From fruit to politics

The summer has brought fresh fruit and at least three hot button political issues to Israel. Let's start with the International.

Syria 

Obviously, Syria is not a new concern, it just may be heating up.  Since the Arab Spring, Bashir Assad has been engaged in a prolonged struggle with "rebels" (a grab bag expression to describe anyone who doesn't support the Alawite leader). Mostly, the rest of the world has been standing by watching and waiting and providing "rebels" or Assad a bit of support with armaments.  Last week, Israel made two airstrikes on Syria and wham we're back in the news! Israel maintains its reasons for the attack were to prevent armaments getting to Hezbollah (the terrorist organization or resistance movement -- depending on your perspective -- in Lebanon that is affiliated with Iran).  Why would Israel do that? Well, because Hezbollah has called for the destruction of the state of Israel (aka "the Zionist entity"). So, anytime Israeli Intelligence gets wind of Hezbollah about to receive weapons shipments, the IAF takes action. This also happened in January. Anyway, after a bit of machismo, it doesn't look like Israel's airstrikes have provoked a response from Syria. (Syria's airforce is meant to be the most formidable Arab force in the region.) Likely Assad is too busy planning his escape from Damascus: the hawks have suggested he may try to create a small Alawite state on the Mediterranean coast (the original Alawite enclave, at least dating to the days of the French mandate), leaving the remaining, landlocked majority of Syria to a Sunni majority power vacuum.

 Last week I read two great pieces on Syria that I'd recommend if you're interested:

1. Filkin in the New Yorker for a fascinating discussion about US intervention,
2. Neil Macdonald of CBC for a great distillation of the current state of affairs in Syria.

Take from these what you will, but it's likely to be a long while until life for the average Sunni Syrian gets any better. And, be glad for the accident of birth that finds you where you are instead of there.

The other two issues are domestic, primarily.  Inevitably, the Jewish diaspora plays a role in almost all domestic politics, these two issues are no different.

Women at the Western Wall

This is actually a fascinating story of religious pluralism...or intra-faith pluralism.

Okay, quick primer. Western Wall (aka the Wailing Wall, the Kotel) is arguably the holiest site in Judaism (there's the Temple Mount, but since the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa are sitting on it right now Orthodox Jews don't go there). The Kotel is meant to be (literally, and you can go underground and see the excavations) the original western wall of the courtyard (sometimes described as the retaining wall) that surrounded the Second Temple in the time of King Herod (an evil genius to some!) - around about 30 BCE.  Herod was the Roman client king of Judea -- and he would have to have been a bit evil and a mighty politician to survive that craziness.  Among his achievements he built the Second Temple in Jerusalem, constructed the mountaintop fortress of Masada, and founded Caesarea (on the coast).  But, I digress. Back to the Western Wall:

Western Wall at night (men on the left (2/3); women on the right (1/3)

After the Arab-Israeli War of 1948, the Old City and the Kotel were under the control of Jordan. Under article VII of the 1949 Armistice Agreement, Israeli Jews were meant to have access to the Wall. But, Jordan refused. Mt. Zion from which there is a view of the Wall became the site where Jews gathered to prey. When Israel captured East Jerusalem in the Six Days War in June 1967, the Wall came under Israeli control. (Notably, the Temple Mount was handed over to the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf which manages it to this day.)

With the Wall under Israeli control, Jews could worship at it. But, women don't have equal rights to worship at the Wall. According to the Women of the Wall the law does not grant women in Israel full religious freedom: 

"No religious ceremony shall be in held in the women's section of the Western Wall."

This includes holding or reading a Torah, blowing the shofar (ram’s horn) or wearing tallitot (prayer shawls).

In the Orthodox practice of Judaism women don't read from the Torah, men do. And a woman doesn't wear a prayer shawl (tallit). But, in the Reform practice, women do both of these things; they become rabbis. For the last twenty-five years, Women of the Wall have been going about their mission:

As Women of the Wall, our central mission is to achieve the social and legal recognition of our right, as women, to wear prayer shawls, pray, and read from the Torah collectively and out loud at the Western Wall.

The Western Wall (the women's section)

WOW have continued to press for their rights by attending the Wall monthly for the Rosh Chodesh prayer.This has resulted in countless arrests, but the WOW maintain:

As Israel does not have a constitution, the legal rights and obligations are enumerated in different laws. Despite the lack of constitutional protections, the right to freedom of religion has been recognized by the Supreme Court as a fundamental right that the State needs to guarantee to all residents of Israel. Since the enactment of Israel’s Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty in 1992, the Supreme Court interpreted freedom of religion to be part of the concept  of Human Dignity, effectively  granting Freedom of Religion status as a constitutional right.

  A decision from the Magistrate's Court seems to have granted a reprieve. Usually the women are arrested after preying, this weekend the police protected them (the Magistrate had ruled that by preying the women were not disturbing public order). The Haredi men threw chairs and yelled insults. (Apparently they've been doing this for years.)

Where does this leave things? Well, unresolved,  and like so many other things without an easy solution. One option would be to build a third prayer place on the Wall (which would require displacement of something not Jewish) so that the Reform WOW could do their praying out of sight and earshot of the ultra-Orthodox. A conundrum indeed. Not least because the Wall has become a symbol of fractiousness rather than unity of the Jewish faith.

An open letter to Naftali Bennett (the recently elected MK and leader of the Jewish Homeland), now Minister of Religious Affairs in Bibi's coalition, in today's Haaretz is thought-provoking on the need to accommodate a range of practices within the religion.

When the rubber hits the road

Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid shared the spotlight in January, after the elections, and in March as they pressed Bibi to push the Haredim out of his coalition.  Bennett got the Religious Affairs Porfolio, Lapid got Finance.

Yair Lapid is our charismatic reformer (former tv news anchorman), leader of the populist Yesh Atid (There is a Future).  He has said he expects to be in Bibi's seat in two years. (Yowsers!) He was elected on a campaign of domestic politics. Forget about the Palestinian issue and the red line on Iran's nuclear capacity, Israeli society needs fixing. How did he say he would fix it? Conscript the ultra-Orthodox, cut their welfare payments, so you can lower taxes for average Israelis.

 And now that he is Finance Minister how is he proposing to fix Israeli society? AUSTERITY! In response to the government's budget, the people were out in the streets in Tel Aviv on Saturday night. Israel had huge social protests in the summer of 2011 and the summer of 2013 might see a return.  Its no wonder, the average Israeli really is pressed to make ends meet. From a story in Haaretz, one protester said,

"We had great expectations for Yair Lapid, who promised us heaven and earth and played a trick on his voters," she charged. "He deceived the entire public. We should get rid of him as soon as possible if there is nothing he can do against Bibi's policies."

For Lapid, there may be a future, but at this rate it might not include the chief's seat in the Knesset anytime soon.