So What Is A Jew?

The question is eternal. Its latest dramatic appearance was in the Supreme Court of Israel. The judges had to decide whether the two children of a Jewish papa atheist and a Gentile mama atheist were really Jewish. The Court decided 5-4 that they were.

And then the fireworks.

The religious leaders of Israel threatened insurrection – Arabs or no Arabs. The decision, they implied violated not only the halakha, the orthodox rabbinic law (which decrees that only the children of a Jewish mother are Jewish), It also subverted the unity of the Jewish people. Israel would end up with two kinds of Jews – “Supreme Court” Jews and “kosher” Jews – and neither would be able to marry the other. Is this the time, said the rabbis, to arrange for disunity? The action of the judges was less than patriotic. It should be reversed.

The secularists, in turn, threatened counter-insurrection if the government yielded to orthodox demands. They hailed the decree of the judges. After all, a modern nation like Israel should enjoy the separation of church and state. It should be free of the medieval regulations of medieval rabbis. Let the religious play their religious games among themselves without imposing their silly rules on everybody else. The decision must be sustained.

Poor Golda Meir.

With at least eighty million fanatic Arabs surrounding the country and crying for its destruction, the time was the wrong time for an internal fight. The Prime Minister knew that national unity was indispensable. Although she approved the Court decision, she did what she thought was the patriotic thing. She sponsored a new law in the Knesset which would clearly spell out the right of orthodox rabbis to decide who was Jewish. The orthodox cheered; the farbrente secularists swore resistance; and the military defenders gave a sigh of relief. As for the Ministry of Interior (which registers all citizens) it could continue to do legally what it had always done.

So did Golda do the right thing?

Before we can answer the question, we have to clarify the issue. So much has been written on the Shalit Case (it was the two children of Navy Commander Benjamin Shalit and his Scottish bride who were involved); and so much uninformed discussion has taken place, that the real question is obscured.

Here is some relevant information.

The issue is not whether the Jews are a religious group or a nationality.

Both the orthodox and the secularists agree that the Jews are a l’om, a nationality. The religious authorities have never maintained that being Jewish is primarily a matter of religious belief. How could they? The rabbinic criterion for Jewishness is neither cultural nor religious. It is racial and familial. As long as a person is the child of a Jewish mother, his religious beliefs and cultural habits are irrelevant to his Jewish status.

The religious authorities in Israel know full well that most Israelis repudiate rabbinic law and that thousands are opposed to all forms of organized religion. They also know that a high percentage of the population are announced atheists and agnostics. The founders of modern Zionism were, to say the least,secular humanists who believed that the Jewish people must be rescued from their rabbinic past. The heroes of the Israeli state, from Theodore Herzl to David Ben Gurion, resisted clerical intrusion. But the Jewishness of all these people has never been called into question. Even if all Israeli Jews decided overnight to become Buddhist monks, don saffron robes, and chant Hebrew sutras every Friday night, their Jewish Status would be unaffected. They might be bad Jews. But Jews, nevertheless.

In fact, the Orthodox criterion is broader than the official state standard. Several years ago when a Catholic monk, Brother Daniel, who was born a Jew, demanded automatic Israeli citizenship, he was denied it. Although, by orthodox law he was still Jewish and, therefore, entitled to immediate naturalization, the state authorities improvised. They stated that formal conversion to another religious community removed all Jewish privileges. But they left the matter ‘up in the air’. It was never clear whether the state was saying that Brother Daniel had ceased to be a Jew, or whether they were punishing him with a kind of secular excommunication for not being a Jew in good standing. Certainly, had he formally joined the Communist Party, which publicly rejects the validity of all kinds of organized religion and publicly ridicules all forms of religious ritual, his Jewishness would never have been called into question. It is obvious that conversion to Catholicism is unforgivable for other than religious reasons. Perhaps, hostility to historic enemies is the real reason. If so, vengeance is hardly a respectable amendment to the orthodox law.

