For years, there has been a growing gap between Israelis and American Jews when it comes to Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians. But today the issue threatening to divide the Jewish people is not about geopolitics or the occupation of the West Bank. It’s about Judaism itself: Jewish fundamentalists are now the dominant element in the Israeli governing coalition led by Benjamin Netanyahu. They plan a hostile takeover of Jewish identity.
Several ministries have been created with a focus on Jewish identity. Each will be led almost exclusively by the members of parties representing the various strands of modern Jewish fundamentalism — parties that resist any form of modernism — as well as the elements of the Zionist Orthodoxy that are increasingly both ultranationalist and ultra-Orthodox.
These parties are imposing on Israel a definition of Judaism that refuses to recognize the validity of the non-Orthodox streams, with which the majority of American Jews identify. They are even demanding a change in the most fundamental link between Israel and the Jewish diaspora: the Law of Return, which grants Israeli citizenship to Jews and their descendants. They have promised to make those with at least one Jewish grandparent and who are not recognized as Jewish by the Orthodox rabbinical establishment ineligible for automatic Israeli citizenship.
In some ways, of course, these divisions are not new. The debate over who is a Jew has been part of Israeli discourse since the creation of the state. The rabbinate has long held control over family law. (Civil marriages are not conducted in Israel.) But this is the first time that one side has sought to assert itself so completely over Israel’s governance. It has the potential to estrange many non-Israeli Jews.
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A religious schism within the Jewish people — fewer than 20 million worldwide — would mean that they would no longer have the sense of joint purpose that has sustained this persecuted people through millenniums. Jews are told that each Jew holds responsibility for Jews everywhere, that we must act for our brethren in peril. But with these new laws redefining who belongs, that religionwide sense of comity would cease to exist.
It is already causing angry responses in Israel. The appointment in the new government that caused the greatest backlash from the secular Israeli public is that of Avi Maoz, the sole Knesset representative of Noam, a tiny openly homophobic religious party, as a deputy minister in the prime minister’s office.
Noam was founded in 2019 by followers of Zvi Thau, a rabbi who is convinced of the existence of a progressive cabal whose sole aim is to erode Israel’s Jewish character through advancing L.G.B.T.Q. rights and gender equality. Mr. Netanyahu pressured the bloc led by the far right Religious Zionism and Jewish Power parties to give Mr. Maoz and his party a place on their candidate list to consolidate his power.
According to the agreement signed by Mr. Maoz's Noam and by Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud, Mr. Maoz is now in charge of a new authority for national Jewish identity, with a budget of a quarter of a billion shekels (about $70 million) over the next two years, and will gain control of the Education Ministry’s department for external educational programs.
In an interview this month with Olam Katan (Small World), a far-right weekly, Mr. Maoz explained why he is so interested in the department. “There are currently about 3,000 curriculums written by progressive, radical-left nongovernmental organizations funded by foreign organizations and the European Union,” he said. “Are they there to strengthen the Jewish state? Of course not. They want to make Israel a state like all the states. Who will make sure that they write programs for Jewish identity instead of plans for a state for all its citizens? That’s my job.”
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Some of Israel’s largest and richest cities, including Tel Aviv-Jaffa, have announced they will not cooperate with the department under Mr. Maoz and, if necessary, will fund liberal education programs themselves.
In addition to Mr. Maoz’s appointment, Orit Strock, a member of the Religious Zionism party who lives in a small Jewish settler enclave in the Palestinian-majority city of Hebron in the West Bank, was tapped to run the new and dystopian-sounding Directorate of Jewish Identity. This will be part of a new Ministry of National Missions, which will control Jewish settlement activity in the West Bank and is tasked with financing religious mission communities in Israel. These are groups of religious Zionist families that move together to disadvantaged neighborhoods across the country, in some cases in towns with mixed Jewish and Arab populations, to strengthen the Jewish communities there.
Several ministries have been created with a focus on Jewish identity. Each will be led almost exclusively by the members of parties representing the various strands of modern Jewish fundamentalism — parties that resist any form of modernism — as well as the elements of the Zionist Orthodoxy that are increasingly both ultranationalist and ultra-Orthodox.
These parties are imposing on Israel a definition of Judaism that refuses to recognize the validity of the non-Orthodox streams, with which the majority of American Jews identify. They are even demanding a change in the most fundamental link between Israel and the Jewish diaspora: the Law of Return, which grants Israeli citizenship to Jews and their descendants. They have promised to make those with at least one Jewish grandparent and who are not recognized as Jewish by the Orthodox rabbinical establishment ineligible for automatic Israeli citizenship.
In some ways, of course, these divisions are not new. The debate over who is a Jew has been part of Israeli discourse since the creation of the state. The rabbinate has long held control over family law. (Civil marriages are not conducted in Israel.) But this is the first time that one side has sought to assert itself so completely over Israel’s governance. It has the potential to estrange many non-Israeli Jews.
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Continue reading the main story
A religious schism within the Jewish people — fewer than 20 million worldwide — would mean that they would no longer have the sense of joint purpose that has sustained this persecuted people through millenniums. Jews are told that each Jew holds responsibility for Jews everywhere, that we must act for our brethren in peril. But with these new laws redefining who belongs, that religionwide sense of comity would cease to exist.
It is already causing angry responses in Israel. The appointment in the new government that caused the greatest backlash from the secular Israeli public is that of Avi Maoz, the sole Knesset representative of Noam, a tiny openly homophobic religious party, as a deputy minister in the prime minister’s office.
Noam was founded in 2019 by followers of Zvi Thau, a rabbi who is convinced of the existence of a progressive cabal whose sole aim is to erode Israel’s Jewish character through advancing L.G.B.T.Q. rights and gender equality. Mr. Netanyahu pressured the bloc led by the far right Religious Zionism and Jewish Power parties to give Mr. Maoz and his party a place on their candidate list to consolidate his power.
According to the agreement signed by Mr. Maoz's Noam and by Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud, Mr. Maoz is now in charge of a new authority for national Jewish identity, with a budget of a quarter of a billion shekels (about $70 million) over the next two years, and will gain control of the Education Ministry’s department for external educational programs.
In an interview this month with Olam Katan (Small World), a far-right weekly, Mr. Maoz explained why he is so interested in the department. “There are currently about 3,000 curriculums written by progressive, radical-left nongovernmental organizations funded by foreign organizations and the European Union,” he said. “Are they there to strengthen the Jewish state? Of course not. They want to make Israel a state like all the states. Who will make sure that they write programs for Jewish identity instead of plans for a state for all its citizens? That’s my job.”
Advertisement
Continue reading the main story
Some of Israel’s largest and richest cities, including Tel Aviv-Jaffa, have announced they will not cooperate with the department under Mr. Maoz and, if necessary, will fund liberal education programs themselves.
In addition to Mr. Maoz’s appointment, Orit Strock, a member of the Religious Zionism party who lives in a small Jewish settler enclave in the Palestinian-majority city of Hebron in the West Bank, was tapped to run the new and dystopian-sounding Directorate of Jewish Identity. This will be part of a new Ministry of National Missions, which will control Jewish settlement activity in the West Bank and is tasked with financing religious mission communities in Israel. These are groups of religious Zionist families that move together to disadvantaged neighborhoods across the country, in some cases in towns with mixed Jewish and Arab populations, to strengthen the Jewish communities there.
Opinion | Netanyahu’s New Ministers Have Very Strict Ideas About Who Is a Jew
The new far-right-dominated government of Israel is ushering in an era that may fracture the Jewish people.
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