Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: A popular uprising against the religious establishment had already begun

http://www.jpost.com/Home/Article.aspx?id=177377
Jerusalem, June 4, 2018
In a historic act that millions of Jews around the world have anxiously 
been awaiting for years, the Knesset yesterday dissolved the heretofore 
sacrosanct office of the Chief Rabbinate. Earlier in the day, the 
cabinet received a detailed report on the ongoing implementation of the 
revolutionary plan drafted nearly a decade ago to fully integrate the 
haredi community into the country’s military. Leaders from across the 
spectrum were unanimous in their optimism that the two moves would lead 
to an unprecedented Jewish renaissance and sense of unity.
AN INSTITUTION that existed in practice even before the establishment of 
the state, the Chief Rabbinate was empowered at the time of Israel’s 
independence as the supreme halachic authority for the country’s Jewish 
citizens. As such, for seven decades it exercised monolithic control 
over matters of marriage, divorce, conversion and burial even for those 
who had no wish for their lives to be subject to Jewish law.
Still, for generations, a silent majority of the public acquiesced to 
the monopoly enjoyed by the religious establishment. Many of the less 
observant bought into the myth that the only authentic Judaism was one 
which rigidly adhered to centuries-old interpretation of Jewish law, and 
accepted that Jewish continuity required submission to its conventions. 
Others simply couldn’t be bothered with waging a battle against a 
structure that in practical terms intruded on their lives only 
sporadically. All that began to change a few years ago.
The first significant crack in the broad acceptance of the institution 
came in the spring of 2008. It was then that the Supreme Rabbinic Court 
annulled thousands of conversions that had been authorized by the 
Conversion Administration headed by Rabbi Haim Druckman. The ruling gave 
tangible significance to a process that had long been under way: the 
wresting of control by the haredim of the rabbinic courts that had 
heretofore been in the hands of the more moderate national religious 
Zionists.
Prior to this decree, which met with public outrage, only the Reform and 
Conservative religious movements had been vocally engaged in lobbying to 
revamp the conversion process. Now they were joined by the modern 
Orthodox, whose own standards and authority were also under attack.
FAST FORWARD to the spring of 2010. On May 26, The Jerusalem Post ran a 
front-page headline “New rabbinate guidelines call for stringent review 
of marriage licenses.” Fresh directives had been issued by the Chief 
Rabbinate requiring anyone whose parents had not been married by a 
rabbinate-recognized cleric to appear before a rabbinical court to 
undergo a formal inquiry into the authenticity of his or her Judaism.
Without the option of civil marriage, the consequence of this draconian 
measure was that hundreds of thousands of Israelis – including 
innumerable immigrants – were no longer able to wed here. They joined 
the approximately 300,000 immigrants from the former Soviet Union and 
their 50,000 offspring who were required to serve in the IDF but not 
allowed to be buried in Jewish cemeteries. Half a million citizens of 
the Jewish state, who already felt themselves a part of the Jewish 
people, had been imprisoned in identity limbo, a condition they would 
inevitably pass on to their children. The writing was on the wall.
A major survey of a cross-section of Israel’s Jewish population was 
released at the time by Hiddush, an association promoting religious 
freedom. Among the findings: 70 percent opposed religious legislation, 
68% wanted to reduce funding of yeshivot and 85% were against exempting 
yeshiva students from army service. Relating to the increasing 
polarization reflected in the poll, author Amos Oz warned that “the 
prime struggle is not between Left and Right, not between Ashkenazi and 
Sephardi, not even between the rich and the poor or between Jew and 
Arab. It’s the struggle between tolerance, open-mindedness and pluralism 
on the one hand and fanaticism and hatred on the other.”
One public figure who recognized this was leader of the opposition at 
the time, MK Tzipi Livni, who had made headlines that spring when she 
declared, “Israel 2010 is a country in which women ride in the back of 
the bus, conversion is a mission impossible, the Zionist vision is 
blurred and defining the Jewish state has been given to a monopoly of 
haredi politicians.”
Determined to bring about change through dialogue, she convened the 
first of a series of public forums at the Knesset on matters of religion 
and state, addressed by a gallery of thinkers unabashedly representing 
the pluralistic nature of Israeli society, from the haredim to the 
passionately secular, all of whom cherished Jewish learning.
The conference was held against the background of a conversion bill that 
had been brought before the Knesset by MK David Rotem that threatened to 
estrange the Jews of the Diaspora from the Jewish state. Alarmed by the 
schism that the legislation might create, Prime Minister Binyamin 
Netanyahu called upon Jewish Agency Chairman Natan Sharansky to mediate 
the matter. Since assuming the position a year earlier, Sharansky had 
faithfully demonstrated his commitment to preserving the unity of the 
Jewish people even as he honored its diversity, having called upon the 
Religious Services Ministry “to nurture mutual respect among the leaders 
of the diverse religious approaches and, in this way, to deepen the 
honor and appreciation for the tradition of Israel.”
He was one who understood that diverse communities in Israel and 
throughout the world were not only seeking practical solutions but 
legitimization by the Jewish state they held dear. A free market of 
religious services, they believed, devoid of coercion, would attract 
consumers by the droves, spawning creativity, not jeopardizing continuity.
IN FACT, such a free market already existed “underground.” A popular 
uprising against the religious establishment had already begun: not one 
that rejected tradition as in the early days of the Zionist enterprise, 
but one that embraced it. Already by the spring of 2010, dozens of 
non-Orthodox yeshivot had sprung up throughout Israel; tens of thousands 
of secular youths were participating in hundreds of alternative tikunei 
leil Shavuot; TALI schools – founded by Conservative olim a generation 
earlier to enhance Jewish studies in non-Orthodox state schools – went 
mainstream; the non-Orthodox religious streams – once bastions of 
Anglo-Saxon immigrants – began attracting increasing numbers of 
born-and-bred Israelis, due in part to the increasing number of sabras 
graduating from their rabbinic academies.
And among the ever dwindling number eligible to marry under the auspices 
of the religious establishment, thousands were already choosing an 
alternative path to matrimony that would be more meaningful, personal 
and spiritual. The days of the Chief Rabbinate were numbered.
Concurrently, there was a growing recognition within the haredi world 
that the community was in danger of imploding if it did not prepare its 
young people for a modicum of integration into society, including taking 
part in its defense. On May 31 of that year, The Jerusalem Post broke a 
story that seemed fantastical at the time: The IDF had prepared a plan 
to be implemented incrementally that would – 10 years hence – result in 
the recruitment of 60% of 18-year-old haredim to military or alternative 
national service.
Still, it would take another several years for developments within... 
This story is to be continued. All references to people, events, 
organizations, and news through May 2010 are real. The rest is up to us.

 Jerusalem, June 4, 2018
aspetta e spera. Intanto, nell''Anno del Signore (btw, perchè gli
ebrei nello stato degli ebrei usano gli anni cristiani? Assimilazione
di massa?) 2010, succede questo:
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/two-non-orthodox-synagogues-in-ra-anana-attacked-in-one-week-span-1.291807