April 15, 2008

Israel Office

• Ramle Mayor Disqualified From Top Job After SHATIL Exposes His Racist Views
• Preserving the Kinneret’s Purity

SHATIL

• Social Change Lobbyists Spared from New Law
• Civil Society Organizations Working for Peace and Academics Learn from one Another

Message From Larry Garber

Many Seder participants will revel in the art of developing a creative new approach to retelling the ancient story of liberation and freedom. Others, including many NIF supporters, will seek to apply the lessons of the Exodus to contemporary situations of physical and psychological bondage, political and economic enslavement, the horrors of war and the disgrace of allowing the genocide in Darfur to continue.

These ennobling thoughts were placed in perspective as I read today’s news from Israel. The Knesset was not called into emergency session to deal with growing poverty among Israel’s population or to encourage Israeli peace negotiators. Rather, the concerns were shall we say more prosaic.

The question concerned the sale of chametz (leavened products forbidden during Passover) in public stores during Passover. A Jerusalem court ruled that existing law did not prohibit such sales in groceries and restaurants, since such venues are not “public places” as defined in the laws. The ruling aroused the religious parties, which demanded the emergency Knesset session.

Once again, Israeli parliamentarians are debating what it means to live in a Jewish and democratic state. In the minds of some, the Jewishness of the state require that chametz be banned from public view and that Jews, regardless of their religious practices, be actively deterred from eating chametz. Of course, even if the court ruling is reversed, Jews and non-Jews who want to eat bread or other forms of chametz during Passover can visit, as they have always done, an Arab town or village, or even those sections of the city of Jerusalem where Arabs are a majority.

While seemingly frivolous, particularly in view of the many important challenges confronting Israeli society on the eve of this Passover, the current debate highlights the tension between accommodating religious sensitivities and dictating religious practices for a diverse population. In the US, freedom of religion is long-enshrined, although we forget that the battle to achieve government neutrality on religious matters has not always been uncontroversial; Sunday blue laws and prayers in the schoolhouse are just two examples from our own history. Israel, meanwhile, has constantly wrestled with the appropriate balance between what it means to be Jewish and democratic; while the strictures on the opening of restaurants and theaters on the Shabbat have now been eased, certain issues, like the sale of chametz on Pesach, provide the backdrop for a continuation of the battle between those who seek more public internalization of religious strictures and those who decry the impact on their personal freedom.

Rabbi David Hartman of the Shalom Hartman Institute addresses this issue in his Jerusalem Post blog. While recognizing the dilemma perhaps more sympathetically than do I, Hartman also is bewildered by the religious parties’ willingness “to create a coalition crisis in the middle of a political struggle with the Palestinians [that] seems out of place. The threat of breaking up the government is totally exaggerated. That one could express his opinions without necessarily threatening the political stability of society seems to be a self-evident principle.”

Amen! However, you celebrate Passover, chag sameach and enjoy the holiday. And keep an eye on NIF News to find out more about our first International Town Hall webcast, on Sunday May 18 at 1:00 PM EST, featuring some of Israel’s leading experts and involving you in a discussion of religious pluralism. Even the least techno-savvy among us – including the NIF executive director and much of the senior staff – will be able to join the discussion easily from our home computers.

In this week’s NIF News we report on the heavy price paid by Ramle Mayor Yoel Lavie for his racist outburst against the city's Arab population in 2006. We also feature new legislation to protect Lake Kinneret, which was supported by the NIF family, and will both protect the water itself and the beaches around the lake, while prohibiting construction within 50 meters of the waterfront. SHATIL highlights a victory excluding NGOs from a new law regulating lobbying and a recent conference where civil society activists and academics were able to exchange ideas on the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians.