On my grandson’s first day at his new Jewish primary school in London, he returned home with his carrot and apple untouched. “Weren’t you hungry?” his puzzled mother inquired. “I was,” the eight-year-old replied. “But the kids all recite blessings over their food before they eat.” My sweetheart, educated in an Israeli school, had no idea what to say; his snack remained in his satchel.
My daughter is sheltering with her family in friendly Finchley until they can go back to their home on the battered Israel-Lebanon border; the Jewish community in England has welcomed them with open arms and chicken soup. It’s heartwarming for me to witness and so familiar. Visiting them catapulted me back into my own Diaspora warm, heimish Jewish upbringing, complete with learning all the borei pri ha’adama and ha’etz blessings that you could wish for. We started our school days singing “Modeh Ani” as we thanked the Lord for returning our souls to our bodies after a good night’s sleep; my grandchildren now walk round the London flat belting out the same tune. They wear kippot and tzitzit to class (although I worry they should tuck in the ritual fringes and lose the yarmulkes in public places, just in case).
It all feels so sweet, and so right. So “us.” So “of course they should daven Shacharit before the studies begin.”
But why, oh why, oh why would it be so fraught to do so in a secular Israeli school? Why would throngs of people (probably including me) line public spaces screaming about the end of democracy if prayers were mandated in state syllabi? Is this not a crazy disconnect?
As I see it, ironically, in some ways Israel has been bad for the Jews.
How has Israel been bad for the Jews?
In the Diaspora, it was totally acceptable to drive to shul on Saturday morning, bellow out that God is great, beseech Him to spread His tabernacle of peace over the local government and that of Israel, and then, fortified with a kiddush fish ball and a hit of whiskey, nip off to the golf course for a round with the chevre. Here in Israel, unless you belong to the marginal Reform communities, synagogue action is strictly limited to the observant among us. Yes, those Jews who barbecue on the Sabbath and don’t buy kosher meat can sometimes be caught in a beit knesset for a bar mitzvah or to hear the shofar. But it’s very rare for the secular to slot weekly attendance at shul into their schedules; religion, in Israel, belongs to the religious.
In my opinion, this is a great pity. And not only because it feels like such a giant fisfus – missing out – not to know about our traditions and our scaffolding. Hanging out in a place of prayer builds community, and community is key to well-being and belonging. Watching friends as we age together, one Friday night at a time, being present at lifetime cycle events – brits, bat mitzvahs, weddings, funerals – creates that knitted together feeling of being a skein in the tapestry; without it, one can quickly unravel.
So why don’t my children, for example, even entertain the thought of joining a synagogue? Secular Israelis would sooner enter an ashram than amble over to the corner shul. Whenever and wherever my husband and I traveled, both of us Diaspora born, we’d immediately scope out the local community and join them for a Friday night service. Some of our loveliest experiences were in the Venice synagogue or that in Istanbul, Rome, or New York. Why don’t secular Sabras feel the same pull?
The answer, my friend, is blowing in the stinking vapors of corruption and greed that waft endlessly from the Knesset; the empowerment of religious leaders who want only one thing, or maybe two, for their constituents: more power, and more cash. Every family has been touched by this religious rot. Mine had a quick-dip-in-the-mikve conversion in return for a lovely $3,000 in a brown paper envelope and a marriage that wasn’t recognized by the Rabbinate, despite the groom being sanctioned by the chief rabbi of Efrat. On the other hand, a ceremony in Cyprus in a city hall on Shabbat was kosher enough for the powers that be in the Holy Land.
Religion has been hijacked by cultists with long white beards in long black coats, and they have sullied it. Politics and religion simply shouldn’t mix; the result is a toxic mess. It’s just wrong to mandate that the poor can’t go to the beach on the Sabbath; the rich can drive there in private cars, but those less fortunate don’t have public transport on their day of rest. The Rabbinate is so intrusive and so insensitive about marriage and divorce, that more and more young Israeli couples are getting hitched without rabbinical sanction; a quick Zoom afterwards with some sort of courtroom in Utah can seal the deal in a manner that’s acceptable to the relevant ministry.
It feels like a Monty Python script: Governments can collapse over an El Al plane landing on Shabbat or a pita smuggled in to a patient in a hospital during Passover. At this very point in our tumultuous history, haredi MKs are clinging on with recriminations and curses to a blanket exemption from army service for their boys, some of whom swear they’d rather kill themselves than enlist. Haredi men by and large don’t work – we fund their study habits with our hard-earned taxes, and they procreate without a thought about who will pay for all those babies. Then you and I pick up the tab.
Middle Israelis associate religion with this unJewish, unfair, and unfathomable behavior, and they want no part of it. Religion here, at least partly, is concomitant with cult or fanaticism. On the West Bank, the violence against Palestinians and the army alike is consistently and entirely perpetrated by ear-locked, be-tzitzited hooligans wearing large kippot. Secular, sane Israelis see the footage and feel repulsed; these hateful goons are destroying more than the olive trees that they desecrate; they are severing our love for Judaism.
Our politicians who are propelling us into hell – Smotrich, Ben-Gvir, Rothman – all carefully check the hours elapsed between a kebab and a cheesecake before they clobber us with another insane law.
If this is what strict observance to Halacha leads us to, we think, who the hell wants Halacha? Who wants to even know about it?
Our sacred teachings mandate never to cut down trees, not even those of our enemy; but who needs facts when religious fervor percolates in the hills of our ancient homeland, and barbarians who would never turn on a light on Shabbat uproot olive groves and beat up Arab farmers. It’s all a bloody mess, and it’s bloodying our basic right to love our birthright.
More than that, diabolical behavior in the name of religion is making the sane secular feel antisemitic. It’s a shocking realization: We see haredi men peddling amulets and trinkets at intersections and feel fury building up inside us: Why aren’t these guys working in the middle of the day? We watch Itamar Ben-Gvir and his henchmen prostrate themselves on the Temple Mount on Tisha B’Av, when they should be remembering how religious fanaticism led to us losing that very hallowed ground for centuries, and we feel that these so-called “devout” imbeciles are endangering our country, and our very lives. It’s a sight that doesn’t exactly fill us with fraternal bubbly feelings of belonging – we want nothing to do with these thugs whom we so actively despise.
The fact that Ben-Gvir is supposed to be in charge of our security, when our security is crumbling on all fronts, largely because of him, is a story for the next Talmud. The daf of our day would also feature the be-yarmulka’ed Bezalel Smotrich, his buddy in the sorry balagan, who is still, still! dishing out gazillions to haredim who burn their draft papers, and to settlers who burn trees.
We see religion, and we see black; it’s a terrible, terrible thing. Many years ago, Israel was also fighting in Gaza on Tisha B’Av. I remember happily fasting to take the place of a soldier in battle who couldn’t. This year, I went shopping on that ancient fast day; I felt hugely relieved that the food court in the mall was open. At least “they” haven’t mandated that “we” can’t eat in public (yet), I felt, with a stinging surge of resentment for the “them.”
How sad is that.
That’s why riots would break out in our streets if primary schools suddenly mandated blessing the bread that comes out of the earth. Parents would pull their babies from class, fearing religious coercion that could end up with their kidlooshkies in a cult. I understand them; I kind of feel that way, too.
So I guess we’ll have to all urge our children to spend some years abroad with the next generation, giving them a gentle, loving window into the beautiful world of Yiddishkeit.
But is that not utterly insane?■
Pamela Peled is a South African-born Israeli author, journalist, columnist, and editor who teaches at Reichman University.