Regardless of this state exception to the rabbinic standard, both the pros and cons agree that the Jews are, first and above all, a nationality (like the Irish, the French, the Arabs, etc.). But they disagree on how an individual, who is not born a Jew, can become one. The secularists insist that any person who wishes to identify with Jewish culture and Israeli citizenship should be entitled to become a Jew. The traditionalists insist that only a person who is willing to undergo the orthodox ceremony of conversion is entitled to become a Jew. The practical implication of the orthodox stand is that no individual can acquire Jewish nationality unless he is willing to pass a test conducted by orthodox rabbis. It would be as though a person could not become an Irish national unless he passed a test conducted by Catholic priests, although thousands of native-born Irishmen are non-believers.

The issue is not religious belief.

Neither the Shalit children nor their mother have been refused orthodox conversion because they are avowed atheists. No orthodox authority is asking the Shalits to believe in traditional Judaism. They are only being asked to participate in a brief and perfunctory religious ceremony. The boy must have blood drawn from his circumcised penis and be dunked with appropriate prayers in a ritual pool. The girl only has to be dunked in a mikveh. Once the ceremony is over, they can all go back to their atheism. Having undergone the national unitiation ceremony, they are now entitled like any native-born, to be “bad” Jews. The ritual – not the commitment – is the thing.

The whole situation is ironic. In ancient times the Jews refused to worship the Roman emperor as an expression of their loyalty to the state. Sophisticated Romans deplored this obstinacy, after all, they said, no intelligent Roman really believes that the emperor is a god. It’s just a matter of patriotic courtesy. It’s just a matter of subordinating your individual integrity, for a moment, to an expression of national unity.

Now the orthodox Jews who hail the Akibas and the Bar Kochbas for their stubborn faith, are proceeding to recommend the same kind of public cynicism. Many Israelis are angry at the Shalits for their lack of subtlety. All the Shalits have to do is let their children be dunked for a moment, endure an instant’s worth of mumbled prayers, and then go happily ever after living as atheists. Why make such a fuss? Why be so selfish? Why cause-such a national furor over two minutes in a mikveh?

The upshot of the protest is that sophisticated ‘liars’ never get into any trouble. An atheist with an ‘intelligent’ conscience does his little orthodox thing and never gets harassed. Only the akshan, the stubborn man with integrity, gets burned.

The issue is not the complete separation of church and state.

If only it would be!

As you may know, control of marriage and divorce is entirely in the hands of the Israeli rabbinate. The only valid civil wedding ceremony for Jews is an orthodox one. No other ceremonies, reform, conservative, or secular, possess any legal power. If you are Jewish and you want to get married, you must fulfill the rabbinic requirements for marriage. If you are Jewish and you want to get divorced, you must do ‘the orthodox thing’ for divorce. Your personal beliefs are irrelevant.

Even if the Knesset did not pass a law to override the Supreme Court decision, even if the Ministry of Interior did not forbid an individual who was not born of a Jewish mother to list his religion as none and his nationality as Jewish, the practical benefits would be minimal. The only practical result would be eligibility for the draft, since only Jews can serve in the army.

When this individual went to get married, he would be treated as a non-Jew. He would not be allowed to marry a Jew born of a Jewish mother, even if his bride detested all forms of organized religion, and even if he had been wounded in the service of his country. His civil Jewish status would be of no avail in the religious courts. Only his willingness to play the game of orthodox conversion would give him his bride. But at the price of his integrity.

The issue is not Israeli citizenship.

The Shalit children are not being denied Israeli citizenship. They are not even being denied automatic Israeli citizenship. According to the new Knesset law, the children of non-Jewish mothers who are married to Jews, and the non-Jewish spouses of born Jews, are entitled to instant naturalization. They don’t have to apply and wait for citizenship like immigrating Arabs or non-Jews. Like born Jews, they get it right away. They suffer, however, four disabilities when they do become citizens. They cannot be registered as Jews even if they regard themselves as Jews. They cannot serve in the army. They cannot marry a Jew in Israel. And, most humiliating of all, they are classified as being of “foreign” nationality.

The distinction between citizenship and nationality is a difficult one for Americans to understand. Since there is only one permanent language community in the United States, we have made no provision for minority status. But in Canada and the Soviet Union where there is more than one major ethnic community with a persisting language difference, a legal distinction between French and English, Russian and Ukrainian, is necessary.

