How much longer, for heaven’s sake, are we going to be preoccupied withthese trivialities?
Who is a Jew? Are Reform conversions valid? Only abroad or in Israel too?What does it mean to be a Jew? Is it a religion or a nationality? Does aRomanian woman, whose father is a Jew and mother a Christian, become,upon immigrating to Israel, a “Jew” or an “Israeli?” What is thedifference between a “Jew” and an “Israeli?” Is Israel a “Jewish State,””The State of the Jews” or “The State of the Jewish People,” as stated invarious laws and documents, and what are the practical differencesamong these three definitions?
On the Israeli identification card, it is written: “Nationality:Jewish.” What is a Jewish nationality? A nationality like all othernationalities, such as Italian or Russian? And if so, what business dothe priests of religion have in determining who belongs and who does not?And if it is a religion, such as Christianity and Islam, how can one referto it as “Nationality?”
The State has been preoccupied with these questions from its verybeginning, and still the answers elude us. Governments have fallenbecause of this. Lower and Supreme Court judges contemplate thesequestions incessantly, mulling them over and over again, but cannot seemto find peace of mind. First we saw three, then five and now alreadyeleven Supreme Court justices, who seem to have nothing better to do thanto pinpoint the enormous difference between orthodox and conservativeconversions. Conversion for the purpose of entering the “nationality” onone’s I.D. card.
All this is more closely related to the Middle Ages than to the last yearof the twentieth century and the second millenium. It is much closer toPakistan than to the U.S. (When Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan’s president atthe time, declared that there have been only two twentieth century statesfounded on the basis of religion — Israel and Pakistan — she was right.)Israel must decide which entity to emulate: Pakistan of the Talibanmovement, or the United States.
The underlying principle of the United States is the extraordinarydocument called the Constitution. And the underlying principle of theConstitution is the separation of religion and state.
Interestingly, the American Constitution was created by religiousindividuals. Now, too, a large portion or the American public is veryreligious. The scandal which is so stirring the American public thesedays, and undermining its very foundations, is, in essence, a religiousone. It deals with the President’s moral values. But those religiousindividuals understood two hundred years ago that, in order to secure amodern nation, religion must not be allowed to interfere with public life.Religion belongs in the communities of its faithful, while the Statebelongs to the entire citizenry. The place for priests is in church.
This principle was perfectly clear to Theodor Herzl, who statedunequivocally that in the future Jewish state, we would know to keepthe Rabbis in the synagogues. In Herzl’s mind, as it was in HaimWeizman’s and Ze’ev Jabotinsky’s as well, the principle ofseparation of religion and state was self-evident. They could notenvision anything different. Despite the great differences amongthem, all three envisioned a modern western nation, at theforefront of the world’s most progressive states, if not at theirvery head.
Why has this not happened? Why the confusion? Why are the poor judgesasked to break their heads in order to undo this Gordian knot?
The blame should be laid squarely on David Ben-Gurion, the architectof the State of Israel. He is justly accused of having exemptedyeshiva students from military service. It began with 400 andis now reaching 40,000 per year. He is also justly accused ofcreating a separate religious education network. Today it is crystalclear that Israel’s two education systems, which endorse twovastly different philosophical concepts, two different sets of valuesand to different world views, have inadvertently created two separatepeoples, with the gap between them growing ever wider.
But those sins of Ben-Gurion, which constitute a threat tothe survival of the state in the coming decades, derive from theOriginal Sin: The establishment of the State of Israel was notaccompanied by the recognition of an Israeli nation. TheAmericans, most of whom had a British heritage, declared themselvesan American naion at the very moment of declaring their newstatehood. Whereas here, they have persisted in clinging to thehermaphroditic entity referred to as “The Jewish People” — partnation, part religion, part international diaspora, parthomeland-based political entity. And thus we haveinherited the tangled knot which is making our lives so miserableevery day.
This tangled knot will keep the government and the Parliament busyindefinitely. It keeps the court busy with the questions of theyeshiva-students’ military draft, with the subject ofconversions, and of course, with the matter of money, lots of money,billions flowing each year to the institutions and pockets ofreligious politicians. A most peculiar phenomenon: A secularand democratic state is funding its very destroyers. (I admire theperson who coined the astute slogan: “Separate religion frommoney.”)
There is only one way to put an end to this nonsense, as Alexanderthe Great proved 2,350 years ago: He pulled out his sword and cut theGordian knot.