After Yom Kippur 2023 - 5784

Shana Tova and "almost Chag Sameach."  Yom Kippur has come and gone and we are now gearing up for the holiday of Sukkot, which starts on Friday night. I didn't get a chance to write a blog before Yom Kippur - and much has happened since then - so I thought I would put this together and  cover  off a variety  of topics.

Yom Kippur in Israel

I suppose we are not supposed to think of Yom Kippur as a "fun" holiday - after all how much fun can it be to  fast (no food or water) for 26 hours while spending 7-8 hours in Synagogue (even more  for  some), much of that standing up?  But Yom Kippur is really a special day - wherever we might be observing it - and all the more so here in Israel.  Here in Israel, pretty much all traffic stops  across the country, other than emergency vehicles and  some non-conformists (it is not "illegal" to  drive).   The airports are closed - and just about everything else is closed.

For the past  15 years or so, we have been participating  in a small community service.  It has been held, at different times, at different people's homes, at a shul we have rented out (that shul itself rents out a school gym because it has too many people to fit in its building).  Usually it is a five or ten minute walk from our place in Ra'anana.  This year, that meant spending  about 10 minutes each way 6 times, in 31-34c heat - with high humidity.  As we were walking through the streets, we passed by many different people on their way to shul, many dressed all in white, from head to toe.  Very few actually wearing suits, which is a good thing in light of the heat.  

Of course we also saw  hundreds of kids with their bicycles, some  accompanied by parents or other adults, many on their own, taking advantage of the car-free streets to ride around the city - or even to go and ride on empty highways.  For those who are observing Yom Kippur in a religious way and  for those  who "observe" in a non-religious way -  it is a special day for all.

For Israel, our service is somewhat unique.   Although we cover most of the traditional  liturgy, including the Torah readings, haftarah readings and different prayer services, using traditional tunes ("nusach") our service is a fully egalitarian, Conservative ("Masorti") service.  While egalitarian is the norm in most Conservative and Reform congregations in the U.S. and Canada, it only represents a small minority of  the shul-going public in Israel.  Here the vast majority of synagogues follow Orthodox traditions and are decidedly non-egalitarian.

With the higher than normal heat, an outdoor service - and the fact that I was the one leading Kol Nidrei and Neilah this year - as well as as assisting with the morning services,  I have to say that I was a bit thirstier than usual this year.  But we made it through, I was able to get a reasonably decent sound from our Shofar at the end - and we enjoyed a tasty community break-fast with our fellow congregants.

As we were walking home, we could already hear the sounds of clanging metal bars as people were starting to assemble their Sukkot -  temporary booths for the festival of Sukkot which starts only four days after Yom Kippur.

Now on a side note - even though I should have been all "shul-ed out" by this point - I decided to turn on the Park Avenue Synagogue stream and watch the PAS Neilah service.  (Sorry to my Toronto Beth Tikvah community...).  That was about 12:30 a.m.  at night here - well after the holy day had ended in Israel.  Although musical instruments in a shul are not necessarily my thing (I don't really know of many, if any other conservative shuls that use them other than PAS), I have to say that it is a real pleasure to watch Hazan Azi Schwartz.  It was really a musical treat.

In addition, Rabbi Cosgrove ran a flawless service.  I was particularly moved by his near closing discussion of the Unetaneh Tokef prayer, which forms part of the Musaf service in the morning of  Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah.   Unetanah Tokef is the "centrepiece" of the Yom Kippur Musaf service -  and, among other things, the source for Leonard Cohen's "who by fire."  In very short - I think you could probably still watch the service on the PAS site if interested - Cosgrove - explained that the final lines of the prayer "Prayer, Repentance and  Acts of Charity can cancel the harshness of the decree" is intended to mean that by doing great things with the time we have in this world - we can lessen the harshness of the reality that  our time is limited and there is a great deal of uncertainty - even if we can't change those facts themselves.  I hope that does some justice to Rabbi Cosgrove - but I thought it was really a wonderful and meaningful discussion near the very end of Yom Kippur.

Some Current Events

As  usual, there is a great deal going on here in Israel, and I will just comment on a few things.

