Rosh Hashanah Sermon September 5, 2013
Rosh Hashanah 5774

Religious Equality, Freedom & Gender in Israel - Come to Israel

On May 11, 2010, a thirty year old woman was standing at the bus station in Be’er Sheva Israel.  It was seven thirty in the morning at the central bus station.  As she awaited her bus, a Haredi - ultra-orthodox - man seemed to be staring at her.  As his gaze continued to point in her direction, she realized he was fixated on her arm.  The thirty year old woman prays each morning with a tallit and tefillin and the latter sometimes leaves imprints on her pale forearms.  The woman, Noa Raz, was well aware this might irk someone from an ultra orthodox background, but she never expected him to over step the bounds of his version of modesty, let alone what was about to happen next. 

He asked several times with increasing hostility if the imprints were from tefillin.  Raz continued to ignore the man, half out of defiance and half out of preserving the modesty boundary she knew mattered to him.  Clearly frustrated, the man stepped in front of her and demanded to know, “Are the marks on your arm from tefillin?”  Finally, Raz replied, “Yes, they are from tefillin, and what do you want?”1

“Then something happened for which Raz was totally unprepared:  The man grabbed her hand and began kicking her legs, screaming that she was “an abomination.”2 

As Raz realized what the man was doing, a handful of men stood around looking on, it was a lone woman who yelled at the man to leave Raz alone.  She reported that once a few seconds past, she responded herself and it ended quickly.3

Shortly after this event took place, one of Raz’s friends shared the details of the incident with Yizhar Hess, the head of Israel’s Masorti movement - Israel’s version of Conservative Judaism.  “It’s a wakeup call for the State of Israel,” Hess said in a press release.  “We’ve turned into prisoners in the hands of a group of zealots, which considers itself, with the help of some politicians, to be the authentic Judaism.”4  He went on to proclaim that there is no bigger lie than when we hear that Judaism, at least in Israel, belongs to us all:  Secular, Orthodox, Reform, Conservative, etc.5

A year and a half later, Naama Margolese, who was eight years old at the time, was used to walking to school with her friends.  Naama’s family ascribed to what we might call Modern Orthodoxy, or in Israel National Religious.  Those families that adhere to classical orthodox Judaism, practice modesty, keep kosher and strictly observe Shabbat.  Yet most, if not all, of them receive secular education, pursue modern careers and strike a balance between classically practiced Judaism and a modern way of life.  The young Margolese girl may have been used to traveling to school through her neighborhood with her friends, but that was until she began being bullied.  Yet the shocking part of Naama’s story is that the bullying was quite different from the type we battle here in America, in our schools especially.  It was at the hands of grown men, Haredi - ultra orthodox men who began spitting on her, insulting her and calling her terrible names due to her modest dress not being strict enough to adhere to their more rigorous dress code.6

And in June of last year, another modern orthodox woman, Vered Daniel, ventured into a Haredi - ultra orthodox neighborhood to shop.  Taking measures to be a step beyond her typical level of modesty, she wore a long skirt and blouse.  “When she left her car with her infant daughter in her arms, Haredi men screamed at her for dressing immodestly and spat on her.  Alarmed, Daniel ran back to her car, locking herself and her baby inside as the mob battered the vehicle with sticks and stones, shattering a window.”7 

The rising incidents of hatred from the ultra orthodox community in Israel, protecting not only what they view as their turf, but their way of life is alarming.  It is indicative of deeper seeded problems in Israeli society.  The public face of much of this debate, at least from the progressive - non haredi side - has brought the debate, the fight to what many consider the most sacred site in Judaism.  The Western Wall, or the Kotel is seen as the holiest place for prayer.  As the one remnant of the ancient temple accessible to Jews, its proximity to what once was the holy of holies bears a great sense of the sacred for so many.  For others it is the symbol of Jewish sovereignty in our ancient capital that is represented by the Kotel.  The group, Nashot HaKotel, Women of the Wall, has gained much traction and media in recent months.  For many years they have held Rosh Chodesh - new moon - services for women at the wall.  Women from all walks of Jewish life fill their ranks and are tired of being treated as second class.  For decades now, women at the wall have been prohibited from wearing kippot, a tallit and tefillin.  

