The freedom to practice a religion, to believe what you want, is a basic human right and people have gone to war and died for it. In modern Western countries, many people are religious and these countries very carefully preserve their right to be. At the same time though, these countries, being democratic, need to protect also those that are not religious, or believe something different. The result has been a separation between State and Religion, whereby the democratic laws of the land protect both those that want to believe and those that do not. This means that as an individual, you are allowed to believe anything you want, to limit yourself as a result of that belief in any way you want, and accept authority as to those beliefs, from anyone that you want, with only two exceptions: your religious belief or behavior cannot interfere or hinder the lives of others who do not believe or believe differently, and those beliefs and behavior cannot be in violation of State laws.
When properly and diligently adhered to, this basic principle of “Separation of State and Religion”, works very well and France and the United States are good examples, with both countries having a largely religious population, but with the State as supreme authority.
The problem starts when the principle becomes blurred or when the state starts using religion for its own purposes, or maybe even worse, when religion becomes the state. Iran is a vivid example of the latter and religious laws and principles are forced upon all, whether they like it or not.
And what about Israel? They say “it’s complicated”, but isn’t it always? With the founding of the State, a ”Status Quo” was negotiated between Ben Gurion and Haredi leaders, whereby Israel became a Jewish state and Jewish religious laws and traditions became part of the State.
The results of this fateful agreement have been that many aspects of daily life in Israel were subjected to limitations, whether you were religious and wanted those limitations or not. And of course as is the nature of this kind of things, politics became part of it and Haredi politicians now sit in the Knesset and in the government. Of course the fact that they are Haredi does not prevent them from becoming politicians and looking out for their constituents. However, the moment their political power is abused to force additional religious limitations on the general population, the principle of Separation between Religion and State is violated and if the Haredim use their political power to blackmail coalition partners, the prospect of a theological dictatorship is rapidly becoming reality.
And recently it was revealed in the Knesset that the Haredi parties are taking it one step further. They initiated legislation to protect religious leaders from prosecution when they make inciting racist or biased statements in public (which they claim are based on interpretation of the Torah).
At first sight, it would appear to be a rather superfluous initiative. Which religious leader would make statements that are so racist or biased that there would be a possibility that they would overstep the boundaries of the state law and risk prosecution? Unfortunately, such statements do crop up every now and then and remarks, which are purportedly backed up by the Torah, have been made that should raise question marks with anybody, and also with the law enforcement authorities.
Without going into too many details of who and what, it cannot be condoned that racist and other statements are made with impunity and we have to swallow calls like, not to rent property to non-Jews, inciting remarks about homosexuality (it deserves a dead-sentence), denigrating statements about women in general and in particular women who join the armed forces (which is the law ) and probably the most serious one, a discussion of Jewish laws of war, which so it was claimed, justify, to kill non-Jewish infants if the possibility exists that they may endanger Jews later on.
It does appear however, that these rabbis do not have too much to fear and that the new proposed law is not really necessary, since none of the cases of clear incitement, not even the justification to kill children, ever led to conviction of the ones that uttered these despicable statements. True, the justification of child murder was investigated but it was decided not to prosecute so as not to infringe upon the right of religious freedom!!!!!
I guess we are waiting until somebody decides he needs to live up to the calls of the rabbis. The fact that non-Jews are being discriminated against based on such calls, which is happening on a daily basis, apparently is not enough and we may have to wait for the murder of a child to trigger a proper response from the legal authorities.
Just don’t call it religious freedom. It is religious dictatorship.
And one more thing that I couldn’t escape while reading about how rabbis think they can express themselves. And claim that wat they say is what the Torah says.
The Torah really allows to kill children? Albeit non-Jewish children? The Torah justifies denigrating women and calling them whores for doing their duty as citizens? The Torah really decries homosexuality and demands a death sentence for gays?
If the Torah indeed is the source and justification of such despicable remarks, maybe it is high time to reevaluate the Torah and find interpretations that are more in line with the time we live in. But in any case it would be a good start to hold those spreading these inciting “interpretations”, responsible and remind everyone, and especially them, that we are still a Nation that is guided by democratic principles and not by religion.
We still are a Nation guided by democratic principles, aren’t we?