Tel Aviv Yom Kippur Incident

I could write a whole blog about this one but here is my very short version.  A group called "Rosh Yehudi" - the Jewish Head (Probably taken from a Yiddishe Kop ) - announced that it wanted to run an Orthodox prayer service in Dizengoff Square.  The Tel-Aviv City council authorized the service provided that there was no mehitzah put up - i.e. that there was no physical barrier erected between men and women - which is a normal feature in an Orthodox shul.  The Tel Aviv City council noted that there are some 500 shuls in Tel-Aviv, mostly Orthodox and that the City Centre is a public place, open to all, without barriers.  Rosh Yehudi tried its luck in court and lost.  The court upheld the ban on erecting a mehitzah in a public square.  Well wouldn't you know it, Rosh Yehudi and its Rabbi (who has gotten himself  into all kinds of trouble with a torrent of homophobic comments) decided to show up and run the service with a mehitzah anyways, in Dizengoff Square - the heart of Tel-Aviv.  Many people in the square decided to sit wherever they pleased and disregard the mehitzah.  It turned chaotic and became a huge disruption.  TV and radio stations are discussing it around the clock.   And now Itamar Ben-Gvir, cabinet member from the Religious Zionist party (and current Minister of National Security in the Netanyahu government) has announced that he is going to bus in hundreds of worshippers and run a service with a mehitzah in Dizengoff Square  in defiance of the court order on Thursday night.  Even some of his coalition partners, including Simcha Rotman (who is fairly extreme himself) and Bezalel Smotrich (who is an off the charts fanatic) are calling Ben-Gvir's plan "provocative" and "unnecessary."  If Ben-Gvir goes ahead - things may get  completely crazy in Tel-Aviv on Thursday night.  Some Ben-Gvir supporters called "the Family" (as in the Mafia family) have announced they will come and  "participate."  Among other things, Ben-Gvir is really trying  to  ignite a religious war - there  is no other objective way to look at it.   **Breaking news update - Ben-Gvir or his spokespeople have announced that he has cancelled his proposed event for Thursday night.  I would imagine that for Ben-Gvir this amounts to a tactical delay rather than  any kind of change in policy.

US Visa Waiver Program

As you might know, Israelis have generally required visas to visit the U.S. unless they have another  passport that is part of the Visa Waiver Program.  It can be notoriously difficult for Israelis to get their U.S. visas and  can often take months if not years to set up appointments and get through the process.  Over the past few years, U.S. Ambassadors to Israel have been working with Israeli politicians including Bennett, Shaked, Lapid, and  now Netanyahu to get Israel into the VWP.  One challenge is that Israel would be  required to treat all Americans equally when they arrive in Israel - including Palestinian Americans living in the West Bank and in Gaza - even those who might be a security threat.  Nevertheless, Israeli officials announced this week - that the program will come into effect as early as October 2023 - and Israelis will no longer need visas to visit the U.S.  U.S. officials have called the announcement premature - but it looks like it is coming.  Maybe we  will now run into some  fellow  Israelis when  visiting New York City?

Israeli-Saudi Arabia Normalization

Prime Minister Netanyahu is on an all-out blitz campaign to try to bring about a  peace deal and "normalization" with Saudi Arabia - at as low a cost as possible.  Certainly, some Israelis have already been showing up in Saudi Arabia for events - and planes are flying over Saudi Arabia from Israel as we speak.  

We do not know all of the details of what is being negotiated.   But the Saudis have apparently been demanding  that Israel make significant concessions towards the  Palestinians and that the Saudis are able to develop a "peaceful" nuclear program.   Netanyahu's coalition partners  have stated quite clearly that they will oppose these concessions.  So Netanyahu is in a bit of a spot - as he tries to juggle U.S. pressure to agree to a deal with domestic pressure to get a deal without giving up anything.   I'm not convinced the deal will happen that quickly - but it would be a major foreign policy accomplishment for Netanyahu and for Biden.

Canada's Parliament Honours a Nazi War Criminal

Canada made the news around the world this week - especially in Israel (as well as Russia and Poland and other places) when the Canadian speaker of the house dredged up a Ukrainian war criminal (former member of the SS - volunteer Ukrainian brigade) and introduced him in the Parliament as a  "war hero" while President Zelensky was visiting from the Ukraine.    Quite sickening really - one would have thought somebody would do a background check. The truly sad part of the story is why Canada admitted so many war criminals after WWII and failed to prosecute them or extradite them.  Very embarrassing. And Sad.

