Do Israeli and American Jews need each other? Depending on how Benjamin Netanyahu’s new government moves forward, we may be about to find out.
Netanyahu emerged from last month’s election with a safe majority for his coalition, but one built upon a precarious ideological foundation. In exchange for their support, the three ultra-conservative parties who have allied themselves with Netanyahu’s Likud have demanded a range of concessions from him. Most of them relate to internal security matters, West Bank policy or Palestinian relations, many of which are controversial but likely to enjoy popular support in the wake of the ongoing violence that has plagued the country over the last several months. While many American Jews are uncomfortable with such a confrontational approach on these topics, only a small number of U.S. progressives are emotionally invested in the debate. For most of this country’s Jewish community, the seemingly ceaseless fighting between the Israeli military and Palestinian terrorists has become little more than political background noise.
But Netanyahu’s new partners have other ideological goals as well, which strike much closer to the concerns of American Jews. They have called for revocation of the so-called “grandfather clause” from Israel’s Law of Return, which grants Israeli citizenship to anyone with at least one Jewish grandparent who does not practice another religion. And they are advocating an end to official state recognition of conversions performed outside the Orthodox Chief Rabbinate, effectively ending recognition of Reform and Conservative conversions for the purposes of Israeli citizenship.
Together, these two steps would represent a fundamental redefinition of Judaism and citizenship in the eyes of the Israeli government. They are key components of a proposed override law that would allow a majority in the Knesset to overrule High Court rulings and would lay the foundation for a broad application of religious restrictions in Israeli society. Both proposals will remain part of the ongoing negotiations between Netanyahu and his partners as long as this partnership remains intact. In other words, the only way these issues will disappear from the political debate is if Netanyahu were to at some point either realign or expand his coalition to include representatives of center-right parties as part of a unity government.
Absent such a dramatic shift, immigration and conversion will remain at the center of Israeli politics for the foreseeable future. While the primary focus of these changes is not American Jews but rather those who would emigrate from Ukraine, Russia and other parts of Eastern Europe, the U.S. Jewish community would see such restrictions as a fundamental and visceral refutation of American Jewry. The number of Jews who immigrate from the United States to Israel each year is much smaller than the influx from the former Soviet bloc, but American Jews are much more likely to identify as Reform or Conservative and large numbers of them would be understandably insulted and outraged by what they would regard as a severing of their relationship with the Jewish homeland.
William Daroff, the well-respected and measured leader of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, has already spoken out forcefully against a newly-reconfigured Law of Return, which is likely to have led to Likud’s efforts to distance themselves from their new partners’ proposal. Daroff has always worked strenuously to avoid criticism of the Israeli government, but he is politically savvy enough and he clearly recognizes the devastating impact that these restrictions would mean to the relationship between Israel and American Jews.
Daroff is right. At a time when public opinion polls show a decreasing number of Jews in this country maintaining strong feelings toward Israel, with an especially precipitous drop in support among young Jews, the implementation of either of these exclusionary measures would raise seminal questions among American Jews about whether they would still be welcome in Israel. This could easily lead to an irrevocable split in a bond that has sustained both communities since 1948.
Netanyahu has chosen his new coalition partners, but for the sake of the American-Israel relationship, he must quickly now find a way to tame them.
Netanyahu has chosen his new coalition partners, but for the sake of the American-Israel relationship, he must quickly now find a way to tame them.
Dan Schnur is a Professor at the University of California – Berkeley, USC and Pepperdine. Join Dan for his weekly webinar “Politics in the Time of Coronavirus” (www.lawac.org) on Tuesdays at 5 PM.