It was early in July as the month of Av began, that the Nashot HaKotel were forced out of the women’s side of the prayer section at the wall and making international headlines.  While a recent court ruling in Israel had allowed for their prayer and use of traditional religious garments - tallit, kippot, tefillin, there was a call within the haredi community for women to flood the women’s side to fill it beyond capacity, therefore preventing the women of the wall to engage in their celebration of the new month.8

From a conservative Jewish background, from a liberal and Reform Jewish background and from a modern orthodox background, women are being forced to question their place, not just in and amongst classically orthodox communities, but their own neighborhoods, their country, the country women just off boats from Europe fought for, side by side with their male pioneers and Zionists in the 1940s.  The Nashot HaKotel - The Women of the Wall are not so much fighting over the physical space as much about the public, the cultural memory represented in that space.  It is not just about being allowed to be there; nor is it just about being supported by others to engage in a style of Judaism that is meaningful and in public ways, but it is about women being celebrated as integral to life...to Jewish life.  While many of us in the Diaspora are deeply concerned about Israel’s existential threats, its foreign policy and relations, Israel is also under attack from within.  The internal issues have reached boiling.

A year ago, Anat Hoffman, director of IRAC - The Israel Religious Action Center of the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism - essentially the Reform Movement in Israel’s social justice office, visited the US.  What she brought in her arsenal for fundraising, awareness raising and overall better, stronger relations among progressive committed Jews in Israel and the Diaspora was the idea, in her own words, that “What’s happening in Beit Shemesh is as big a threat to Israel as what’s happening in Tehran.”9  She was referring to the experiences of Naamah Margolese, the eight year old afraid to walk to school, and Vered Daniel, the women who sought refuge with her infant in her own car.

The challenge, as Hoffman describes, is about understanding that while Tehran, and now the unrest in Syria and Egypt, rising tensions among major powers over Israel’s place in the world, while they all pose major threats to Israel’s physical existence as a State, its own sovereign nation, there is more to be concerned about.  That Israel is deconstructing from the inside.  Without its national character being defined, truly defined as a place for all Jews, what does it become?  What can it possibly stand for? 

What’s happening in the cultural, or for some religious, wars in Israel is at times hard to understand.  “Women are seated readily at Israel’s Supreme Court, but at the backs of certain bus lines [that pass through haredi neighborhoods].  For decades, Israelis tolerated their nation’s dual identity as both a secular and a religious state, in part because haredi influence was largely confined to their own private spaces.”10  But demographic realities are forcing the issue and making it less tenable.  What is most shocking to many, especially students of Zionist history, is not just how quickly this has happened, but that after how the State began, that it is happening at all.

A piece published in the New Republic at the beginning of August speaks directly to this paradox and the culture war.  They describe the unlikely bedfellows of progressive Jewish women with orthodox women and making a case that this is one way Israel can be saved from fundamentalism.  The writers remind us that, “Even before Israel’s founding in 1948, modern Zionists envisioned a state that was a beacon of gender equality.  Zionism, which fused national aspirations with socialist ideology, encouraged the full integration of women into society, while Israel’s small population also made women in the workforce a necessity.  ...women were expected to work and fight alongside men, and working mothers were provided with services to help them do so, such as free child care.  An economic boom after the 1967 war drove yet more women into the labor market.  It seemed a fitting symbol of Israel’s progressive attitudes toward gender when Golda Meir was appointed prime minister in 1969.”11  

Yet, even with a female prime minister, the haredi communities failed to change attitudes.  Men remained, and still do to this day, free from military service.  Those engaged in full time yeshiva study are free from that obligation.  This leaves the numbers in the ultra orthodox community to study Torah, to raise large families that will inevitably tip the demographic voting scales to their own views.

I know that the political and civil unrest of the Mid East looms large.  I am aware that many amongst our ranks have a waning affinity and support for Israel, especially those of my generation.  It is a difficult argument to make for those who have not found their own reasons for living the value of Ahavat Yisrael - Love of Israel.  But this issue, this inner struggle, the current culture war of religious freedom, of gender equality and religious pluralism is important...more so it is imperative for us to care...and act. 