Yom Kippur War Commemoration

As you may now, this year marked the 50th  Anniversary of the Yom Kippur war, in which Egypt and Syria launched a major surprise attack against Israel - causing massive casualties in the Israeli armed forces - and  leading Israel to fear for its existence, especially in the early days of  the war.  Only after several days of fighting, Israel managed to turn things around  in the Golan and in the Sinai.  By the end of the  war, Israel had a strong upper hand - even though the Americans and USSR stepped in and prevented Israel from inflicting serious damage to the Syrian and Egyptian armies.  Israel lost close to 2,700 soldiers in that war, its second highest total  number of  casualties - after the Israel War of Independence  in 1948.

Needless to say, there have been quite a large number of TV shows, movies, radio shows and other media discussing and analyzing different aspects of the war.  I watched one show on Monday night which was put together by Yehoram Gaon, a well  known Israeli singer.  It focused on musicians who spent the 1973 war entertaining troops near the front lines, not knowing whether the soldiers they were entertaining would ever return.  The show included footage of Canadian singer Leonard Cohen z"l, who flew to Israel when the war broke out and spent close to a month singing for soldiers during the war.  It also included footage and interviewers with a whose-who of the Israeli music industry - Gidi Gov, Shlomo Artzi, Chava Alberstein and many  others played prominent roles.   There have been many other shows - about Golda Meir and Moshe  Dayan,  about all of the losses that Israeli suffered, about the link between 1973 and the subsequent peace deal with Egypt and about many other topics.  Unfortunately, I am too busy to watch all of it - but there are some really interesting angles and discussions being presented.

Other Movies

Of course that was an intentional segue.  As you will recall if you read my last blog - I mentioned two of the "Jewish-themed" movies that were being released. I hadn't seen them at the time.

I had a chance to watch Golda late Saturday night - a day before Yom Kippur.   It is a very dark movie.  It is not a biopic about Golda.  Rather it only deals with  how she handled the Yom Kippur war in October 1973 - and how she responded to a commission of inquiry in Israel a year later.  Helen Mirren does an excellent job of bringing  Golda to life - which seemed to be quite an authentic portrayal.  

Many of the scenes show Golda Meir smoking - just about everywhere - in meetings,  in her bed, while speaking to doctors - or while receiving treatments for cancer.   There are many close ups as things seem to have been frozen in time at key parts - perhaps to emphasize the existential importance of some of the decisions Meir had to make.  I don't think it is fair to say that the movie dumps the blame for the war on Meir - certainly Moshe Dayan, and other army officials seem to have made some disastrous errors - the film suggests.  The movie also suggests that Meir laid the groundwork for a future peace deal with Sadat by insisting on recognition and face to face meetings to end the conflict.  Overall, I thought it was an interesting film, even though it has its flaws.

One criticism has been that there are scenes in the movie with background Arabic and Hebrew discussion and no sub-titles.  Maybe that will be corrected.  I understood the Hebrew but I can certainly see how that would be  frustrating.  Another criticism is that it is ultimately a war movie, but with little or  no war footage.  In any case, as a time-limited character study of Golda and how she handled a serious crisis, I thought the film did a good  job.

It would take quite a stretch to tie in this blog to the other recent movie I saw - Adam Sandler's "You are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah."  I am generally not a huge Adam  Sandler fan - and I have to admit I was tempted to turn this off after about  five minutes.  The target audience is probably 11 to 15 year old girls and I guess that is not quite my category.  But as they say, I wanted  to see what all the yichus was about - so I stuck it out and  watched the whole thing.

There are quite a number of cringey scenes, Sandler humour (often not in the best of taste - but maybe suited to 11 to 15 year-olds) - and lots of scenes of the stereotypical bar and bat mitzvah "spectacles" - of the type that one might find in some very wealthy communities particularly in the U.S.  I thought the crazy Israeli DJ - "DJ Shmuly" was a character that I have seen before at bar and bat mitzvahs while my kids were doing a version of the circuit in Toronto.  The Rabbi was also an interesting character - trying to find new and "hip" ways to appeal to the kids.   

I actually thought that the ending was fairly good, if predictable (I won't spoil anything) and the movie wound up being "not as bad as I thought it might be" at the start. Sandler himself was pretty good as a father and some of the other characters performed well.  I wouldn't really want people watching this movie as their only exposure to bar and bat mitzvahs and thinking that this is what it is all about - but the reality for many Jews  whether in North America or in Israel - is that many of these events are all  about the party.

Sports

Israel is aiming to make it into the FIFA 2024 Euro Soccer championships.  They have a reasonable  shot and play some huge games on October 12, 2023 vs  Switzerland and October 15, 2023 vs. Kosovo.  So still a few weeks to go - but these are some enormous soccer matches for Israel's national team.  

