Judaism is the foundation of Israel, not democracy, former chief rabbi claims
The conference, entitled "Reconnecting," brought together Knesset members on the left and the right with the aim of fostering dialogue.
By JERUSALEM POST STAFFUpdated: MARCH 19, 2023 11:04 Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, chief rabbi of Tel Aviv at a Menorah Lighting Ceremony on the fourth night of the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah, at the Great Synagogue in Tel Aviv, December 1, 2021.(photo credit: TOMER NEUBERG/FLASH90)
Israel is a Jewish state before it is a democratic state, former Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Israel, Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau alleged at a conference run by the Fund for Zionist Leadership in Israel on Thursday.
The conference took place on the same day as the nation's most recent "Day of Disruption" during which Israeli citizens took to the streets countrywide to protest the judicial reforms.
The conference, entitled "Reconnecting," brought together Knesset members on the left and the right with the aim of fostering dialogue between them.
"What are we arguing about?" said Rabbi Lau. "We are a democracy. We have experienced the opposite firsthand, in our lifetimes. We will not go back to that."
Ministers and MKs in attendance included: Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu, MK Limor Son Har-Melech (Otzma Yehudit), MK Sharren Haskel (National Unity) and Moshe Tur-Paz (Yesh Atid). RABBI YISRAEL MEIR LAU speaks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and then-prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu during the Fifth World Holocaust Forum at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, January 2020 (credit: YONATAN SINDEL/FLASH90)
"I am for democracy - the people in control. But how? Upon what [basis] does the nation rule? In our Torah, in Exodus chapter 23, it is written: '[You shall neither side with the mighty to do wrong—you shall not give perverse testimony in a dispute so as to] pervert it in favor of the mighty [nor shall you show deference to a poor person in a dispute].' This is democracy. It doesn't say to listen to the voice of so-and-so- not a random leader, not a professor, not a doctor, not a rabbi and not a Hassidic rebbe."
"In the [Israeli] Declaration of Independence, the word 'democracy' or 'democratic' does not even appear once. And it's not that anyone is against democracy, but it is not the basis of our nation. The word 'Jewish' appears more than ten times. This is the basis upon which the State of Israel was founded, according to ... David Ben-Gurion. There is no question about that.
"What are we debating? There is no debate. We are a democratic state, clearly. [We are in trouble] if we are not [a democracy] because we have experienced its opposite firsthand. We do not want to go back to something like that."
Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau's firsthand experience with fascism
RABBI YISRAEL MEIR LAU stands at the main gate of the former Nazi death camp of Auschwitz with the words ‘Arbeit macht frei’ (Work sets you free), on February 1, 2011 (credit: MICHAL LEPECKI/AGENCIA GAZETA/REUTERS)
In addition to serving as Israel's Ashkenazi chief rabbi, Lau served as the Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv and the chairman of Yad Vashem.
In his own memoir, he writes that he was born in the Polish town of Piotrkow, where his father served as the last chief before being killed in the Treblinka death camp. Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau himself was detained at the Buchenwald camp as a child. He moved to Israel with his brother at the end of World War II and has served as a clergyman since his ordination in the early 1960s.
