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The storm in Israel is growing, and so are its reverberations and international consequences. Despite the attempts to downplay the importance and weight of the criticism, that of the American administration [“the US concerns about the judicial shake up that Netanyahu heard from US secretary of State Blinken”] as well as the criticism Netanyahu heard from French President Macron ["If there are no changes to his government's far-reaching plans to overhaul the judicial system, Paris should conclude that Israel has emerged from a common conception of democracy"] speak for themselves.
In 2003, while serving as Finance Minister under PM Ariel Sharon, and facing a state of economic crisis, Netanyahu explained that the previously awarded generous State child benefits (which mostly impacted Haredi and Arab families) threatened to destroy Israel’s economy, and therefore he was cutting them back drastically.
"The cause of this most severe impact and entry into the continuous cycle of poverty is the policy of [providing] excessive child benefits, which has taken whole generations out of the labor force… I want people to have children that they can support… A man can .. bring a family into the world with as many children as he wants, but he needs to understand that he has the primary responsibility to support them, educate them, finance them, take care of their future. He cannot abdicate this responsibility and transfer all or most of it to the state."
Following Hiddush's demand at the beginning of this week to the Population Authority and Attorney General, as well as our threat to file for Contempt of Court on Sunday, we were informed just today that the Population Authority has decided to reverse its decision to refuse to register couples that were married through the State of Utah, USA, which were not included in Hiddush's original legal petition (see below). The Population Authority will be registering all the couples who were married via Utah online weddings!
The die is cast, and given past experience, this will be the case, at least for a while. The world's attention is currently focused on the characters of Ben Gvir, the Kahanist, and Smotrich, who demands to serve as Minister of Defense or Minister of Finance. However, the questions regarding the consequences that the new government will have on Israel’s Jewish character and on the future of the rule of law are no less important.
The latest statements of the leaders of the ultra-orthodox parties that we reported on last week made it clear to what extent the demands they announced as pre-conditions to their joining the next coalition are related to their desire to eliminate the last barrier blocking their planned moves in the field of religious coercion, to further erode equality and pluralism, and to their attempts to perpetuate preferential treatment and favorable discrimination that they enjoy, as they demanded and received from their coalition partners (from the right, the center and the political left) in the past.
The court has ruled: all Israeli couples married via "Utah Marriage" (video conferencing) are entitled to register as married.
As in every year since Hiddush’s founding in 2009, on the eve of Rosh HaShanah we have published our unique annual Israel Religion and State Index.
In our last newsletter we share with you the answer to the question “What are Israel's upcoming elections really about?”. We brought to your attention the findings of IDI's monthly survey, The Israeli Voice, from the previous month. This is not a coincidental finding. As we have been emphasizing for a long time: Israeli Jews are greatly concerned and challenged by issues of religion and state.
What are the upcoming elections about? What are the main emphases of the Likud party led by Benjamin Netanyahu, which all the polls predict will be the largest?
It has now become increasingly apparent that that whoever is going to serve as Israel's next prime minister aspires to include the Haredi parties in his Coalition. Even though the current Coalition did not fulfill the great expectations [and promises] that it made relating to religious freedom and equality, it was still light years ahead in this area, compared with past coalitions that were dependent on Haredi political support. We will publish a more detailed account on this topic soon. This worrisome prospect demands much more attention on the part of both Israelis and responsible Jewish leaders in the Diaspora, since it adversely impacts both Israel-Diaspora relations as well as Israel's domestic civil rights, human dignity, religious freedom, and equality.
This week, the Jewish Agency Board of Governors proudly announced that they had unanimously voted for a compromise resolution, which was reached with the support of an ultra-Orthodox rabbi (who has previously backed protests against Women of the Wall) condemning what it called a “despicable” protest at the Western Wall’s egalitarian section last month by Orthodox extremists
Today, after an extremely turbulent year, a new chapter has opened in Israel’s political whirlwind. The Knesset has dispersed, and Israel is returning for another bout of elections, the fifth within the last three years!
The Knesset Research Center prepared an update for a meeting of the Knesset Committee for Religious Services and National Enterprises that was held this week, addressing the integration of the ultra-Orthodox sector in the workplace.
There is no more just and vital initiative, than the recently published plans by Minister of Finance Avigdor Lieberman to reduce funding for ultra-Orthodox education networks by 25% (at an estimated NIS 1 billion per year) under the next Economic Arrangements Law.
How Pindrus and his colleagues perceive Israel: two trees, side by side: portraying Israel’s Independence as a rotting or burned black tree, bearing the stinking fruits of corruption, licentiousness, terror, bereavement, etc. while the tree of the exile bears a glorious display of the finest and brightest fruits such as Shabbat, holiness, kashrut, education, etc.