ultra-Orthodox rabbis — will be reversed to return the authority to the ultra-Orthodox-controlled Chief Rabbinate.

Shas secured an agreement that the chairmanship of the committee for the appointment of religious court judges will be transferred from the Justice Ministry — under the modern-Orthodox Jewish Home party — to the Shas-controlled Religious Affairs Ministry.

Despite the new coalition agreements, Jacobs noted that both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Reuven Rivlin have personally worked to advance religious pluralism and individual rights, and hoped that their work would continue.

Jacobs said that Reform Jews “stand ready to work on all of these core issues and to be a constructive force, and also stand ready to speak out loudly when we think that these issues are being actively ignored or harmed.”

Rabbi Julie Schonfeld, executive vice president of the Conservative movement’s Rabbinical Assembly, echoed Jacobs’s determination.

“It’s a new government and we plan to be in a very vigorous dialogue with them about the same issues [as in previous coalitions],” Schonfeld said. “We continue without pause or any change to be zealous advocates for the religious pluralism we believe Israelis need and deserve, and we hope that the new government will, as these issues have been progressing over the past several years, heed the call.”

Schonfeld said that the Rabbinical Assembly hopes that “as much of the progress that was made in the last government as possible will be preserved,” but warned that “if we find that these gains are rolled back, that these crucial issues of personal status, conversion, marriage, equal funding for the streams are not advancing, then as we have demonstrated for years — and I think there is a tremendous growing coalition in the Diaspora — we will continue to advocate strongly.”

Schonfeld noted that, unlike in previous years, there is a growing coalition in support of increased religious pluralism in Israel among American Jewish organizations, not just within the groups specifically affiliated with the non-Orthodox streams of Judaism. Schonfeld cited the American Jewish Committee’s (AJC’s) Jewish Religious Equality Coalition as well as increased attention to the issue in the Jewish Federations of North America.

“The government may have changed — we didn’t change,” Schonfeld asserted. “We remain most importantly not only advocates for world Jewry but advocates on behalf of Israeli Jews whom we believe are subject to religious coercion. On both of those accounts, we are going to continue this advocacy until we have total success.”

Jacobs warned that even in the face of Israel’s security challenges — the theme on which Netanyahu won the plurality of votes — these questions of religious freedom, pluralism and individual rights remain significant.

“We’re all clear about all those existential challenges, but we’re also clear that the soul of Israel is something that we have to be ready and willing to stand up for, and that’s to me how these issues intertwine,” he argued. “They may not be getting a lot of play, but they are of critical importance to the internal security and well-being of our people.”