Letters to the Editor October 2, 2023: Flawed progression

Flawed progression

Regarding “Reasonableness law: The judiciary’s power has not been uprooted” (September 27): I’m a longtime admirer of Mr. Lewin for both his character and intellect, and it is with this respect that I share my feelings with him. 

We in Israel are sitting on a tinderbox which has been triggered by a complex of legal, social, religious, cultural, and political sensitivities, divisions and fears.

We are way beyond attempting to convince each other with step-by-step logic, and are instead at an emotional boiling point. If your goal was to clarify our situation with a rational lesson in jurisprudence, I say it was unhelpful.

I’m talking about your seamless application of the US context to our situation in Israel. Using “how we do it in America” as the standard for “how we should do it in Israel” is a categorical mistake, and a denial of Israel as a multi-faceted and unique cultural mosaic.

Our government is not America; we don’t have a bicameral Congress; we don’t de facto have three branches; we don’t have direct elections of our representatives; we are a different entity.

Using the standards of the US judiciary’s treatment of reasonableness to justify a similar application in Israel is a flawed progression. Continuing to write that “the only tyranny it prevents is that of judges” reflects a more foundational view regarding the proposed reform which is disconnected from the neutral analysis of one particular component.

If you’ve taken a side, I would much prefer that you write a piece sharing your opinions on the macro issues at play in our legislative arena and suggest paths to restore stability. It is precisely because you are such a respected voice in our community, and beyond, that what you say matters and influences large segments of our world.

JAY POMRENZE

Jerusalem

An act of antisemitism

In “When solidarity was lost” (October 1), Amichai Cohen condemns the protesters who disrupted the Yom Kippur service in Tel Aviv, but, as is typical for leftists, he blames “both sides” for the conflict. The protesters, it seems, are never completely wrong, even when they in fact are completely wrong.

The separation of men and women during prayer goes back 2,500 years, when, as the Mishna recounts, during a Sukkot festival in the Temple in Jerusalem, the Simchat Beit Hashoeva, there was excessive mingling between males and females in violation of Halacha. So, the rabbinical authorities set up a partition to separate the genders.

Orthodox Jews have prayed with a mechitza barrier ever since. Thus, for more than two millennia, prayer without a mechitza has been prohibited under Jewish law.

Now, Tel Aviv mayor Ron Huldai decided that traditional public prayer with a gender separation should be banned. He was following a ruling by the High Court of Justice that prohibiting gender separation should be allowed.

This decision was made despite the court’s and mayor’s allowing Muslim worshipers to be separated by sex during a Ramadan festival.

Under the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism, which has been adopted by many countries globally, forbidding Jews from practicing their religious rituals is antisemitism. Thus, leftist Mayor Huldai committed an act of antisemitism by prohibiting Orthodox prayer, and the left-wing majority of the High Court condoned this antisemitic action.

What this demonstrates is the importance of the government’s changing the allowance of what the High Court considers “reasonable,” since its ruling was definitely unreasonable, and it is imperative that the government change the selection method, so that the court is not dominated automatically by anti-religious justices.

ALVIN REINSTEIN

Efrat

Powerful and meaningful song

I found your article on the Butt Mitzvah by Ben Freeman so offensive, and an affront to those of us who celebrate the Jewish holidays as they are meant to be celebrated (“Duality and Jewish joy,” October 1). 

For centuries, Jews have sung “Avinu Malkeinu” as part of the holiday liturgy, yet the author has insulted this powerful and meaningful song by letting us know that it was performed by a well-known drag queen who then “launched into a strip tease.”

I’m shocked that your newspaper would actually print this offensive article describing nothing less than an orgy, as a way of celebrating the holiest day of the year. 

JUDY LEV

Ra’anana

Easily avoided

Avi Mayer nicely summarized the horrific incident in Dizengoff Square on Yom Kippur (“Reawakening the synagogue and state debate,” September 29). However this whole tragic violent event could have been easily avoided.

The Tel Aviv Municipality would not allow the religious service to take place if a physical partition was erected to separate men and women. But halachically, such a partition is not required in areas that are not regular places of prayer, like airports, parks, airplanes, and public spaces.

The flags that the organizers, the Rosh Yehudi organization, put up to identify the separation was totally unnecessary. They should have had two sections of plastic chairs with a large aisle between them and that would have been sufficient with men and women in separate seating. Those who prefer a mixed service could organize their own. That is democracy.

But we all know that Yom Kippur is not what this is all about. It is about the fears of the secular public, which are legitimate, that the duly elected government which is more conservative, traditional, and religious will impose regulations that will impinge on their chosen lifestyle. What Prime Minister Netanyahu has to do is convene his cabinet to make them understand that this will not happen.

He then must go on primetime television and assure everyone that there will not be changes in the previous status quo, and everyone will live according to his own life choices. Members of the religious parties should be standing behind him in the address.

However, institutions and agencies sponsored or financed by the government, and services, like buses, light rail, hospitals, and the army, will continue their practices of Shabbat observance and kashrut, as well as any other practices that have been observed until now.