Israel is like Canada and the Soviet Union. There is a minority linguistic group which cannot be (and does not desire to be) absorbed into the Hebrew-speaking majority. The Arabs are one of two major nationalities in Israel. Although Israel is a Jewish state in which the Hebrew speakers are the overshelming majority, being of Jewish nationality is not equivalent to being an Israeli. Many Hebrew-speaking Jewish nationals live outside of Israel and are not Israeli citizens; and many Arab nationals are Israeli citizens without losing their identity with Arabs in other countries.

Therefore, to grant the Shalit children Israeli citizenship without Jewish nationality is to deny them the dignity of a status that almost every one of their friends will have. Since they do not want to be Arabs, they will remain part of a growing caste of ‘mongrels’ who hang in a kind of racial limbo, classified as ‘foreign’ and eligible to marry only each other.

There is no united opposition to the orthodox. The supporters of the Supreme Court decision are not united in their reasons and in their goals. There are three different groups actively supporting the orthodox tyranny.

(1) The reform and conservative Jews in Israel to not necessarily object to religious officials handling initiation or marriage. They would prefer a secular state. But they will settle for the inclusion of reform and conservative rabbis as civil officials for conversion and weddings.

(2) There are the ‘Canaanites’. They are represented in the Knesset by two flamboyant parliamentarians, Uri Avneri and Shalom Cohen. They want a secular state in which all distinctions between Jewish and Arab nationality are abolished. The only relevant civil status would be Israeli. The national language would be Hebrew. And all familial connections with the Jewish diaspora and the Arab hinterland would be severed. An Israeli nationality, which is neither Jewish nor Arab would be created. (How a nation in which everybody ended up speaking ,Hebrew would be regarded as non-Jewish – and would be acceptable to the Arabs – is a mystery to met)

(3) There are the ‘secularists’ who wish to retain the concepts of Jewish nationality and Arab nationality. Any Israeli citizen who wishes to identify with the Jewish people, to participate in its culture, and to use the Hebrew tongue as his everyday language should be registered as a Jew. He should also be free to marry anyone he desires in any ceremony he desires, without the interference of religious officials.

The issue is only internal and does not affect Jews throughout the world.

The decline of interest in religion, (whether orthodox, conservative, or reform) in the diaspora and the rise in intermarriage will produce thousands of secular Jews without orthodox credentials. The two largest Jewish communities in the world are in America and the Soviet Union. Shall young people who regard themselves as Jews and who have a positive interest in Jewish identity and secular Jewish culture, have to view themselves as non-Jews because of the current Israeli criteria. Can Israel afford to treat so cavalierly the only sources of potential immigration? In twenty-five years there may not be a Russian Jew who will be able to qualify for rabbinic Jewish nationality and in fifty maybe also American.

And what about idealistic non-Jews who are attracted to kibbutz living and Israeli idealism – and would like to become part of them. Shall they be denied Jewish status if they desire it – only because they refuse the Hebrew version of baptism?

The issue is not the unity of the state in time of danger.

Since the prospect of peace with the Arabs is unlikely for many years to come, the orthodox can postpone any rational change in the law forever. Anytime a reform is recommended they have only to threaten to take to the streets and they win surrender from the opposition.

The orthodox in Israel wield a power that their numbers do not justify. Only some 12 percent of the Israelis vote for the clerical parties. The ultra-religious Agula party, whose children rarely serve in the army, refuse to participate in a trade government. And the more ‘liberal’ Mizrahi party is not necessary for Golda to have a safe legislative majority.

Secular morale is equally as important as orthodox morale. After all, the heart of the military defense has come out of the kibbutz – not out of Mea Shearim. The defeat of the orthodox would not threaten the efficiency of those elements of the population who are most responsible for the defense of the country. It would most likely improve it.

It sometimes appears that the socialist and liberal indulgence of the orthodox parties is more a function of residual guilt than of political astuteness. If it is, the leadership is spending too much time dealing with dead ancestors than in attracting live immigrants. Israel does not need more yeshiva students committed to pious studies. It needs scientific professionals like Renjamin Shalit.

So did Golda do right?

No.

The Supreme Court decision provided an excellent opportunity for removing the orthodox shackles on Jewish nationality. The opportunity was lost.