Two weeks ago, Bezalel Smotrich, whose Religious Zionist Party managed to garner 14 seats and become the third largest faction in the Knesset in the recent general elections, demanded that Israel's professional soccer leagues no longer schedule games on Saturdays. He argues that it's not fair for Jews to miss out on watching or attending games because they choose to observe Shabbat. He makes a good point. Many of Israel's Jewish citizens do choose to observe Shabbat, and so having games take place on Saturdays effectively excludes them from taking in those games. I believe that his request is reasonable.
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That being said, I think there are also some other reasonable requests that Smotrich should consider. For example, how about allowing public transportation to run on Shabbat so that secular Israeli citizens who don't have the luxury of owning a private vehicle can get from place to place more easily? How about allowing civil marriages and divorces for Israelis who do not want to be at the mercy of the Chief Rabbinate and its strict, rigid rules? Perhaps Smotrich and his friends should also consider giving equal treatment to non-Orthodox streams of Judaism.
Israel's secular citizens are very used to making accommodations for the country's religious Jewish public, so perhaps the more religious among Israel's citizenry should consider reciprocating. Let the secular among us have access to buses and trains on Shabbat. No one is saying to the country's religious Jews that they would be compelled to use public transit on Shabbat. We can even make arrangements so that buses and trains don't run through religious neighborhoods on Saturdays.
In the same respect, if the secular Israeli public was to be given the option of civil marriage and divorce, religious Jews like Smotrich could still have their personal affairs regulated by the Chief Rabbinate as they please. Nothing would change except that for the first time in the Jewish state's history, both secular and religious Israeli Jews would have the opportunity to choose who has authority over their personal status. In fact, if it makes the religious Jewish public feel better, we can make it so that civil marriages do not take place in the confines of national religious institutions. In other words, no synagogue under the authority of the Chief Rabbinate would have to officiate a civil marriage ceremony.
At the same time, however, it wouldn't be fair for the Chief Rabbinate to maintain its monopoly on kashrut and the management of Jewish holy places. After all, how would religious Orthodox Jews in Israel feel if, all of a sudden, holy sites like the Western Wall were under the exclusive authority of the Reform Jewish movement? And how would they feel if that Reform movement told them that separate prayer sections for men and women were out of the question? Such a scenario would seriously compromise the ability of Israel's religious Orthodox population to worship as they please. It would be a violation of their fundamental right to freedom of religion. Fortunately, such a scenario is unthinkable.
What is unfortunate, however, is that people like Smotrich believe that accommodation for one's religious beliefs should be a one-way street. They believe that the secular must accommodate the religious, but not vice-versa. Mr. Smotrich and the rest of the Jewish state's religious Orthodox public need to realize that if they want secular Jews to accommodate them, they must sometimes be willing to return the favor.
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