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LAPID: THE ORTHODOX GIVE JUDAISM A BAD NAME
by Eyal Hareuveni
Yediot Ahronot , Feb. 11, 2004
The Minister of Justice met in Jerusalem with about 300 Conservative rabbis from around the world. He called upon them to fight for their rights, not to accept discrimination and to “save Judaism.”
“The State of Israel is the only country in which there is discrimination between Jews and Jews,” according to Minister of Justice, Yosef (Tomy) Lapid, speaking this evening (Tuesday) at a rabbis convention of the Conservative Movement, held at the Inbal Hotel in Jerusalem.
The minister called on his guests “to save Judaism from the Orthodox Jews who give the religion a bad name.”
“Because of the attitude toward Reform rabbis and to Reform and Conservative Judaism,” said Lapid, “the State of Israel finds itself in existential danger. A generation has already passed, and we haven’t provided you with any reason to be proud of the state or be encouraged by it. The generation that lost its family in the Shoah is disappearing.
“The generation that remembers the establishment of the state is getting old, and the younger generation, educated Jews of the middle class - their connection to Judaism is tentative. They are academics, exposed to anti-Israel propaganda, they meet good non-Jewish young people, and the message that they receive from the State of Israel is that their rabbis are not good enough for us, not good enough to marry us, they are second class.
And so the young Jew says to himself, if his grandfather perished in the Shoah, and if on television he sees Israeli soldiers pursuing Palestinian children, and if his rabbis are not good enough for the State of Israel, so then Israel is also not good enough for him.”
“If we lose the younger generation in America,” cautioned the Justice minister, “this will present an existential danger for us. We are intimately connected to the USA, it is our only ally, and it supports us because of you, because the congressman from Arizona, or the state of Washington cares about you. Not because Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East.
But the discrimination here, in the long run, is endangering the existence of the State of Israel within one generation, and if your children and grandchildren will loose their way, we will also loose ours.”
“I don’t understand why you accept discrimination,” Lapid challenged the rabbis. “You need to be more assertive, and to fight more for your rights.”
Some 300 rabbis from Jewish communities all over the world participated in the convention, most of them from the United States. They are visiting Israel for one week, during which time they are meeting with senior politicians and visiting sites of historical and religious importance, such as the Western Wall.
Translated by e-masorti
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