In other  interesting news, Israel has been chosen to host the World Under 19 Soccer Championship Finals in 2027.  That should be very exciting.

I have been staying up late this week watching the Blue  Jays try to secure  a spot in the MLB playoffs.  So you know where to find me at 3 a.m.  Israel time - at least for one or two more days.  Hard to watch those games here - without a proper streaming service, though I do have one that seems to work most of the time.

That's about it  for now - time to go and put up the new "downsized" sukkah - for a much smaller crowd this year.  Forecast in Israel is for some very hot weather until at least Monday or Tuesday and then some nice Sukkot rain - scheduled to start even before we say the annual "prayer for rain."   

Wishing  everyone  a joyous, fun Sukkot holiday and a Shana Tova!

First Step in Israel's "Legal Revolution" - "Reasonableness" Bill Passes

There is much to write about today's events in Israel.  Unfortunately, none of it is good news.  The Israeli Knesset today passed the third and final reading of a bill - called the "reasonableness law."  This was the first major bill that is a part of a collection of proposed laws put together by the current Justice Minister Yariv Levin.  The laws are intended to weaken the power of the Israeli Supreme Court dramatically, reduce its independence and enable the Knesset to override decisions of the Supreme Court (even after the party in power has hand-picked the justices).  

The right in Israel calls this all "judicial reform" while everyone else, from centre-right to left calls it a "legal revolution" or even a "coup."  

I have read various articles attempting to explain away these various proposed changes.  Some commentators have used the United States as the barometer for analyzing the changes and claim that if it only moves the Israeli legal system towards the system in the U.S., it must be a good thing.  Given the recent news about influence peddling in the U.S. Supreme Court, as well as the types of decisions the U.S. Court has been releasing, it seems hard to imagine that anyone who is sincerely interested in an independent and robust judiciary would be using the U.S. as a model.  Sorry to offend my U.S. readers.

Others have argued that changing Israeli judicial precedents through legislation is only a way of "restoring balance" to the system and balancing out the power of the judiciary against the power of the other branches of government.  But the Israeli Supreme  Court has actually interfered with the government on relatively few occasions.  For the most part, Prime Minister Netanyahu and the various right wing governments that he has led have enjoyed a great deal of freedom of action and have seen relatively little practical interference from the Israeli Supreme Court even though members of the current government that he leads argue that the country is "ruled" by the Supreme Court.  

But the concern in Israel - and the impetus behind the demonstrations is not one particular bill or law.  If the only law being proposed by the current government was this "reasonableness" law - (which is intended to change Israeli common law and bar judges from using "unreasonableness" or "extreme unreasonableness" as a grounds for judicial review of legislation of governmental action), then the Israeli public might not be so riled up.  

But the current government has 64 seats.  15 of those seats are from the Religious Zionist Party which is mostly made up of xenophobic, homophobic, fascists who would like turn Israel into an Iranian type regime, run according to their version of halacha - Jewish religious law.

Another 17 Knesset Members are from ultra-religious parties.  While these members are mainly interested in obtaining financial support for their religious institutions and their constituents, most of them would also like to see a State ruled by halacha.

Of the remaining 32 Likud members in the current governing coalition - there seem to be several more who are supportive of these extremists.  Yariv Levin, the current Minister of Justice, is one of these members.  His presentation in January 2023, that I have written about previously, was nothing less than a proposal to disembowel the Supreme Court of Israel and leave it with little power to serve as an independent judicial arbiter.

Just yesterday, the leader of one of the Religious Zionist parties, and the current Minister of Internal Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir stated that this "reasonableness law" was only the first step - the appetizer - and that the whole main course was yet to be served. Last night - he said "the salad bar is open."  

Surely, of all people, Israelis know what can happen to a democracy when fascists start passing laws.  It can happen quickly and dramatically.  And a sizeable number of Israelis recognize this and are out in the streets demonstrating and protesting.  In fact, they have been demonstrating since January 2023 when Levin first announced his plans - in a press conference that reminded me of a scene from one of the Batman movies where the villain announces his plans to take over the world.

Some have characterized Prime Minister Netanyahu as the "adult in the room" and argued that he would not let Israel become undemocratic.  But Netanyahu has his own concerns.  He is in the midst of a criminal trial and looking to end these proceedings and avoid jail time.  So while some Likud members were pushing him to try and reach some kind of compromise - his right fascist flank was threatening to leave the government and cause it to fall if he were to agree to any kind of compromise.  As a result the third reading of the bill passed 64-56.  No Likud members dared dissent for fear of being the ones to bring down the government.  The opposition Knesset members boycotted the third vote and the bill passed 64-0.

