The Chief Rabbinate; A Blessing or a Curse? part 8

The Langer case was by no means the only one tackled by Rabbi Goren. Ironically, his very brave moves to ease the secular public's opposition to halachah, largely backfired. At the same time as the Langer case, another challenge was on the horizon. An American woman, with a Reform conversion, living with her Kohen husband on a secular kibbutz (a Kohen may not marry a convert), was suing to either have her conversion recognized, or else have the Israeli government accept the idea that one could be Jewish from a civil perspective, without being part of the religion. Many secular Israelis who observed almost nothing of Jewish law or tradition related strongly to the latter idea. The rabbinic establishment, realizing that Israelis would not comprehend the halachic differences between an Orthodox and non-Orthodox conversion, had always explained that Reform converts had insufficient knowledge to really be Jewish, and only an Orthodox conversion preparation could impart the necessary knowledge. But Rabbi Goren was determined to find a solution to this high profile crisis. He spoke with the lady privately for an hour. At the end of the hour, he took her for a quick Orthodox conversion, with full knowledge that she would be maintaining a non-observant lifestyle, as well as her halachically forbidden marriage. An earlier Chief Rabbi had ruled that it was acceptable to convert people who wanted to be Jewish even just for purposes of marriage, and this had been for twenty years the stance of the Chief Rabbinate, But Rabbi Goren went further. He believed that the very fact of choosing to live in Israel was sufficient to warrant conversion, no questions asked. The secularists were dumbstruck. If Orthodox conversion was supposed to be the "real deal", how can it require so little, and be done in an hour no less? Not deterred by criticism, he even went to the secularist kibbutzim, asking to see their non-Jewish volunteers (mainly Scandinavian women). Since he knew that cohabitation was fairly common between these volunteers and the members of the kibbutz, and foresaw that demands for marriage would certainly become even more common, he would take these volunteers for immediate conversion. Ironically, he would write on their certificates that their conversion was only valid as long as they lived in Israel, as the idea of residency in Israel was central to his criteria for conversion. His Sepharadic counterpart, himself a liberal on conversion, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, was infuriated by Rabbi Goren's actions. A ten year period of denunciation and counter denunciation had begun, which greatly diminished whatever public respect there had been for the Chief Rabbinate. On the Supreme Rabbinical Council of the Chief Rabbinate, one of the key figures was Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv (1910-2012). Rabbi Elyahiv was a "gadol", a rabbinic "all star" in the Lithuanian tradition. Scandalized by Rabbi Goren's actions and ideas, he resigned from the Rabbinic High Court, and became an independent agent for the next forty years. Shortly thereafter, a very complicated inheritance issue came before the Supreme Rabbinic Council. Those kind of things were usually decided by Rabbi Elyashiv. But he would no longer "play ball" with that body. Up until that point, Israeli law had divided the authority of the rabbinic and secular courts very carefully. Criminal matters were for the secular courts. "Personal Status" (Jewish or not Jewish, single or not single, etc.) was firmly in the hands of the rabbinic courts. Economic issues could be decided by either system, depending on the desire of the litigants. The case under discussion had been brought to the rabbbinic court. Without Rabbi Elyashiv, they felt that their competency was insufficient to decide the case. The litigants went to the secular court system. The judges asked why they had switched systems. The parties involved said that the rabbinic court had declared itself not sufficiently competent. The judges asked that they get that in writing. When they did, the court ruled that since the rabbinic court had admitted its own incompetence, the rules of the division of powers between the two systems was null and void. In any conflict between the rabbinic and secular court systems, the secular would henceforth prevail. The liberalism of the Chief Rabbinate under Rabbi Goren, instead of strengthening Torah law, had actually resulted in the rabbinate "having its wings clipped". These two brilliant men, Rabbi Goren and Rabbi Yosef, had allowed their personal and ideological differences to become the topic of discussion and ridicule. One example of this was an order issued by Rabbi Goren that the caper bushes that grow out between the stones of the Kotel (Western Wall) were to be removed, as they were a sign of mourning. The geulah (redemption) had already taken place, and there was no longer a basis for mourning. Rabbi Yosef countermanded the order. Israel was NOT in a state of redemption. There was still a deep divide among the people, and enemies, seeking Israel's destruction surrounded them. The bushes must stay. Rabbi Yosef's ruling was eventually accepted, but not before weeks of personal attacks between the two great men filled the media. Even the observance of Tish'ah B'Av, the anniversary of the destruction of the Temple, became an issue. A paragraph describing the anguish of a destroyed Jerusalem, and praying for its restoration, looms large in the prayers of that day. Rabbi Goren revised the prayer, having it say that it USED TO BE that way, but is now redeemed. Nevertheless, we ask for the complete redemption, the in-gathering of the exiles, and the rebuilding of the Temple. Rabbi Yosef demanded the retention of the original formula. EVERYTHING became an issue. In my next post, I will deal with the aftermath of this era, and what lessons were learned...and what lessons were not learned.

