Hailing the chief

The Israeli Chief Rabbinate that is.


For the last several months, there's been a simmering argument about a proposed bill (by David Rotem MK, Israel Beiteinu, and Chair of the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee) to streamline/reform the conversion process in Israel, by making the Chief Rabbinate the sole legal authority for conducting (and approving) all conversions to Judaism in Israel.

The proposed bill has two distinct shortfalls; (a) enraging world Jewry and widen the Israel-Diaspora gap (which is complicated by the political and financial support for Israel by world Jewry) and (b) the growing disillusion of Israelis (secular and "religious national") towards an increasingly extreme and parochial Chief Rabbinate, i.e. its "haredization."

First, let's deal with the Israel-Diaspora angle. 

Despite the clear concern expressed by the non-Orthodox/Jewish communal leadership during Rotem's 'explanatory tour' to North America a short while ago, earlier this week a bill was issued out the committee for Knesset approval. Diaspora Jewry is deeply upset.  The Jerusalem Post entitled its editorial of Tuesday (13.July) "Alienating the Diaspora" lambasting the proposal, and suggesting that despite passing its first reading, it will not be formally approved (third reading) as a result of promises made by  PM Benjamin Netanayhu and Ruby Rivlin (the Knesset Speaker).


Notwithstanding the "promise", all the major players in the Jewish communal world have been critical of the proposed bill.

Natan Sharansky, Chair of the Jewish Agency and appointed by  PM Netanyahu to lead a dialogue between Israel (Knesset) and world Jewry expressed deep disappointment over the bill passing the committee.

We cannot divide the Jewish people with legislation which many in the Jewish world view as defining them as second-class Jews, ... Jews abroad are the most loyal supporters of Israel, and stand at the forefront of the fight for Israel’s image around the world.

The proposed bill was supposed to have been discussed in detail with world Jewry, ... I hope the prime minister will send a clear message that this proposed legislation will not move forward without proper discussion and consultation with all those who feel they may be harmed by it.

Jerry Silverstein, the CEO of JFNA [the Jewish Federations of North America -- the umbrella organization of the North American Jewish Federations] who also attended the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee meeting expressed his disappointment:

This is very problematic for world Jewry; we don’t need this divisiveness, ... while at the same time stressing that “even though the bill ignores Diaspora Jewry, their support of Israel would not be conditioned on the fate of Rotem’s legislation.

The executive vice president of the Conservative Movement’s Rabbinical Assembly, Rabbi Julie Schoenfeld, referred to it as “destructive.” Reform Movement head Rabbi Eric Yoffie said it was “astonishing, foolish, disruptive.”

Kadima, the opposition party issued its own statement slamming the legislation as having the potential to give haredim a monopoly over conversions, and said the bill would not ease the conversion process in any way.

Rotem on his own part reiterated to The Jerusalem Post that his bill would have no bearing on conversions taking place abroad; rather, he said, it deals with the problems regarding conversion within Israel that can be remedied by allowing city rabbis to conduct conversions.

I am not seeking to alter the procedures of conversion to make it easier, but to expand the options for conversion, without breaking the boundaries of Halakha.

The bill is a revolution that will ease the process and prevent retroactive conversion cancellations

When asked about the understandings that such legislation would only come after a dialogue with all streams of Judaism, led by Sharansky at Netanyahu’s behest, Rotem said 

he had already told Jewish leaders in the US that he wouldn’t let anything hold back his advancement of the legislation. I can’t put off solving the problem of hundreds of thousands of people (in reference to immigrants from the former Soviet Union who are not Jews by Halakha).

Despite the best of intentions of David Rotem (who also happens to be Orthodox) to serve his Russian base, the crafting of the legislation has fallen prey to the haredi components of the government coalition and unless extraordinary measures are taken by the PM and  Knesset Speaker Rivlin to remove the issue from its calendar--something not unprecedented as it's happened in the past including in the late 1980s--irreparable damage will be caused to Israel-Diaspora relations already strained over other political issues (e.g. settlement policy) and social issues (the loss of a common language--literally and figuratively) confronting the relationship.

The "Who Is a Jew" issue has plagued the relationship for ages as an Orthodox controlled Israeli political establishment seeks to confront a non-Orthodox religious establishment/reality outside of Israel. It's a battle that can't be won by either side with any degree of equanimity.

From the internal Israeli perspective, enhancing the powers of an already marginalized Chief Rabbinate, will only further alienate the general--secular and moderate religious--public from the Rabbinate.

Due to political shifts within the Israeli political landscape, principally the erosion (dare I say disappearance) of the NRP [National Religious Party] and its power base in the Knesset (whose voters have shifted their votes and allegiances to right-wing [pro-settlements in the Territories in Gaza (when it was available) and the West Bank/Judea-Samaria)  and the enhanced presence of the haredi parties. Its enhanced presence in the government has facilitated its influence to affect legislation (as well as state funds) to support its causes and supporters.

