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| Reform leaders and activists using force to get their way at the Kotel (Jpost) |
The Kotel is open to every single individual that wishes to pray there. Including Popes and Presidents. When they enter the Kotel Plaza to pray, they respect the traditions preserved there since the Kotel came back into our possession back in 1967. Claims by Heterodox leaders that the Kotel is open only to Ultra Orthodox Jews is pure unadulterated nonsense. It is a lie put forward by those whose motives have little to do with a desire to have their prayers heard by God.
The complainers are not at all about praying to God - the way the vast majority of people that come there to pray are.They are about doing it their own way. A way that violates the sensibilities of the of people that regularly pray there - and have prayed there for decades. Israel has no obligation to satisfy the desires of those that prefer a mode of prayer that upsets the sensibilities of others. This is what they are really demanding. Doing it their way. In other words it’s not about God. It’s about them. They care little that their mode of prayer upsets the majority of Jews that pray at the Kotel.
To what at first seemed to be to their credit they had agreed to a compromise that would have given them an expanded and updated section of the Kotel which they currently have so they could pray as they wish. And to the credit of the Charedi Keneset members they acquiesced - even though they believe that the preferred Heterodox mode of prayer is illegitimate. They did not protest.
But when it became abundantly clear that this was more than just about getting their own space – but about getting equal recognition with Orthodox Jews, Charedi parties cried foul. This was not the what the agreement was originally understood to be. Charedi members of the Kenesset then changed course and vehemently protested. The Israeli government backed down from the agreement. This has outraged heterodox leaders. They are livid – claiming that Israeli government is reneging on its deal with heterodox leaders.
It is now more than clear that this is what Heterodox rabbis want. The Kotel deal was nothing more than a ploy to get recognition and legitimacy. They have admitted as much publicly. So much for reneging on the deal. It is not reneging on a deal when the deal was just a façade for a purpose that Orthodox leaders would never agree to.
We can debate all day long about the value to Israel of Heterodoxy in America. There are those that say that without the support of Heterodox Jewry, Israel would lose 90% of the financial support they get from the US (90% being the percentage of non Orthodox Jews in America).
That is a debatable claim. I tend to doubt that a full 90% of non Orthodox Jews even care about Israel. With an intermarriage rate of 70% - most of those 90% don’t even care if their offspring will be Jewish. Donations to Israel have seen a steady decline in recent years that have little to do with what’s going on there.
What is the real motive behind this push for recognition? Why now more than in the past? They’ve had 70 years to push forward their agenda for recognition. Why this sense of urgency now? The answer lies in the above-mentioned statistics. As discussed here many times, Heterodoxy is dying. Their membership is plummeting. Gone are the days where the newest synagogue edifices that were being built were Conservative of Reform. Almost all the building is being done today is by the only segment that is growing: Orthodoxy. Conservative and Reform synagogues and temples are either closing or consolidating.
Their leaders see the handwriting on the wall and they are looking East for salvation. But the majority of the people of Israel don’t really care about heterodox movements. It isn’t that they oppose them theologically the way Orthodoxy does. They just don’t care. Heterodox leaders are trying to make them care.
To certain extent some secular Jews in Israel are buying into their argument of not being treated fairly by the government. But they have no interest in joining Heterodox movements. As has often been said about secular Israelis, the synagogue that they do not attend - is Orthodox. They aren’t interested in any kind of ‘doxy. Whether Orthodoxy or Heterodoxy. They like being who they are: Traditional Jews that observe many but not all of the Mitzvos. Becoming a Conservative or Reform Jew is a meaningless goal for them.
This leaves heterodox leaders with a very small ideological base of support among Israelis. Their claims to the contrary notwithstanding. It does not bode well for their future. This is their last gasp at preventing extinction.
Although one might surmise from all this that I am gloating, that is far from the truth. I am not celebrating their demise at all. I in fact lament their failure to instill any sense of Jewishness among so many of their members. As noted - the children of the 70% that are intermarrying will for the most part (…yes, I know there are exceptions) either not care about their Judaism or that of their children – or worse their children will not even be Jewish at all. That is nothing to celebrate. It is something to cry about.
That is why violence on the part of Orthodox zealots when they collide with Heterodox activists - is so upsetting for an Orthodox Jew like myself. On the other hand there is absolutely no excusing what - in a similar vein - leaders of the Reform movement did last week. From the Jerusalem Post:
Violence broke out at the holy site on Thursday as a group of Reform rabbis and worshipers sought to enter the plaza with Torah scrolls. The group was forcibly prevented from doing so by police and Western Wall security officials.
The group had been praying at the Robinson’s Arch site designated for egalitarian prayer at the southern end of the Western Wall, at a special service marking the recent ordination of the 100th reform rabbi in Israel.
(Reform leader Rick) Jacobs acknowledged that when the group was told it could not enter with the Torah scrolls they continued to press forward and physically “asserted” their way into the Western Wall plaza.
“We had to with strength, assert that we are allowed to be in that place. And we asserted our way into that space and there was a lot of resistance by the Western Wall Heritage Foundation guards,” (said) Jacobs.
Jacobs said the incident expresses “very loudly and clearly that we’re not going away.” said Jacobs. “We’re not going to wait for our rightful place to be protected.
I am really sickened by what they did here. How desperate they must be for recognition if they had to resort to this. This make them no different than the Orthodox zealots that have used violence in opposition to them. Their excuse is the lie about being denied a place at the Kotel. They are not being denied that. They are just being denied the legitimization of upending 2000 years of Jewish tradition for the sole purpose of self preservation.