Big Tent Judaism

Recently in Bnei Brak, a majority Haredi city just 15 minutes east of Tel Aviv, thousands of Israelis gathered to march in a women’s rights rally organized jointly by several groups protesting the judicial overhaul. In particular, the groups are responding to multiple cases of harassment of women who were deemed not to conform to the modesty requirements of some ultra-Orthodox Israelis.

According to The Times of Israel, several “women were documented over the summer being denied service or segregated aboard public buses.” This is in violation of rulings of the Israeli Supreme Court in recent years in cases brought by our own Reform Movement’s Israel Religious Action Center. 

Some might say that as Jews living in the Diaspora, we have no right to delve into such matters. I call this the “unless you live here” worldview: “Unless you live here, pay taxes, send your children to the army, you have no right to opine!” 

I reject this worldview for a number of reasons. First, the State of Israel is the project of the entire Jewish people. Collectively, we took Herzl’s anthem to heart: Im tirtzu ein zo agada— “If you will it, it is no dream!” We brought Israel into being through sheer will using all the creativity, generosity, ingenuity, and chutzpah we could muster. It never would have come to be without the combined efforts of Jews (and, to be sure, non-Jewish allies as well) all over the world. The early chalutzim (“pioneers”) were supported by Jewish philanthropists, from the uber-wealthy Rothschild families to those of significantly more modest means including my own family– the Davidovitch clan spread out from the Carpathian mountains in Transylvania to the Great Plains of this county, scraping together each week a couple of coins, whatever they could afford, to put in the pushke (tzedakah box) for their brothers and sisters living in a place that at that time was called Palestine.

(And let’s speak dugri, let’s be straightforward with each other: If paying taxes and sending one’s children to army service are requirements, a great many people living in Israel today, including large sectors of the Haredi community itself, would be disqualified from weighing in on such important matters.)

Every Jew should have a voice in this Zionist conversation and if you don’t want to take my word for it, just read a recent piece entitled “Diaspora Jews: Time to Take a Stand” from Israeli commentators Matti Friedman, Yossi Klein Halevi and Rabbi Daniel Gordis. 

We all have a stake in issues like these and should make our voices heard. If you embrace a Judaism that understands gender equality and inclusion as core to its values system, then you should be willing to fight for it.

I’m proud to be part of a synagogue community that is committed to the values of egalitarianism and LGBTQ+ inclusion. I do support the right of other synagogue communities and private institutions to practice Judaism in their own ways even when I believe that their approach is  at odds with the core Jewish value of “b’tzelem Elohim” that teaches that we are all created in God’s image. But when those same people seek to impose their values on others in a public context—in settings that are funded by communal dollars, no less—a line in the sand must be drawn.

This is part of what the protest movement in Israel is all about: a fierce opposition to the tyranny of the majority.

The prophet Isaiah invites us to imagine a more expansive Jewish community, one that makes room for every person.

The haftorah portion that we read this past Shabbat offers us another way. The prophet Isaiah invites us to imagine a more expansive Jewish community, one that makes room for every person: “Enlarge the site of your tent, Extend the size of your dwelling, Do not stint! Lengthen the ropes, and drive the pegs firm.” (Is. 54:2). In such a big tent, there is room for all. Isaiah imagines a Jewish future in which no one “shall be shamed,” where no one will “be disgraced.”

In such a vision, there is room for Jews of all beliefs, ethnicities, genders, sexualities, and levels of observance from secular to Haredi. 

I know such a community is possible because I’ve experienced it in my synagogue community, Stephen Wise Temple. It’s not always easy; it takes an effort sometimes to make room for one another, but it’s the only way forward, the only way we will ever be able to experience true unity. 

Until then, we must raise our voices, march if we can, and support in other ways if we cannot, including by ensuring that places like the Israel Religious Action Center and UnXeptable have the resources they need to fight on behalf of oppressed minorities.

The Judaism that inspires me is like an expansive, beautiful, colorful tent in which our whole community is included… it is a place where the ultimate shame comes from excluding those who have been marginalized for too long. 

The Judaism that inspires me is like an expansive, beautiful, colorful tent in which our whole community is included—along with our friends, allies, and beloved guests. It is a place where the ultimate shame comes from excluding those who have been marginalized for too long.

Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback is the Senior Rabbi of Stephen Wise Temple in Los Angeles, California.