E08 — The (Western) Wall Between US And Israeli Jewry
Hi everyone and welcome to The Israel Podcast. I’m Avishay Ben Sasson Gordis and this week I’ll be talking about Church and State in Israel and why Israel’s government is facing its largest crisis in years regarding its relationship with the Jewish community in the US. We’re going to have to do a lot of ground clearing, but I promise you that this story ends up with some very juicy politics. Also, if you’re into that kind of thing, I’ll also be talking about Ivanka Trump’s Jewishness.
In January of 2016, after decades of political and legal battles, Israel’s government approved a historic compromise that would change the physical and administrational reality in what is the most important piece of real-estate for the Jewish people — the Western Wall of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, known in Hebrew as the “Kotel”.
While the Temple Mount, where the first and second temples stood thousands of years ago, is the holiest place according to Jewish Law and history, those same history and laws meant that for most Jews it was, and still is, off limits as a site of worship. The Kotel, on the other hand, as the closest outer wall to the Temple’s inner sanctum, was a place where Jews could come to pray and mourn the destruction of the Temple. In 1948, the Old City and the Kotel with it, was conquered by Jordan. Only in 1967 was the Kotel captured, or liberated, depending on your politics, by Israel, and the plaza at the Wall’s feet was expanded on the ruins of a neighborhood that had been there before and was torn down in order to create a large open plaza in front of the Wall. Gradually that plaza became a de-facto open air Orthodox synagogue controlled by Jewish movements and individuals who espouse a strict separation between men and women, and significant restrictions on both dress and the public religious practice of women coming to the Western Wall. But as we all know, the Jewish world includes other, more liberal movements, who wished to be able to worship according to their belief at the Wall and who have done so since the 1970s. These more liberal streams included the Reform and Conservative movements, and increasingly egalitarian Orthodox movements as well. The most prominent of these groups was the Women of the Wall, a group of Jewish women from Israel and around the world who strive to achieve the right to wear prayer shawls, pray and read from the Torah collectively and out loud at the Kotel. Women of the Wall began on the initiative of women from North America who came to Jerusalem to participate in a conference on Women and Jewish law. From the beginning, Women of the Wall met with opposition from both religious women and men. Opposition to WOW’s prayer practices was constant throughout the years and reached its peak in 2010 when the police began arresting women for wearing prayer shawls, singing out loud or carrying in Torah scrolls. During this period, more than 50 women, including 5 American women rabbis were arrested and charged with disturbing the prayer practices of the prayer-goers.
Attempts to provide the liberal movements with places of worship in other parts of the Wall of the Temple Mount didn’t satisfy the Women of the Wall or the Reform movement, and legal battles forced the Israeli government to look for a solution that would allow additional groups, beyond mainstream Orthodox, to worship at some other part of the Western, i.e. the traditionally significant, Wall. The problem was further complicated by the fact that the area Temple Mount is also the third most important holy place for the Muslim faith making any Jewish modification of the Mount’s surroundings a very touchy subject. In response to the highly negative public attention both nationally and internationally to the arrest of Jewish women, Prime Minister Netanyahu initially asked Natan Sharansky, the head of the Jewish Agency to propose a solution. While his solution was creative, it was unfeasible in light of the significant physical changes required, which were firmly opposed by the Muslim authorities. The Prime Minister then turned to the Women of the Wall and the Movements to seek out a solution. Over the course of 3.5 years, the sides met, and hammered out a solution that while requiring highly painful compromise, was accepted by all, and approved on January 31, 2016 in a cabinet meeting. During the period of negotiation, the chief rabbinate and the ultra-Orthodox parties were constantly updated.
As approved by the government, a new plaza, would be built in the southern section of the Western Wall. The area would be significantly expanded, with a key component of visibility, by which, visitors to the Western Wall could choose between the egalitarian plaza and the gender segregated plaza immediately upon passing through a shared security entrance. Massive ground work was planned to make the site attractive, easily accessible and inspirational. Having visited this plaza last week, I can tell you that it is currently far from being as accessible and convenient as the main site, to say the least. A major breakthrough, and one of the main points of opposition by the ultra-Orthodox is that the new plaza would be managed by a council of 12, half of whom would be publicly appointed representatives of the movements and women of the Wall and the other half government appointees. This administrative body would enjoy some public funding. As is evident, inherent in all of these clauses was official Israeli recognition of the progressive Jewish movements.