• It now controls the religious court system allowing it to place "their people" into open judicial positions, which affect in addition to religious issues; e.g. conversions and halakhic issues, also personal status like marriage, divorce and inheritance (which since the days of Ben Gurion was entrusted to the religious court system).
• It controls the process for the election/appointment of community (city and neighborhood) Rabbis as well as the two Chief Rabbis.
• As part of the coalition agreements, funds--prior to the national (regular) budget debate--are earmarked for the haredi educational systems, as well as the perpetuation of the draft deferments for yeshiva students.

The result has been a disaster for modern religious life. The non-orthoprax Israeli public is either offended (because of its treatment of them) or alienated from the Chief Rabbinate and looks elsewhere--if at all--for its religious services. The national religious public, purportedly the focus/target of the Chief Rabbinate feels marginalized. They too, seek to create their own institutions, where possible, for religious/halakhic guidance and services.

It seems that the goal of the haredi world, which never accepted the authority of the Chief Rabbinate, they have their own halakhic decisors,  is to emasculate the institution by placing 'inappropriate' people to serve as the Chief Rabbi (this is particularly the case with the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi, the Sefardi one is determined by R' Ovadia Yosef). Thus by alienating the secular population and marginalizing the modern/national religious population they can convince the political establishment to disband the office completely.

If either scenario happens Israel and Jewish life will be diminished. The time is now to make our voices heard for a sane and mutually respectful policies be enshrined into law.

A right to justice?

Yesterday's Haaretz featured an op-ed piece by Karni Eldad that argued that Israel's High Court of Justice and particularly its President (chief justice) Dorit Beinisch, is biased towards "liberal" and leftist causes and against "conservative" (be it religious or political) rightist issues. It's an old argument which was especially prominent during her predecessor's, Aharon Barak, term as President who believed that everything is judicable--amenable to  a Court decision and was viewed as both liberal and a judicial activist (i.e., legislating from the bench). (His name and reputation was alluded to during Elena Kagen's US Supreme Court nomination hearings before the US Senate).

Citing a comparative study, conducted by Regavim (a NGO which monitors and documents illegal activities on state land), of five years of petitions to the Court submitted by Arabs (and their leftist supporters) against illegal construction by settlers and those submitted by rightest organizations against illegal Arab construction, she argues that the Court has consistently sided with those on the left.

She writes:

[T]he report examined the process' procedural elements ... like the time given to respond, the number of hearings held, the time elapsed between hearings and the composition of the panels of presiding judges.

For example, how much time on average does the High Court of Justice give a respondent to submit a preliminary reply? If the petition comes from the left, it is 25 days. On the other had, if the petition comes from the right ... 88 days to reply. Even before the arguments have been heard, the court can issue an interim injunction. Here the finding is perhaps the most glaring: In 90 percent of petitions submitted by the left and the Arabs, the court issued an interim injunction, while in cases of petitions by the right the number is zero. Not once.

Now for the hearing itself, before a three-judge panel. The claim is that the considerations when choosing judges are completely practical. If so, why is it that in 60 percent of the petitions submitted by the left, Beinisch is present at the hearings, as opposed to zero when the petitions are from the right?

If you think all this is coincidental, see how many days it takes the court to set a date for a first hearing: 389 days for a petition from the right, 177 for a leftist-Arab petition. Even when it comes to interim injunctions, the gap is glaring: 35 percent of leftist petitions produce such injunctions, zero in cases of rightist petitions. In the hearings themselves, the court is quick to decide when considering rightist petitions: The average number of hearings held are 0.5 for the right and 1.9 (almost four times more) for the left.

The report is certainly damning of the High Court, and I expect that the facts are accurate. But is is just (another) partisan missive how the Court is out of touch with the common people, i.e an elitist left wing club, or is it a demand for a public debate on the role of the Court and the judiciary in general?

My sense is it's more the former than the latter. Though I would certainly welcome an opportunity to examine the relationships between and operations of the three branches of government (assuming an American model), the Executive, Legislature and Judiciary. I sense, though, that it would be extremely complex and complicated due to the interweaving of special interest groups, political expediency (on the part of the government to hold its coalition together) and the (benign ?) neglect which has created precedent and inertia for change.

What is clear, is that to most Israelis, as demonstrated by a recent poll, the court is not to be highly trusted to advance a sense of justice and equal protection under the law. The Courts (as well as the police and political system) are not to be trusted and respected.

It's difficult to create and then maintain a robust democracy if the societal institutions are not trust-worthy.

Or, as the op-ed piece ends with a quote from the first President of the Israel Supreme Court, Shimon Agranat:

there is nothing more destructive to a society than a sense among its members that they are subject to a double standard. The sense of inequality is one of the harshest feelings.

