To the editor,
Washington Post.
The
Washington Post has performed a notable public service by publishing
the important article, “The Secretive Israeli Think Tank Behind
Netanyahu’s Judicial Overhaul.”
This
think tank, Kohelet Policy Forum, has long advocated for annexation of
the West Bank, gender segregation inside Israel, and a weaker Supreme
Court. It has contempt for non-Orthodox streams of Judaism and for the
rights not only of Palestinians but of the LGBTQ community and of women.
It is largely financially supported by ultra-Orthodox Jewish
Americans.
The policies
of Israel’s far-right government have been rejected by the overwhelming
majority of American Jews, including such traditional supporters of
Israel as Abraham Foxman, the long-time leader of the Anti-Defamation
League, Prof. Alan Dershowitz of Harvard, and the leaders of Reform,
Conservative and Reconstructionist Judaism.
When
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who called for the
Palestinian village of Huwara to be “wiped out” and said, “there’s no
such thing as Palestinians,” visited Washington earlier this month, no
member of the Biden administration would meet with him. Neither would
any of the major American Jewish organizations. William Daroff, CEO of
the Conference of Presidents of American Jewish Organizations, called
his statements “disgusting.”
Zionism
itself is becoming a minority view within the Jewish community.
Zionism proclaims that Israel is the “homeland” of all Jews and that
Jews living outside of Israel are in “exile.” In fact, Judaism is a
religion of universal values, not a nationality. The homeland of Jewish
Americans is the United States. They are American by nationality and
Jews by religion, just as other Americans are Protestant, Catholic or
Muslim.
In 1841, in the
dedication of America’s first Reform synagogue in Charleston, South
Carolina, Rabbi Gustav Poznanski told the congregation, “This country is
our Palestine, this city our Jerusalem, this house of God our temple.”
Israel
would do well to confine its concerns to its own citizens. Almost all
Jewish Americans believe in freedom of religion and separation of church
and state. Israel, sadly, is a theocracy. Non-Orthodox rabbis cannot
perform weddings, conduct funerals, or have their conversions
recognized. In fact, Jews have less religious freedom in Israel than
anyplace in the Western world.
Shira Rubin has performed a notable service with her article about Kohelet Policy Forum.
Sincerely,
Allan C. Brownfeld,
Editor of ISSUES,
The quarterly journal of the American Council for Judaism