Dati or lo dati?

Not much is new with me today, so rather than narrate, I'll use this post to share some of my impressions of Israel--or more precisely, Jerusalem, and attitudes towards Judaism and Jewish practice. I had always been told about how the Orthodox right controls religious life in Israel--it's sort of an accepted fact, and though it seems like a bad idea in principle (particularyto one raised with the American religious/state separation--though the reality vs. ideal in our own country is another whole story), I honestly didn't ever think that much about it.



It doesn't take long here, though, for it to sink in that the implications are vast. On a practical level, you can't take a bus in Jerusalem on Shabbat. You can't buy milk, at least not easily--there are a few quickmart type places, but they're few and far between. The streets are virtually deserted except for people heading to or from shul. Really. Everything is closed. There are lots of other practical implications, but one of the most interesting to me is that no one here really seems to know what to make of non-Orthodox Judaism. In Israel, when people try to locate a person on their religious map, they ask one question--dati or lo dati? Religious or not religious? It's as if the map has two hemispheres, divided by an equator that is a solid black line, and you are either in one hemisphere or the other--that's it.



In one hemisphere is kashrut (keeping kosher), Shabbat observance, the mechitza (the wall that separates men and women when they pray) and gender segregation, Torah values, etc. In the other hemisphere is driving on Shabbat, bacon, and married women who don't cover their hair.



And so the Jews who take tradition and mitzvot seriously--keep kosher, go to synagogue, observe Shabbat (though perhaps not in the most traditional forms) but also have egalitarian religious services and women who wear pants and more integration of contemporary culture and women rabbis, if you can even imagine--well, there's no place on the map for them. Literally, no man's (or woman's?) land. The question dati or lo dati doesn't even admit the possibility that such Jews exist. Even though we do, of course.



Do I sound a little angry? I am. But I'm not really alone. A lot of Israelis are angry, too. At a chief rabbinate that seems at best out of touch with people's lives and at worst down-right sadistic and at a culture that denies people the right to express their religious commitments with any kind of public sanction. The (Orthodox) chief rabbinate here controls who can marry, divorce, convert, and get public funding for schools and synagogues. That's no small amount of power. What's heartening to me is that there are real rumblings against the system, and not just from secular Israelis. Orthodox people are starting to complain. And there are now a good strong handful of non-Orthodox congregations here. Though most were founded by expatriates, there are now many with large native Israeli contingents. On both Shabbat mornings that I have spent at my neighborhood Reform congregation there were b'nai mitzvah ceremonies. At one, the parents were clearly not Israeli-born, though they spoke excellent Hebrew and their son, the bar mitzvah, was born here. At the other, the bat mitzvah and her whole familiy were Israelis. At both, the kids read Torah and haftarah, gave d'vrei Torah (in Hebrew), and accepted the mantle of adult Jewish responsibility. In a congregation of men and women, praying together, committed to a liberal, egalitarian, committed Judaism.



I understand, too, that there are now several native-born Israelis at the Conservative and Reform rabbinical schools here. To me, this is the most hopeful sign, as it will take Israeli rabbis and Israelis themselves--not just expatriates--to figure out how liberal Judaism can really become a part of society here--I don't think an imported Reform, Reconstructionist, or Conservative movement will ever really take hold. But I do think something has to change, and I am hopeful that--in the tradition of our history--we will continue to evolve and adapt our commitments and expressions and that Judaism, which has alwasy looked different in each country and generation, will also look different here in the years to come.