Israel--a caring community 1

Two small news items over the last couple of months caught my eye; one dealing with an attempt to shorten the school summer vacation, the other dealing with refunding—in cash/credit card credit—for returning (recently) bought items instead of a store credit. Both demonstrate how caring Israel is towards its clients.

A. School vacation

As it stands now, Israeli school children get too much uncoordinated vacation—school off while the business world (and parents) are open. The school year is contractually determined with the teachers’ unions. If all is well, the teachers decide to show up on the first day instead of striking, school opens on 1 September and ends (elementary school) on 30 June.

Assuming they everyone is in their place for the year, the kids are off in addition to the haggim (High Holidays, Sukkot, Pesach and Shavuot), the arvei and issurei hag (the day before and after the holiday/hag), all of Hanukah, three days of Purim (Tannit Esther, Purim day and Shushan Purim), the week before Pesach, Lag B’Omer (since most kids have stayed up the night before and are in no condition to attend anyway) and the state (mandated) holidays—Memorial Day (half a day), Independence Day, election day (since the schools are used). Surprisingly, the list doesn’t include Yom Yerushalayim [Jerusalem Day commemorating the recapturing of Jerusalem in the 1967 Six Day War]. In total, schools, in addition to the two month summer vacation, are closed for additional 18 days (38 if you also include the actual days of hag and hol ha’moed), for a total of nearly three months. While it may be a boon for the different “vacation activity providers”, it wreaks havoc for parents and their pocketbooks.

A couple of years ago, then Chair of the Knesset Education Committee, Michael Melichor sought to reduce the number of school vacation days, only to have it shot down by the teachers’ unions.

This year, the Knesset sought to shorten the summer vacation. The unions objected. They went so far as to demand that teachers, including principals boycott summer meetings.

I realize that teachers’ salaries are (too) low, the formal school day is too short, from 8:00 (or so) until 13:00 and the week long (Sunday through Friday). That, the education of your child heavily dependant on parental involvement, supplementing the school day by paying for extra classes in the afternoon (either dropped from the regular school day or as enrichment), paying for “extras” like computers, acting as school aides and setting a tone for excellence. The lack of active parental means poor educational opportunities for the students/children. In other words, better off neighborhoods/parents make better schools.

And, this is in the country of “the people of the book.” Somehow, Israel, its governments (national and municipal) has made education a low priority.

B. Consumer Rights

I have always been disappointed and amazed how impossible it is to get your money back—cash or credit card credit—after returning an item to the store. If they agree to take back their merchandise, they expect you to be satisfied with a store credit (which should be used within a month or two). In Israel, the customer can't be considered to be right.

This was reinforced by an item I noticed in the “Business in Brief” section in the English The Marker of 18 May 2010, “Manufacturers horrified at money-back bill”:

“Many people will come to the stores not in order to buy but in order to entertain themselves by buying and returning products,” said Uriel Lynn, the president of the Israeli Chambers of Commerce, yesterday. … “Instead of educating the consumer to act seriously, they will be taught to act irresponsibly,” he added. He called the bill “superfluous and harmful,” and said it would upset the balance of proper commercial relations—just because the consumer changed their mind.

Wow, forcing stores to return a customers money because they changed their mind or didn’t like the gift someone bought them, instead of being allowed to keep their money, is equivalent to inculcating irresponsible behavior and will destroy the natural order of doing business. That most other countries in the world, in name of customer relations actually return people’s money and they continue to attract new costumers seems to be beyond belief for Israeli businesspeople and its spokesperson Uriel Lynn.

What can one expect from the person, when he was a member of Knesset (Likud), who proposed separating the elections of the Prime Minister and the Knesset itself. It was an abject failure and was finally rescinded after two election cycles and the country still experiences its aftershocks today with weak major parties and unwieldy coalition governments.

Five years after the Knesset passed a law requiring stores to refund money to customers who returned purchases, instead of just giving store credits or exchanges, the ministry (Industry, Trade and Labor) finally created the regulations needed to enforce it. Luckily, the Knesset Economic Affairs Committee continued to continued to forge ahead with the legislation stipulating that the store must return the money in the same manner the customer paid: cash for cash or checks, and cancellation of credit card charges. But it gave the industry, trade and labor minister the authority to determine which products and services could be canceled or returned for monetary refunds.

Unfortunately, the legislation has a number of holes or “catches” including:

• Every return of a product or cancellation of a service will cost the consumer 5% of the value of the transaction, or NIS 100, whichever is less. In some cases, such as electrical and electronic items, the store can charge a 10% cancellation fee if the original packaging has been opened.
• Certain items, however, are excluded - for example, furniture that is installed in the customer's home, or merchandise produced especially for the customer. Food, drugs and nutritional supplements are also not included.

Today’s Haaretz in the The Marker section reported that the Knesset Economics Committee approved the regulations forcing stores to fully refund the buyer’s money. They come in force in three months.

Great news. Now we’ll see how it trickles down to the actual store level.