Rosner’s Domain: High Noon: The Rabbi versus The Colonel

Israel’s Chief Rabbi, David Lau, wears a rabbinical hat, not a cowboy hat. But last week he stood in the town square, drew his pistol, aimed, and fired. He was, metaphorically speaking, Rabbi Clint Eastwood at high noon. 

Minister of Religions Affairs Matan Kahana is a former commando and a fighter pilot. A Colonel, commander of an F-16 squadron. Would that be enough to match Rabbi Clint? 

Kahana has a law to promote: Israel’s law of conversion. The short recap of what the new law intends to do: eliminate the monopoly of the rabbinate over conversions and let city rabbis perform official conversions. As you’d expect, the Chief Rabbi of Israel is not quite happy with this idea, and hence he informed the Prime Minister that he does not intend to implement the new law. Moreover, if the government will pass the legislation, Rabbi Lau will no longer sign conversion certificates. 

The Chief Rabbi is a public servant. He threatens the government with retaliatory actions if the government dares to implement its policies. In an orderly state, such an official would be dismissed within five minutes. But Israel is not quite orderly, and the Chief Rabbi is not just any official – he is one with special status and a lot of political backing; an official accustomed to having autonomy. Dismissing him is politically explosive and legally complicated – some believe it to be impossible.

Lau decided to up the ante because of his belief that he could win this battle against conversion reform. 

Rabbi Lau’s threat should not be understood as an agitated outburst of emotion. It was a cold and calculated move. Lau decided to up the ante because of his belief that he could win this battle against conversion reform. The Chief Rabbi assumes that the government, as determined as it is to pass the conversion law, will not go so far as to try ousting a chief rabbi. He assumes that someone in the coalition – one would be enough in a 61-member coalition – is going to say no to such an attempt. He assumes that Prime Minister Naftali Bennett is going to prioritize other battles, more important to him, over this one. 

So when Lau pulled out his gun and fired he was posing a question to the government: Does Kahana have a broad enough backing – not to pass the conversion law, but to go into an ugly war with a disobedient Chief Rabbi? 

It is worth noting that in challenging the government in such a way,  Lau decided to take the unpopular route. When he confronts Kahana, he strengthens the image of the Minister of Religious Affairs in the general public, whose sympathy for the rabbinate is not great. But Lau realizes that this battle is not over public image, it is a battle over legislation. Kahana wants to pass a law, Lau needs one vote against the law. 

What are Kahana’s chances of prevailing against Lau? I’d say, not great, but perhaps I am underestimating Kahana’s determination and cunning. Why do I think the chance isn’t great? For two reasons. One – Kahana will have difficulty in mobilizing a stable majority not only to pass the law (which he might succeed doing) but also force its implementation. The second – the term of the government will not be long enough to implement the change over time in a way that makes it irreversible. In other words: the day Kahana leaves the ministry, the ultra-Orthodox parties will make sure to turn the wheel of conversion backwards. They did exactly the same thing with other laws and regulations that passed in the Netanyahu-Lapid government of 2015, and will do so again with the laws and regulations that today’s Bennett-Lapid government passes. That is, unless this government is succeeded by another centrist,  Haredi-free ,  government. 

In the meantime, Kahana deserves credit for taking a small, usually insignificant ministry, and making it one of the most interesting offices of the current government. Kahana took over a small estate, and turned it into a mansion. What does the Transportation Minister do? Who knows. What does the Minister of Housing do? One has to hope that he or she does something. What is the Foreign Minister doing? Traveling. Bizarrely enough, the public hears much more about what the Minister of Religious Affairs does than about the action or inaction of most other ministers (Health Minister excluded, for the obvious reasons). 

Does the public appreciate Kahana for trying to move the needle on state-religious affairs? The answer is yes and no. Yes – the public does. No – Kahana’s religious base does not. Kahana is a religious minister, with mostly religious voters, who receives a high score of trust from secular voters, whose interest in the Ministry of Religious Affairs and its area of jurisdiction is minimal. These voters, of Meretz and Labor, of Yesh Atid and Yisrael Beiteinu, give Kahana kudos for showing up for a high noon battle against the black hat gunman Rabbi Clint.

Something I wrote in Hebrew

A controversy erupted over whether the Homesh settlement, evacuated as part of the 2005 disengagement, and illegally settled in recent years, should be dismantled. Here’s what I wrote on one of the arguments against reevacuation: 

They say disengagement was a mistake. This is an argument that can be accepted at least as a possibility. Disengagement was meant to create a reality different than the one we see today and it is certainly fair to ask whether in retrospective this was a right move. Opinion polls show that the Israeli public, which supported disengagement when it was carried out, changed its position over time. But there is still one problem with the argument that since disengagement was a mistake Homesh should stay: it is irrelevant to the current situation. Yes – it is certainly possible to begin a campaign whose aim is a unilateral cancelation of what Israel did during disengagement. It is possible for Israel to announce that it is no longer committed to what has been agreed. The Knesset could vote, the government could vote. If the result of such discussion and vote is a decision to return to Homesh, then, and only then, it’d be ok for the settlers to resettle the place. In the meantime the question of whether disengagement was a correct move is no more than a distraction. 

A week’s numbers

Israelis feel that 2021 was good for Israel’s image abroad. Why? It’s probably the virus and the way other countries dealt with it compared to Israel. 

A reader’s response:

A question from reader Debby E.  “When is the Netanyahu trial over?” Answer: not anytime soon, come back in a year or two. 

Shmuel Rosner is senior political editor. For more analysis of Israeli and international politics, visit Rosner’s Domain at jewishjournal.com/rosnersdomain.