The Chief Rabbinate; A Blessing or a Curse? part 7

The Langer case threatened to tare Israel apart. The rabbis appeared helpless. The secular wondered if there ever could be a way of coexisting with the religious. At this point, center stage is taken by Rabbi Shlomo Goren (1917-1994). Rabbi Goren was a most unique and enigmatic figure. He had fought in the Haganah; the pre-State leftist paramilitary group that, along with others, had won independence for Israel. He was a personal friend of David Ben Gurion. Ben Gurion, a staunch secularist, made many concessions to religion under the influence of Rabbi Goren. After statehood was established, he convinced Ben Gurion to form a separate, independent rabbinate for the military, insuring that every army base would maintain a kosher kitchen, and Shabbat would be observed to the extent possible. Every Israeli soldier (whether Jewish or not!) was (and is) required to attend a Passover seder. Rabbi Goren was appointed the Chief Rabbi of TZAHAL, the Israeli defense forces, a position he held for twenty years. His scholarship was amazing. At the same time, like Ben Gurion, when he was convinced of something, he would tolerate no dissent. To borrow a phrase from the U.S. military, he was "an army of one" (I learned this first hand when, shortly before his death, he came to visit the community where  I lived. There was a halachic question regarding the laws of Tefillin which was greatly troubling me. People in my community who were close to him, explained that I was considered an expert in these laws, but was troubled about a particular point, concerning the exactness of the square shape of the Tefillin. He agreed to speak with me. But he did not like my question, and began scolding and berating me publicly. A few months later, I posed the same question to then Rishon L'Tziyon Rabbi Bakshi Doron. He thought that it was a good question, and came up with a good answer). Rabbi Goren announced that if HE were made Chief Rabbi of Israel, he would solve the Langer case within days. At that time, Chief Rabbis held their position for life. But the government hastily passed legislation, that Chief Rabbis would henceforth hold that title for only ten years. Rabbi Goren was declared the new Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel. As for the new Sepharadic Rabbi, the rising star on the horizon was Rabbi Ovadia Yosef (of whom I consider myself a student). He was known. like Rabbi Goren, as favoring lenient positions in halachah. Having them work together seemed like a good idea at the time, but proved to be disastrous. If one said day, the other said night. More on this in another post. As soon as Rabbi Goren entered his new office, he convened a secret, midnight Court, to ratify his solution to the Langer case. He summoned Mrs. Langer's first husband. He asked him to recite the first line of the Shema'. He did not know it. Rabbi Goren reasoned that had he actually converted, he would know Shema'. He therefore ruled that Mrs. Langer's first marriage was null and void, and her children not Mamzerim. But he didn't stop there. Just in case he might be wrong on this issue, he took the unprecedented step of declaring her first marriage invalid by his say so and, in case the man was in fact converted, he annulled his conversion.. There is, in fact, a statement in the Talmud implying that a rabbi can invalidate any marriage or conversion he wishes, but this had never actually been done. On the contrary, another Talmudic statement makes it clear that once converted, even if the convert reverts to idolatry he remains a Jew . Sadly, this has been (mis)used by later rabbis, in a clearly political way. This was seen by many as a grab for power that had never been part of Jewish practice. The following day, marriages were held for both Langer children, with Prime Minister Golda Meir walking them down the aisle. His decision is controversial until this day. But forces were now set into motion that would change everything. That will be my next post.