We must recall that among the many reasons Israel matters is because Jewish nationalism, the reality of Israel, celebrates what our people, the Jews, were, are and can be.  Zionism celebrates our right and capacity to do that in our own spiritual and political home, no less or more than any other nation in its own home.  Rabbi Dan Ornstein, of Albany New York writes that it is akin to Robert Frost’s poem, The Death of the Hired Man, “...about a farm hand who comes back to his former employers, a farmer and his wife, to spend his last days before his death.  At one point in the poem, the woman says that, ‘Home is the place where when you have to go there, they have to let you in.‘  He goes on to make the case that Israel matters not just because it is the only democracy in the region, not just because of the Zionist experiment - to create, better recreate Jewish life, nor as a haven, but more.  It is about raising up the past, the beauty of our past, culture, religion, memory and breathing new life into it.  Israel strengthens the Jewish people for it is the epicenter.  The heart of the body of Isreal, the people of Israel.  It is where everything Jewish lives, thrives, evolves...where our identity grows and is the “...expression of our deepest values and moral struggles among the family of nations.”12      

But an Israel that fails the test of gender equality, that does not recognize religious pluralism and freedom does not express my deepest values as a Jew.  To me, to us and from our view point as liberal American Jews, proud of our liberal Judaism, this reality on the ground must see change. 

The Women of the Wall are making progress.  Recent rulings by the court system, movement, albeit snail pace, is being made in the Knesset and connections between all walks of Jewish life are being strengthened.  Kolech - Israel’s first Orthodox feminist group has partnered with IRAC - the Israel Religious Action Center of the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism.  Their work has led to much of the change that has taken place and is working diligently to continue the work.13 

Supporting these organizations and the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism in general is imperative and one way to make our voice heard.  It is one avenue for us, Jews of the Diaspora, to not only give voice to our value of Ahavat Yisrael - Love of Israel, but to ensure She does express our deepest values as Jews and will always be that open door home that has to let us in...let us in and welcome who we authentically are as Jews. 

Just as we would make change in our own country by writing to our representatives, the ministers of Knesset in Israel represent us.  While we do not get a vote, nor do I believe we should, we do have a voice.  They, as the Jewish State, speak for us often and we must be heard.  Share your thoughts, your opinions with those who lead the State of Israel.

Go to Israel, attend a liberal Jewish community, support their work.  Better yet, come with us, members of Temple Bat Yam for a journey to Israel this Spring.  Join with us for a cultural, historical and social tour through Israel.  We will learn about the religious heritage for so many around the world that are rooted in that Land...We will explore Jewish and Christian sites, connect with progressive Jews in Israel and learn how we can do our part to ensure Israel’s religious freedom, pluralism and gender equality becomes reality. 

Speak with your feet, give voice to your stand on the internal issues of our State of Israel.

May this year provide us the opportunity and may we seize that opportunity to ensure Israel will always be a home for ALL Jews.
G’mar Chatimah Tovah - May we all find good in the coming year and Shanah Tovah U’mitukah - A Sweet, Happy and Good New Year!

 
Footnotes:
1 Excerpted and adapted from the Forward’s Blog - The Sisterhood.  http://blogs.forward.com/sisterhood-blog/128056/noa-raz-beaten-for-wearing-tefillin-speaks-to-the/
2 Ibid. Direct quotation.
3 Ibid.  Excerpted and adapted.
4 Ibid.  Emphasis my own addition for delivery.
5 Ibid. 
6 Israeli Girl, 8, at Center of Tension Over Religious Extremism.  Isabel Kershner.  NY Times Online, December 27, 2011.  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/28/world/middleeast/israeli-girl-at-center-of-tension-over-religious-extremism.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
7 The Feminists of Zion:  An Unlikely Alliance between Orthodox and Progressive women will save Israel from Fundamentalism.  Allison Kaplan Sommer & Dahlia Lithwick.  August 4, 2013 - New Republic.  www.newrepublic.com/node/114124/print.
8 New Prayer Confrontation at Western Wall.  Alyza Sebenius and Jodi Rudoren.  July 8, 2013 - New York Times.  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/09/world/middleeast/new-prayer-confrontation-at-western-wall.html?_r=1&
9 Israeli Women’s Rights Moving to Front of Bus.  Rebecca Spence.  January 25, 2012 - Jewish Journal.com.  http://www.jewishjournal.com/israel/article/israeli_womens_rights_moving_to_front_of_bus _20120125
10 The Feminists of Zion:  An Unlikely Alliance between Orthodox and Progressive women will save Israel from Fundamentalism.
11 Ibid.
12 To a Young Jew:  Why Israel Matters.  Blog on the Times of Israel by Rabbi Dan Ornstein.  June 16, 2013.  http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/to-a-young-jew-why-israel-matters/
13 The Feminists of Zion:  An Unlikely Alliance between Orthodox and Progressive women will save Israel from Fundamentalism.