“Titus retired to Antonia intending to launch a full scale attack at dawn the next day and surrounded the sanctuary completely. It had, however, been condemned to the flames by G-d long ago…the 10th of Loos the day which centuries before had seen it burnt by the king of Babylon. But it was the Jews themselves who caused and started this conflagration (Josephus, The Jewish War, VI,254).
What did the Jews do that made them the destroyers of the holy temple? Was it their decision to fall back on it as a last defense, or perhaps the very fact that they went to war with Rome? According to many it was the discord that existed amongst the various factions of Jews that devolved into self destructive baseless hate.
Regardless, as Josephus aptly pointed out 1,940 years ago, the 10th of Loos, or as Jews know it the 9th of Av was, is, a day of Jewish mourning. According to the bible, it is the day when the Jews received the news from the 12 spies, 10 of whom proclaimed that the promised land, Canaan, was a death trap. Because the Jews rejected G-d’s promise that Israel would be given to them and mourned their impending destruction G-d proclaimed that “you mourn for no reason, I will give you a reason to mourn”.
Later Solomon’s temple was set on fire by the Babylonians in 586 BCE as they sacked the city of Jerusalem, and killed 100,000 of Jews. It was in the 9th of Av 1492 that the Jews were expelled from Spain. WWI began on the 9th of Av 1914, which according to most students of history led to WWII and the holocaust. It was on the 9th of Av that the expulsion of the Jews by Jews from Gush Katif, Gaza was signed into law. The irony of the date is one of the great under-reported paradoxes in history. The “disengagement” from Gaza led to Iran’s proxy, HAMAS, establishing a base in Gaza, and the 1000’s of rockets that continue to rain on Israel’s population.
Not to be outdone the Jewish community is once again embroiled in a internal struggle. This time over, it involves a controversial conversion initiative, the “Rotem bill”. The bill, passed 5-4 by the Knesset's Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, stipulates that all conversions in Israel must be approved by the office of the chief Rabbinate. Moreover, any Jewish convert that wishes to move to Israel under the “Law Of Return” -which ensures automatic citizenship to any Jew to preclude another scenario were Jews are persecuted with nowhere to flee- will have their conversion evaluated by the Orthodox Rabbinate.
The powerful Reform/Conservative movement in America and the smaller albeit growing Israeli Masorti (essentially the Israeli conservative movement), are up in arms claiming that this bill effectively disqualifies their conversions, and ultimately delegitimizes their interpretation of Judaism. Furthermore, leaders of the American Jewish-liberal faction, have authored public letters condemning the bill and arguing that it will foster disunity between the American and Israeli Jewish communities at a time when unity is imperative. Supporters of the bill including FM Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu party, and Netanyahu’s minority partner in the Knesset counter that this will streamline the often frustrating/complicated conversion process for many immigrants, who are the political base of the Lieberman’s party. The Haredi/ultra-Orthodox, and National-Religious parties, which at first opposed the bill, now support it as it “will ensure that all those that claim to be Jews are actually Jews”. Meanwhile Netanyahu repudiated the bill asserting that it will divide the Jewish community while preventing any Likud committee members from attending the vote.
There are three issues here that I believe need to be addressed:
1. Is this bill and the Law of Return racist?
2. Is this bill intended to undermine progressive Judaism?
3. Is this bill another Josephus-like self afflicted division in global Jewry?
Before we can discuss whether the bill is racist it is important to first address what made this bill necessary. Namely the growing number of immigrants to Israel who came to Israel under the Law of Return, and desire to convert, or have had apocryphal conversions. The Law of Return stipulates automatic Israeli citizenship to any individual with one Jewish grandparent. The reasoning behind this thinking was that Hitler classified anyone with a Jewish grandparent as Jewish.
The fact that a Jew and the immediate family of a Jew gain near automatic citizenship under the Law of Return is often labeled racist. Yet this law is not so much asserting Jewish racial superiority or inherent rights. Rather it is intended to allow for the implementation of the philosophy behind the creation of the state of Israel. In other words Jews for two millennia have been at the mercy of tyrants, demagogues, emperors, popes, caliphs, reformists, and fascists. The only way Israel can offer maximum protection to Jews is by granting them a retroactive place of refuge, i.e. you always have/had a place where you will be relatively safe. Another way to understand the Law of Return is that it asserts that Jewish citizenship in Israel is rooted in the bible and secular history. Thus the Law of Return is not granting new citizenship to Jews but rather making sure that the person coming through the border is already a citizen, by virtue of the their biblical and historical relationship with Israel. This is not just premised on religion but also unambiguous historical records, Israel was the Jewish homeland. Indeed many countries like Germany, Spain, Poland, and Japan, also give preferential consideration for prospective immigrants with ethnic ties. Is this racist? I don’t think so.
With this preface we can better understand the relationship between, and the implications of, the Rotem bill and the Law of Return. If “who is a Jew” is decided by the Orthodox Chief Rabbinate then those eligible to move to Israel by choice or by genocide, would be subject to the Orthodox criteria for conversion, which is designed to prevent opportunism, minimal acceptance of Judaism, and Jewish tradition. Furthermore, if it is passed by the Knesset it will inevitably delegitimize progressive Judaism.
The question is whether that delegitimization is the intended goal or a bi-product of a bill purely formulated with domestic issues in mind?
Unfortunately the media has focused on the dividing results of the bill without giving the other motivations sufficient consideration. After all the bill's positives may outweigh its negatives. The debate can’t be complete without considering that Lieberman simply wants to gain concessions for his political base who are predominantly eastern-European immigrants and would benefit from streamlined conversions. At the same time the motivation may be a lot more complex than concluding that it one or the other.
One perspective offered is that Lieberman is creating leverage with Netanyahu to be used in the upcoming budget debate. Lieberman will drop support for the bill if Netanyahu will agree to Lieberman’s budget demands.
It may also be that Lieberman, the uncompromising strongman in rightwing Israeli politics, is actually challenging the prodigious influence of American Jewry in Israel. There is no question that American-Jewish progressives are the ideological allies of the political left in Israel –Lieberman’s sworn foes. Moreover Jewish-American progressives, actually helped elect Obama, the man who tried to have Lieberman’s right-wing party replaced with Tzipi Livni’s left-leaning Kadima. Thus this bill serves Lieberman’s interests by weakening the progressive Jewish-American establishment. At the same time the majority of progressive Jewry are staunchly pro-Israel and continue to be so. Is Lieberman intentionally weakening his political opponents abroad to strengthen his domestic position? If so he may actually be putting himself before his country.
From whatever perspective it is clear that Lieberman’s primary intentions vis-a-vis the bill are difficult to pin-down. That being said there is certainly merit to the assertion that this bill will divide the global Jewish community.
The real question is whether this bill will result in another display of the Jewish communities masochistic tendencies described by Josephus 2 millennia ago, in this very month, or does this bill actually offer an iconoclastic opportunity?
I guess it depends on how you see the nature of our existence. If everything happens for a greater purpose then this event is another keystone in a necessary progression towards a greater good. Who knows, perhaps this an opportunity to overcome global Jewry’s propensity to allow a difference of opinion to devolve into baseless hate.
However this turns out let it not divide us!
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