The Chief Rabbinate; A Blessing or a Curse? part 6

Although the most significant conflicts between the rabbinate and the government (and within the rabbinate) occurred around the year 1970, there was an initial cause celebre in the early 1960s. Oswald Rufeisen was a Polish Jew, hidden, like countless others, in a convent during World War II. He aided in the rescue of thousands of other Jews. After the war, he converted to Catholicism, eventually becoming a monk, and was henceforth known as Brother Daniel. In the 1950s, he sought to emigrate to Israel, due to rising antisemitism in Poland, even towards Jews who had accepted Christianity. Israel, immediately after independence, had implemented the "Law of Return", which grants immediate Israeli citizenship for every Jew. Rufeisen, now called "Brother Daniel", requested the right to immigrate as a Jew. He argued that under halachah, he was indeed a Jew, and entitled to all privileges associated with that status. Many, who were opposed to Torah, favored his argument. They sought to have religion seen as totally not connected with being Jewish in the national sense. Rufeisen was a Jew by birth. His religious opinions were irrelevant. Religious Jews were caught in a quandary. Halachically, there was little question that he was indeed a Jew. But to recognize him as such, would be tantamount to seeing conversion to another faith as a legitimate option. The secular court ruled that once one has converted to another faith, he can no longer be considered a Jew. The ruling was contrary to halachah, but had nevertheless recognized a connection between the secular State and the Jewish religion. Rabbi J. B. Soloveitchik, the doyen of Modern Orthodoxy, when he learned of the 1962 court ruling, said "Thank G-d that they ruled against halachah!" Rufeisen did indeed immigrate to Israel as a non-Jew, living in a Monastery until his death in 1998.
The real crunch came later, in the form of a totally different issue. Israelis were never partial to Conservative and Reform Judaism. As one very anti-religious politician said "the synagogue I don't attend is strictly Orthodox". Israel's first President, Dr. Chaim Weitzman, had said "Reform Judaism is the blank page in the Bible between the Old and New Testaments". But significant numbers of Jews from Western countries were now beginning to come to Israel, together with their non-Jewish spouses, who in some cases had undergone non-Orthodox conversions. The court system had put conversion squarely into the hands of the Chief Rabbinate, which was Orthodox. But what about the millions of Jews who were not Orthodox? Are we to write them and their families off?(This is precisely what some American rabbis did.) Even worse than the "Who is a Jew" issue, was the dreaded issue of Mamzerut. A Mamzer, usually mistranslated as "bastard", is the status of a Jewish baby born of either an incestuous or adulterous union. The Torah says that a Mamzer shall not enter he congregation of the L-rd. This is understood to mean that such a person, as well as their offspring, can never marry a legitimate Jew. These cases were historically exceedingly rare. However, with the spread of "liberal" Judaism, not to mention non-religious Jews, it was not uncommon for a woman to be duly married, but not receive a "get"; the Torah mandated bill of divorce from her husband. When she remarries, that is technically adultery, and her children are Mamzerim. When such a case presents itself, the Orthodox rabbi's first duty is to find some basis for invalidating the first marriage, in order to free the children of the second marriage. (Being born out of wedlock does not constitute Mamzerut). But a case presented itself that still is reverberating in rabbinic circles, and changed the nature of the Chief Rabbinate in inestimable ways. That was the Langer case. A Jewish woman had married a Polish man before the war. Some claimed that he had converted. Others claimed that he had had himself circumcised, but never formally converted. They were separated during he war, and each though the other dead. They both wound up in Israel and started new lives. Each remarried. If the man was, indeed, Jewish, then his former wife was committing adultery, and her two children were Mamzerim. If he wasn't really Jewish, her kids were off the hook, but his kids from his second marriage did not want the stigma of being of non-Jewish parentage. The Chief Rabbis at the time threw up their hands. There was, and could be, no solution. But the vast majority of the country was up in arms, seeing this as an unacceptable situation, for which a solution MUST be found. The governemnt was on the verge of dismantling the Chief Rabbinate, and accepting a secular definition of "who is a Jew?". Someone did come with a solution. it was controversial then, it is controversial now. The effects on the rabbinate were huge, and reactions bordered on the disastrous. The years 1972 and 1973 marked a watershed in Israeli Judaism. That will be my next post.

