Meanwhile, while everyone in the rest of the world is focused on terrorism, Arafat, and Israel’s diplomatic skirmish with Syria, the real news in Israel is the latest chapter in the religious versus secular divide:
The cabinet voted to dismantle the Religious Affairs Ministry Wednesday and transfer authority over the rabbinical courts to the Justice Ministry headed by Shinui leader Yosef Lapid, a move that infuriated the National Religious Party and triggered a coalition crisis.
[ . . . ]
Eitam warned after his meeting with the chief Rabbis Wednesday that if the Cabinet’s decision to transfer control of the country’s rabbinical courts to the Justice Ministry were to pass in the Knesset, the National Religious Party would quit the coalition government. “We will not cooperate with Shinui’s secular humanism. This is not a question of jobs; this is a critical debate on the Jewish character of Israel. A government without the NRP may be legal, but it won’t be legitimate,” Eitam said Wednesday evening.
Any step that Israel takes to transfer more power to secular administration is a positive one, in my opinion. But Lapid is such a hated symbol among the large Orthodox population in Israel, that this likely came as a slap in the face to them at a time when unity is more important than division.
The problem is that the Orthodox rabbinate has altogether too much power in Israel – they decide everything from weddings and divorces to what sort of meat Israeli restaurants can buy (even non-kosher ones). And the most upset people are often the Conservative and Reform Jews, who feel slighted.
This division between Orthodox and secular is no small issue in Israel. In many ways, it’s almost a more difficult division than the one between Jews and Arabs, because the religious feel they have a “claim” on the secular Jews and should be encouraging them to live more religiously. This leads to a lot of resentment and conflict, not to mention tug-of-war political grappling. The fallout from today’s decision promises to be significant.