But the ultra-Orthodox members of the Israeli government would have none of this, they stalled the implementation of the compromise and threatened that if it wasn’t walked back, they would dismantle the Government. As a result, after a year of stalling, last week, the government officially voted to suspend the implementation of the compromise. What the ultra-Orthodox and their constituents found most objectionable about the deal was the equal status given to the non-Orthodox movements in the management of the holy site. So while construction work may or may not progress on expanding the new, temporary plaza, the entrance area will not be moved to that of the regular plaza, and no recognition of the equal status of egalitarian movements in the management of the Kotel is forthcoming. This decision angered liberal Jews in Israel, and incensed American Jewry. To add insult to injury, that same day, the government voted to move forward with a bill that would consolidate all control of conversions to Judaism in Israel into the hands of Israel’s Chief Rabbinate, which, like the Kotel management, is also controlled by the ultra-Orthodox. Each of these decisions is significant for different reasons, but they both have in common two features: They strengthen the Orthodox monopoly on religious services in Israel, and they are the result of the same political conditions. So let’s talk about these features in turn.
First, the Orthodox monopoly. This may sound very weird to non-Israeli ears, but Israel has no separation of church and state. Quite the contrary really. Religion plays several crucial roles in Israeli law. The most important of these roles is the regulation of crucial legal matters. Israeli law grants eligibility for citizenship to anyone who is Jewish by birth, who converted into Judaism, or one of their parents or grandparents was Jewish. This in turn caused political struggles over the years over the question of who would be recognized as Jewish, and whose conversions would count as binding. The status quo is that outside Israel almost any Rabbi, Orthodox, Conservative or Reform can convert for the purposes of citizenship, with certain limitations. However in Israel itself only Orthodox rabbinical courts can validly convert.
Moreover, the Israeli rabbinical courts, that belong to the state mandated Orthodox Rabbinate, control marriages and divorces in Israel by law, and for that purpose they don’t recognize conversions made by non-Orthodox rabbis and even some made by Orthodox rabbis. This led to the somewhat amusing result that an Israeli rabbinical court recently disqualified a conversion by the same Orthodox rabbi in New York who converted Ivanka Trump, calling into question her status as a Jew in Israel. Of course, no Israeli rabbinical court recognizes Reform and Conservative conversions. Interestingly enough, the Rabbinate’s control actually originated in the law of the Ottoman Empire, which gave each of the recognized religions in the empire control over the personal laws of the subjects of that religion. When the British took over, they kept the same laws, which were eventually imported to Israeli law after the founding of the state of Israel. In any event, the lack of recognition of non-Orthodox conversions for the purpose of marriage leaves many non-Orthodox converts, and some orthodox without the ability to marry in Israel. This has had a major impact on the 1 million plus Russian and Ethiopian Jewish immigrants to Israel, many of whom are considered questionably Jewish by the rabbinate.
Since the non-Orthodox denominations, which comprise only about 8% of Israeli Jewry, account for over 90 percent of American Jewry, the set of issues raised by Orthodox control of Israeli religious life, is in many ways more pertinent and immediate to Jewish Americans, and thus a constant point of tension between the two largest Jewish communities in the world — in Israel and in North America. Which brings us to the two government decisions from last week.
Today, the Kotel is a de-facto ultra-Orthodox controlled area. Liberal Judaism is anathema to the ultra-Orthodox, and even to many modern-Orthodox. By scuttling the Kotel compromise, the ultra-Orthodox intended to prevent any expansion in the public presence of the liberal Jewish movements in what they see as their own playground. So although In the case of the Kotel, the issue is largely symbolic, the power play against the progressive Jewish movements is overt and intentional. An additional factor, and one that is frequently not recognized is the fact that the ultra-Orthodox primarily object to the ongoing visible presence of Women of the Wall at the traditional western wall. It is the visible act of women claiming public space at Israel’s most holy site that infuriates them.
In the case of the conversion bill, the move is intended to block modern-Orthodox conversion courts active in Israel, and to preempt a court discussion of the validity of non-Orthodox conversions in Israel. Again, bearing in mind that conversions made outside Israel by non-Orthodox rabbis are already recognized in Israel for the purpose of conversion (but not marriage in Israel). As ITIM, an Israeli NGO that focuses on making religious services more accessible, said in a legal opinion they wrote on the matter:
“This bill seeks to regulate and anchor the official entrance gates to Judaism in the State of Israel as an Orthodox Rabbinate monopoly. This is a gross violation of the status quo, which enables anyone to perform a conversion and allows the issues of “authentic” conversions to be determined in the [standard] courts.”