The Chief Rabbinate; A Blessing or a Curse? part 5

The '50s saw a rather subdued Chief Rabbinate. It is difficult to relate to the feelings of that time. Israel was new, and its survival precarious. The first Prime Minister, David Ben Gurion, was tough. He saw it as his historical obligation to establish the kind of country and society that his ideology dictated. He refused to even speak with non-Socialist members of the Knesset. Menachem Begin, the man most responsible for an independent Israel, remained a pariah until 1967. Some topics are still too hot for discussion, even today. It is a fact that children were stolen from some families and given to others, with the real parents told that they were dead. Whether this happened in only 40 to 45 cases, as the government has claimed, or in many hundreds of cases, as Yemenite and Sepharadic families claim, is still a sore point. Recently declassified documents are showing that it is all too true. It came out only in the late 1980s, that Ben Gurion hatched a plan to take away the children of the Bedouins, having them converted and given for adoption by Jewish families. His goal was to lessen Israel's demographic problem. The Chief Rabbis bravely refused to cooperate, and the topic was dropped. The Chief Rabbis of that decade did everything possible to uphold Torah to the best of their ability, while appeasing secular demands...when reasonable. The Sepharadic Chief Rabbi of the early '50s, Rabbi Uziel,  formulated an extremely liberal conversion policy, which was upheld by subsequent Chief Rabbis until the early 1990s. Hareidi (Ultra Orthodox) groups saw the Chief Rabbis as tools of the secular, religiously oppressive regime (it was virtually impossible to get a job unless one belonged to the Labor party, and sent one's children to secular schools). At the same time, many secularists began speaking of "religious coercion". Through a series of compromises, buses didn't work on Shabbat in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, but did in Haifa (this is still the case). Nearly all businesses were required by law to be closed on Shabbat. Violations brought demonstrations. Demonstrations brought cries of "the tail wagging the dog'' (the religious being a minority). No one was really satisfied by the arrangement. For the most part, secularists developed, or strengthened, a deep seated hatred of religion and the religious. Most religious felt persecuted, and developed a hatred for the secular. The followers of Rav Kook's philosophy, while not liking secularism, were certain that a great religious revival was imminent, specifically through the secularists and their agenda. The "Kookniks" saw the secularists in a more positive light than they saw the Hareidim, who were "impeding" the final deliverance. There was an uneasy truce, worded as "status quo". Israeli law defended those areas where religion had prevailed, as well as those areas where secularism had prevailed. A bump in the road occurred when Israel got television in the late '60s (Ben Gurion had not allowed it during his tenure). The "status quo" was that there IS radio on Shabbat. Should that apply to TV, which was new? The courts ruled that it does not. Many religious henceforth refused to pay the "television and radio tax" in protest. The Chief Rabbinate was always a force for moderation in these issues.  But that was minor compared to the fight that was looming. The question of "who is a Jew" (which affects not only religious identity but also political rights) began to loom large. A number of cases hit the public awareness, These cases drew lines in the sand. Any compromise would infuriate one side or the other, and sometimes both. I will examine some of these cases, their far-reaching effects, and the changing face of the Chief Rabbinate, in my next post.