What do the ultra-Orthodox politicians really think? It's no secret.

MK Rabbi Kariv and Reform Judaism – like pigs

The political discourse has descended to new lows this week. United Torah Judaism MK Meir Porush likened Reform Jews and Labor MK Gilad Kariv, a Reform rabbi, to pigs. He spoke in reaction to the appointment of Kariv as chairman of the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee.

01/07/2021 23:30

Tags: Gilad Kariv ·  Yitzhak Pindrus ·  Meir Porush

Piglets

The political discourse has descended to new lows this week. United Torah Judaism MK Meir Porush likened Reform Jews and Labor MK Gilad Kariv, a Reform rabbi, to pigs. He spoke in reaction to the appointment of Kariv as chairman of the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee.

“Esau was compared to a pig who, when he sat down and spread his hooves, said, ‘Look, I am pure,’” he said. “What is the problem with the Reform [movement]? They take parts of the Torah, they have a new religion, they spread their hooves and say, ‘We are pure,’ like the pig that spreads its hooves.”

[Porush referred to the text of Midrash Bereishit Rabbah 65a.]

This is but the last of a horrific sequence of verbal assaults against MK Rabbi Kariv and against Reform Judaism. In general, verbal assault from the leaders of the Haredi parties against the new government and the possibility that it may draw [a bit] closer to the values of pluralism and freedom of choice promised in Israel’s Declaration of Independence. [And slightly loosen the scope of religious coercion and the ultra-Orthodox Chief Rabbinate’s monopoly, which the ultra-Orthodox parties dictated in the past].

Similarly, for instance, the UTJ Faction Head MK Yitzhak Pindrus called this week to murder “people who advance assimilation”, as he called it. He protested the trajectories of the new government and of the Yamina Minister of Religious Services, Matan Kahana, suggesting to him “to heed the Torah as to how to bring about a covenant of peace” and expounded upon the text of the Torah regarding “the zealot Pinchas who received [God’s] covenant of peace because he took care to execute those who caused assimilation. This is how you bring about wholeness, and this is how you bring about redemption.”

The issue is not just hate speech, but also the crystallization of two worldviews in collision. It is time to realize that there is no real way of reconciling the two, and that those who hold this view of Porush, Pindrus, and their fellow leaders in the Haredi sector, as well as the political design that comes with it, which has denied Israel, until now, the ability to fulfill realize the vision of the Declaration of Independence for religious freedom and equality – there is no place in leading the country. The price is too high, in terms of eroding the values of democracy, Jewish unity, the economy, security, the status of women, and many other essential interests and core values.

This is not about coincidental or one-time outbursts, but rather a consistent policy and outlook, which undergoes a process of escalation due to the changes in the political map and the diminishing capacity for extortion of the Haredi parties. It should be noted, for instance, that the father of MK Meir Porush (who served in the previous government as Minister of Education), Rabbi Menachem Porush (who served in the Knesset for many years as the leader of Agudat Yisrael) gained notoriety, among others, for throwing to the floor and spitting on a Reform prayer book during a speech regarding the Law of Return. He later apologized for his action, after having been removed from one session of the Knesset by the Ethics Committee for his conduct. The severity of the current escalation can also be seen in the fact that there is no apology or retraction of these harsh statements, but rather the opposite. There is not even an attempt on the part of the Knesset to prevent such pronouncements, as inappropriate.

This battle is not just a personal crusade against Rabbi Kariv, nor even against Reform and Conservative Judaism in Israel.

This battle is not just a personal crusade against Rabbi Kariv, nor even against Reform and Conservative Judaism in Israel [as should be known the label ‘Reform’ serves in Haredi discourse as a generic label that refers to all non-Orthodox streams and also in recent years also to Modern Orthodoxy – these days it has been attached to individuals such as PM Naftali Bennett]. It is a battle against the pluralistic Diaspora Jewish community and against the core values of democracy, Western society, enlightenment, and progress. In this battle, it is critical that Diaspora Jewry makes its voice heard.

For too long, the Jewish leadership treated these assaults and the discriminatory and coercive policies that accompanied them forgivingly. Too much is at stake for this silence to continue and for looking the other way. It is time to take a clear, unequivocal, and spoken aloud stand and to translate it into their policy and focused investment of resources into strengthening the pluralistic voices and in the struggle for religious freedom and equality for all. In the last couple years, we saw leading Jewish organizations and foundations invest in “promoting a dialogue”, instead of action. The dialogue led us nowhere in the past when it featured fundamentalist forces in Judaism, the likes of Porushes and Pindruses and the likes of Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef who are mentioned in this newsletter as well. And will lead nowhere this time and in the future.

The ambitious plans that do not start out with a foundational declaration and clear commitment to freedom of religion and equality are a proven recipe for failure, as well as merely an illusion of progress towards a solution. A true dialogue is only possible between equals, not between those who hold in their hands the power and monopoly and, on the other hand, those whose rights are being trampled and are forced to settle for an attempt to exercise moral persuasion of the other side that it should give up its power of its own good will, as was so compellingly stated in 1857 by Frederick Douglass:

“If there is no struggle there is no progress...Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing up the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters... Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted.”