There is a fantastic oped in the NY Times from Alana Newhouse, the editor in chief of Tablet Magazine (which I really enjoy). There is a bill before the Israeli Knesset that may radically change Israel. That bill would give the ultra-orthodox power to say who is Jewish and who isn’t. This would destroy the connection between most Diaspora Jews (Jews living outside of Israel) and Israel. I wrote about the problem of Who is a Jew before when I visited Israel and the religious problem in Israel. I’ve also written about the Supreme Court case in Britain of determining who is Jewish. This is an issue that is very close to my heart and very important to me.
Here is the Oped: NY Times Oped
Here are my past related blog posts:
Are you Religious?
The Swing Vote
Who Determines Who is Jewish?
Why do religious people let other HUMANS define their religion? For instance, I believe in God but the pope can kiss my ass. I’ll do what I know is right.
The big problem in Israel is that it was set up from the origin as a “Jewish state.” And the big mistake was to make the very religious get involved from the beginning. The original founders of Israel were fiercely secular who thought that the ultra-religious were an out of date dying breed of Judaism.
They were wrong.