This has been after all, the only Jewish state in existence and will continue to be so. Our children will also be taught what it means to be a Jew and its cultural heritage and history, and not be totally ignorant of why we have this Nation of Israel.

Our goal should be: “How good and how pleasant it is that brothers dwell together” (Psalms 133). Tolerance, respect, and love should be the watchwords of our unique society.

FRED EHRMAN

Ra’anana

Found himself wanting

Herb Keinon has done an excellent job encapsulating the highs and lows of Benjamin Netanyahu’s career as prime minister of Israel, having served in this lofty position for 16 years (“An anniversary that went unnoticed: Netanyahu finishes his 16th year as prime minister,” September 29).

To most and especially those around the world, he is and has been the face and mouthpiece of this nation. However, currently with criminal indictments hanging over him, and amid nearly 40 weeks of demonstrations, there has been, in many quarters, personal acrimony against him, his right-wing government, and the ultra-religious coalition.

He will be remembered, certainly, as an excellent foreign ambassador, but overall failing as a prime minister who despite contributing greatly in bringing the “start- up nation” to the fore, in many other areas found himself wanting.

To the ordinary man, women, and child in the street there has been great neglect in issues that concerns their daily needs: cost of living, housing, health, education, and general transportation. These matters seemed to have taken a back seat alongside the cacophony that the judicial reform has rightly or wrongly produced depending on one’s allegiance.

All this has been taking place accompanied by a great uptick in violence in the Arab sector and alongside terrorist violence that raises its ugly head at will.

To quote Enoch Powell, a politician who tends not to be mentioned in polite circles but whose remarks aptly apply to Bibi: “All political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure, because that is the nature of politics and of human affairs.”

STEPHEN VISHNICK

Tel Aviv

Open and tolerant

As a secular, atheist Jew I am extremely disconcerted at the violence and opposition of some so-called “liberal” Israeli elements in refusing to allow religious Jews to pray as they want to with gender segregation (“Fights break out in TA over gender-segregated Yom Kippur prayers,” September 26).

Being liberal does not mean fighting religious norms; it means being open and tolerant to all faiths and peoples. Would the same “liberals” break up a Muslim or Christian prayer service? These are not actions that we would expect from truly civilized, liberal people.

The religious also have the right to act as they prefer in a public space. In 2015, I published my manifesto “The Tolerant Atheist.” Being an atheist should not make one intolerant.

JACK COHEN

Beersheba

Politically concocted prosecution

Douglas Bloomfield’s fiery screed (“Shared values become shredded,” September 28) exposed his severe case of BDS: Bibi Derangement Syndrome.

Bibi seeks to destroy Israeli democracy. He wants to “overthrow the independent judiciary.” He’s blackening Israel’s image among Americans, especially among the young, divided American Jewry. According to the “objective” Americans for Peace Now, he’s presiding over a “government of fascists, felons and fundamentalists.”

As for corruption, that still remains to be proven. Separate charges in his politically concocted prosecution keep getting dropped. While Bibi’s past political infighting certainly contributed to the current “far-Right coalition,” the fault is far his alone. Former allies, now bitter opponents, could have formed a stable unity government.

Bloomfield’s gross distortion of generally anodyne “judicial reform” proposals, ignores the current Supreme Court’s total unaccountability to the Knesset.

As for those American Jews, and expat Israelis, hounding Netanyahu throughout his recent US visit, there’s a reason why such behavior was formerly taboo. Earlier in the US, politics was supposed to “stop at the water’s edge.”

It’s unseemly to attack a sitting prime minister while he’s on the world stage. That, and rants like Bloomfield’s and of his ilk, contribute far more than Netanyahu toward souring American attitudes toward Israel.

Israel and Jews have many enemies. True friends should be sought out and cherished. They include Bloomfield’s despised “evangelical voters” and Republicans, but increasingly fewer Democrats. He still resents Bibi’s finest hour, when he addressed a joint session of Congress in 2015 to oppose the then-disastrous, and now even worse, Iran nuclear deal.

No, friends don’t go out of their way to drive a deep wedge between Israel and America and Israel and the Diaspora.

RICHARD D. WILKINS

Syracuse, New York

Being a mensch

The editorial “An urgent wake-up call” and Gil Troy’s article “Don’t block Saudi normalization” (September 27) have clarified the sad situation in Israel. It is not about judicial reform. Everything the opposition does is extremism against the government.

There is no thought to being a mensch. It is about anger, hatred, jealousy, and their resolve to prove that they, and only they, are right. It doesn’t matter who is hurt. The interference at the Kol Nidre service didn’t push me closer to the Left. It has made me terribly sad that there are Jews, that have Jewish souls like me, who hate their roots. I made aliyah because I felt this country is the place where I can truly be Jewish. I don’t have to justify being Jewish or be afraid to be Jewish, which is very prevalent in the world today. But it is also a phenomenon here among our own.

For sure there are extremists on all sides who need to be reined in and sadly there is no leadership, from the Right or Left, from scholars and rabbis; people who must be brave enough to stand up.

I am terribly sad after Yom Kippur, the holiday on which I cried for the unity of the proud people of Israel, which right now seems like a far-off fantasy.

SARAH MASLOW

Jerusalem