Senior members of Netanyahu's government are talking about next steps.  They have many different plans.  Firing the Attorney General and other non-political office holders in Israel without any concern about judicial interference.  Dismantling the Israeli bar association.  Putting the convicted criminal Aryeh Deri back into office as the Minister of Finance.  Passing a law to allow the current government to appoint all of the judges instead of using a balanced committee.  Passing a judicial override bill to overturn any decisions of the Supreme Court by a simple majority.  And even these laws are only a few of the more than 82 laws that members of this government are proposing.  Oh I forgot the proposed "discrimination law" that allows a company or an individual to refuse to serve others (LBGTQ+? Arabs? Secular Jews? Women?) because of "religious reasons."  (Granted this type of law has been upheld twice in recent years by the current U.S. Supreme Court but I think that was related to my earlier point...)

As a result of all of this, hundreds of thousands of Israelis are protesting.  Two days ago, more than 50,000 Israelis began a two day march from Tel-Aviv to Jerusalem - where they arrived in time to protest all day today in front of the Knesset along with hundreds of thousands of others.  But the bill passed anyways - and there are more bills to follow.  I anticipate that the protest movement will now ramp up the type and volume of protests.

One of the discussions has centred on military service.  Israel has a "people's army" where everyone is conscripted (even though there are many exemptions).  Afterwards, people serve in many different roles in a voluntary capacity.  Many of the volunteers, including Israeli fighter pilots and many others, have announced that they will refuse to appear for purely voluntary missions.  The number of military personnel sharing these sentiments has been growing.  The right wing response is that the army should be totally separate from politics - and that soldiers should report for duty no matter what.  In fact, some would like to pass a new law to deal with these issues and penalize those who refuse to appear for duty.  But the social contract that binds the soldiers to the state and to reporting for duty is based on their understanding that they are reporting to a democratic regime.   A large number of Israeli soldiers will refuse to report for duty if the perception is that they are serving an autocratic regime.   

How and where do we draw the line?  Israeli soldiers do not want to harm the state and want to defend it at all costs from external enemies.  But they do not want to carry out illegal orders or serve as accomplices for a regime that makes illegal or immoral decisions.  We may not be there yet - but in a government that includes 15 far right extremists, some of whom are cabinet members - soldiers are concerned that there may not be any judicial oversight to actions they are now asked to carry out.  That has already started to happen to the Israeli police forces - which are now being overseen by Ben-Gvir.

This government's short-sighted legal "revolution," enabled by Netanyahu out of fear for his own freedom, is causing economic problems as well.  Companies, including Israeli high-tech companies, are talking about leaving or reducing their investments in the country.  Individual Israelis are talking about leaving and finding work elsewhere.  The Israeli Shekel has sunk dramatically against other currencies (it fell by approximately 10% today).  There is a great deal of uncertainty and it is likely to get much worse.  Sadly, it appears that Netanyahu's legacy will be one of severe damage to Israel's unity and its fabric as a vibrant democracy - all in the interest of saving his own skin.  One commentator called it "Hanina o Heres" - "Pardon - or Destruction" meaning that Netanyahu would either get himself a pardon or he would take down the whole society with him.

All of this comes just two days before Tisha B'Av, one of the saddest days on the Jewish calendar on which we remember and commemorate the destruction of the first and second temples in Jerusalem.  The standard and traditional Jewish Rabbinical explanation - is that the Temples were destroyed (in 586 B.C.E. and then again in 70 C.E.) because of "baseless hatred" between different Jewish groups.  In an address this evening in Israel, one of the opposition leaders, Benny Gantz, warned that we must learn from the lessons of Tisha B'Av and find ways to work out our differences rather than take actions that could lead the country to an ever greater crisis.  Sadly, there is no sign, at this point, that Netanyahu's current government has any interest in approaching these matters reasonably.

I normally try to include some other comments in my blogs about different issues but I think I will leave that to my next blog.  Unfortunately, I have probably been watching and listening to far too much news and that is not giving me a warm and fuzzy feeling to end on a humorous note.

For those fasting this coming Thursday, I wish everyone a meaningful fast and I hope that Jewish people everywhere, though especially in Israel, will take the time to think about where we are today and what we need to do to stop things from deteriorating further.