The Kotel decision, only marginally affects most — though not all — Israelis who care little about the non-Orthodox movements (or, to be honest, about the Kotel itself). But for American Jews who were the key players in bringing about the compromise, its freeze is correctly perceived as delegitimizing their way of being Jewish. From a state that purports to be the nation state of the entire Jewish people, and which has been and is supported profoundly by Jews in the Diaspora, this is a resounding slap on the face. As for the conversion decision, while American Jewry played a critical role in pressures to expand the place for non-Orthodox conversions, the measure would mainly affect about half a million Israelis who immigrated from the former Soviet Union whose Judaism is “questionable”. Many of them hope to convert to Judaism in order to be able to marry other Jewish Israelis or simply to join the ethno-religious group with which they already identify.
But despite the important differences, the politics of both issues are roughly the same. Their heroes are a weakened Netanyahu, emboldened ultra-Orthodox parties, and increasingly weary American Jewry that may have finally had enough.
Now that we understand the issues, let’s take a look at the politics.
In Israel, the ruling party relies on a coalition with other parties who aren’t necessarily truly like-minded. Netanyahu’s current government includes, among others, the two ultra-Orthodox parties: Shas and Yahadut Hatorah. The ultra-Orthodox are completely intolerant of liberal Judaism which they view as an abberation. It was physical attacks upon progressive Jews by ultra-Orthodox at the Kotel in the 1990s that gave birth to the need for a new prayer space for egalitarian Jews to begin with. When the government approved the Kotel compromise in January of 2016, the two parties remained mostly silent in hopes that nobody would make much of it, but within weeks, denunciations of their silence in ultra-Orthodox media, coupled with celebrations of the decision by the liberal movements changed their position. Shas and Yahadut Hatorah set out to tank the compromise, but for months all they could do was stall the decision’s implementation.
For a long period of time Netanyahu hesitated to openly provoke the immensely influential American Jewry on an issue it made clear it cared a lot about. As a result he avoided explicitly reneging on the compromise. Netanyahu felt that he needed US Jewry to support him in his opposition to the Obama administration and for their financial and all round political support of Israel. However, with the election of President Trump, and with internal pressures on Netanyahu rising — given police investigations against him and a general sense that he is politically weak — his coalition members have become more vocal in making all sorts of demands. For the settler lobby, these demands focused on moves he hesitated to approve in the past such as a bill that allows the confiscation of private Palestinian lands that settlements have been built on. For the centrist Kulanu party, this means a growing ability to use their control of the treasury to play to their political base to Netanyahu’s chagrin, and for the ultra-Orthodox this was an opening to regain ground they lost on church and state matters. As Netanyahu told an emergency mission of leaders from AIPAC, the influential pro-Israel lobby in the US, this week: it was either the Wall or his government. Always the survivor, Netanyahu chose the government.
Naturally, his choice infuriated the people who felt most attached to the compromise. Organized American Jewry, as I’ve already said, is overwhelmingly non-Orthodox. It is also overwhelmingly pro-Israel, and its leaders and members support Israel in Congress, local and national government, through education, and philanthropy. Despite differences of opinions in various junctures, and despite being on the whole to the left of Israel’s recent governments which has been posing a growing challenge with younger Jewish-Americans, the organized Jewish community in the States has stood by Israel. After their deep involvement in the negotiations, and their willingness to trust that Netanyahu would stand by his word, they felt betrayed by the freezing of the compromise. Natan Sharansky, the head of the Jewish Agency, also felt deeply and personally betrayed. He invested hundreds of hours, along with the rest of the negotiating team, in advancing a solution.
Yet, unlike in the past, this time US Jewry seems to be willing to exact a price from the Israeli government. The Jewish Agency, the main international Zionist organization, cancelled a dinner in celebration of 50 years to the reunification of Jerusalem, in which the Prime Minister was supposed to be the guest of honor. Other Jewish organizations held meetings with the Prime Minister that according to press releases have been very uncomfortable. One major Jewish donor already announced that he will suspend his giving as a result, others published ads against the decisions in Israel, and some people are calling on major donors to withhold funds until the government relents. The Jewish federation of Chicago announced it wouldn’t host any politician that supported the decisions and the head of the New York federation published a scathing letter against the government’s moves.
Netanyahu himself has been on the defense ever since the decision. His surrogates stressed that he prevented the compromise from being overturned, saving it by suggesting it only be suspended. At the same time he blamed the Jewish American liberal leadership that it was also complicit in the events by celebrating the compromise too loudly and insisting on too much. Nonetheless, he hinted that the Supreme Court can still weigh in on the decision, thereby shifting the onus elsewhere. This refers to the fact that on July 30, the court is expected decide on several petitions that relate to the Western Wall. The main one — submitted by Women of the Wall and the movements — demands that the court order the establishment of a third egalitarian section in the current plaza in light of the failure of the government to implement its own cabinet decision.
