Last update - 00:00 29/12/2007
Tradition also needs a budget
By Yizhar Hess
Israeli society has changed over the past decade, and secular discourse has become slightly more Jewish. Previously, only a small elite among the secular public knew how to study or teach a page of Talmud, but now, the number has now grown. Getting to know "the Jewish bookshelf" has become the bon ton. At one high-tech firm, I met a vice president who had just returned from a weekend seminar and knew how to go deeply into a story from the Talmud, and community centers have begun offering Kabbala classes and other Jewish study groups. It seems as if "community" has once again become fashionable: Communities study together and sing together, and there are even secular synagogues.
At the same time, a revolution is also taking place among religious Zionists, and it is being led by women. In some high schools, female students study Talmud and even take matriculation examinations in this subject; women serve as rabbinical pleaders; Shira Hadasha's pioneering services - which, admittedly, are not completely egalitarian, but in which women lead some of the prayers - are now being adopted by other congregations; single religious women have begun raising their voices in Internet forums and claiming that "we are also allowed" (to have sexual relations before marriage, heaven forbid!); and the religious cinema school, Ma'aleh, recently produced the first religious homosexual film. This is a revolution that is entirely secular in the sociological, rather than the theological, sense.
To those for whom Jewish identity - in either its secular or its religious interpretation - is important, this is a welcome process. Secular Israelis were for too long cut off from their natural roots. At the same time, religious Zionist discourse atrophied, becoming reduced to the-Torah-of-Israel-and-the-Land-of-Israel.
The classic dichotomy in Israeli society, that between "religious" and "secular" - which may never have been entirely correct, but was nevertheless frequently used - is gradually losing importance. True, on one side there are the hardalim (ultra-Orthodox religious Zionists), and on the other, there is ignorance, or New Canaanism. But it is not always those on the margins who define reality. Sometimes it is those in the middle who do so. And in the middle, fascinating options are sprouting.
Many secular Jews have discovered the religious experience of the synagogue, while at the same time, the Orthodox monopoly over this experience has been shattered. The non-Orthodox movements, which were once considered a strange and marginal implant in Israeli society, are beginning to take hold and gain strength. Communities belonging to the Masorti movement - the Israeli version of the Conservative movement - are succeeding in reaching many Israelis. Last Yom Kippur, tens of thousands of people gathered in these communities, where mixed and family seating is the rule and the prayer service is egalitarian.
For a great many years, going to synagogue was not an option for many secular Jews, even though they had an affinity for Jewish tradition and were not atheists; fossilized, non-egalitarian and politicized Orthodoxy is no place for the average "secular" family to have a spiritual experience.
The secular-cultural option, even if it has its own charm and depth, will forever remain within the bounds of an intellectual experience.
The synagogue, if we are merely wise enough to give it a chance, can serve as the place for an authentic Jewish experience, both spiritual and religious, an anchor for many Israeli families who will be able to experience their Jewish identity within it in an active manner.
If it only enjoyed equal funding and did not suffer from the Orthodox monopoly in Israel, the Masorti-Conservative synagogue could also restore a sense of communal solidarity, which has been so sadly diminished, to Israeli society.
We are not yet there. This year, the Masorti movement is celebrating 30 years since its inception in Israel, but it is still far from realizing all of its great potential.
The movement represents an open, pluralistic and egalitarian Judaism that loves people; a Judaism that respects both man and woman; a Judaism that follows the precepts of halakha (Jewish religious law) but is not afraid to ask questions, and which is also not ashamed, when necessary, to speak with exclamation marks.
The Masorti movement has all the traits necessary to assist it in achieving a worthy position at the heart of society. But this is a process. In another decade, the Jewish arena will look completely different. The dichotomy is dead.
The writer is the director of the Masorti movement.