On the internal front, Israeli media affiliated with the Prime Minister has been writing against the pretense of American Jews to think they can call the shots in a country where they aren’t even citizens. Others questioned the authenticity and purity of religious intentions on the part of the Jewish liberal movements.
These responses from commentators in Israel were likely (at part at least) sincere, but were just as likely an attempt to battle the mostly negative public opinion in Israel itself regarding the decision. While most Israelis don’t care very much about non-Orthodox Judaism or the Kotel for that matter, they are very opposed to what they see as blackmail by the largely unpopular ultra-Orthodox community and its even less popular politicians, and they are increasingly aggravated by calls for separation of men and women. Liberal movements in Israel, aware of the public’s antipathy to the plight of American Jewry on the issue, have attempted to paint this as a decision that would affect Israelis, although I can’t say to what degree of success.
The Israeli political left was mostly too busy with internal politics to make much of the crisis. Some leaders wrote against the decision, but with primaries in the Labor happening on July 4th, there was little bandwidth for the issue. Yair Lapid, the head of the centrist Yesh Atid party, and a contender, at least in his own eyes, to replace Netanyahu, reluctantly came out against the decision. Reluctantly, because for the past two years he has been trying to court the ultra-Orthodox parties (unsuccessfully) so that they might join his imaginary coalition.
Two unlikely politicians who found themselves in a predicament as a result of the recent moves are Education Minister Naftali Bennett, and Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman, both of whom usually graze to Netanyahu’s political right. Bennett, in addition to being the Minister of Education and the leader of the National-Religious “Jewish Home” party, is the Minister of Diaspora Affairs. He was also responsible for the initial construction of the new egalitarian Plaza in 2013 as Minister of Religious Affairs. Conveniently, Bennett was not present for the government vote on the Kotel compromise, and has spent the past week trying to distance himself from it. He explains that as bad as the optics of it are, the physical aspects of the compromise are mostly in place and that regardless, American Jews should not break with Israel on count of the decision. He even went so far as to publish an op-ed in the Jerusalem Post, an English language Israeli newspaper geared towards American Jews to advocate as much. On top of his probably honest (though ineffective) opposition to the decision, Bennett, like Netanyahu, relies for a large part on campaign contributions from American Jews, so he has much to lose personally if American Jews become vexed with him.
Lieberman for his part, is the leader of a distinctly secular party that caters almost exclusively to Russian-Israelis. Seeing as they would be the first to suffer from a new and restrictive conversion law, he opposes such a measure. Luckily for him, Government rules allow him to dispute a decision to advance a piece of legislation. His opposition, but mostly the promise of a legal battle, and threats from Jewish leaders from around the world seem to have gotten Netanyahu and the ultra-Orthodox to agree on a six months hiatus on the advancement of the bill. Whether the Supreme Court will force a showdown by deciding on related cases before that deadline, remains to be seen.
So while some temporary resolution may be in the cards for the issue of conversions in the form of placing the bill on the ice, it is unclear how the Kotel crisis will develop. For my money, my guess is that before it is resolved, we’ll witness unprecedented pressure from American communities. Whatever trust Netanyahu still enjoyed in the Jewish establishment will mostly be gone. This will deepen the existing gap between the Jewish worlds of Israel and the US, to what effect I don’t know. On the practical side of things, some face saving solution will come by to allow American Jewry to ease the pressure eventually, but I will be very surprised to see the compromise implemented in its old form. More likely, this matter will end the same way most controversies in Israel do, with a reluctant Supreme Court deciding that current arrangements at the Kotel cannot persist and that the liberal movements, who will now go back to their demands for equal presence in the original Kotel plaza, should be provided for. Backlash against the ultra-Orthodox will also probably ensue. If it turns out I was wrong in all of this, I’d just like you to remember that it’s very difficult to make predictions. Especially about the future.
If you’re still here, you’re probably wondering what the take away from this mess is. One is that in politics, symbols and non-material interests, are often the drivers of the largest events. Another is that problems should be dealt with when they are small. Had Netanyahu come down hard in support of the compromise in January 2016, when the ultra-Orthodox were just beginning to warm up in their opposition, we would have likely not gotten to where we are now. He didn’t, and we have. Instead of facing off in a minor conflict, he now faces another crisis that may join the wave of events working to unseat him. Finally, we get another example of the way in which a small and determined interest group can set the agenda for the overwhelming political majority who cares little too none for what they do.
That’s it for this episode. Thank you again for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, consider rating the podcast on iTunes, and listening to previous episodes.
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