It's been a tough week for secular Israeli Jews. This past Saturday, a woman was confronted by several people who hurled insults at her, shouting, "Shabbat Shalom, Nazi Germany," and "You are a gentile. Thank you, gentile." Her crime? Carrying a cellphone in her hand while walking by a synagogue.
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A day later, there were three separate incidences of women being subject to humiliating discrimination on public transit for wearing clothes that were too "immodest" or simply for being women. And last Tuesday, it was announced that the long-delayed Tel Aviv light rail would not run on Shabbat.
The common theme here is that secular Israelis are being subject to severe discrimination simply because they choose not to live their lives according to religious dictates. One would think that this kind of discrimination would take place in religious dictatorships like Iran, not in a modern, democratic country like Israel. But tragically, some of Israel's religious Jews think they have the right to persecute secular Jews for not being religiously observant enough for their tastes. They act as if Israel is a halachic state and they are the Jewish version of Iran's morality police.
But Israel is not a halachic state, nor do most Jewish Israelis want it to be. According to the latest data in Israel's Religion and State Index, 59% of the country's Jewish citizens want religion and state to be separate. The Index also reveals that 75% of Israeli Jews support public transportation on Shabbat and 62% support state recognition of all types of marriage, including civil marriage and marriage by non-Orthodox Jewish authorities. Yet, religion and state in Israel are hardly separate, public transportation is generally not allowed on Shabbat and neither civil marriage nor non-Orthodox Jewish marriages are recognized by the state – all because the religious Orthodox Jewish establishment exercises a disproportionate amount of power in Israeli politics.
I'd love to know, what exactly gives this religious establishment or religious Jews in general the right to dictate to other Israelis how they should live their lives? Surely, a woman walking by a synagogue with a cellphone in hand doesn't prevent Jews in that synagogue from worshipping, does it? No one told the folks hurling insults at that poor woman in Herzliya that they had to use cellphones on Shabbat. And why can't the new Tel Aviv light rail service operate on Shabbat? No one is compelling Shabbat-observant Jews to use it on Saturdays. Honestly, why can't people live and let live?
Furthermore, how would religious Jews in Israel feel if liberal, non-observant Jews tried to coerce them into being secular? What if, for example, a bus driver told a religious Jew that they could not board the bus because they're wearing a kippa? What if an employer told their religious Jewish employee that they must work on Saturdays, or be fired? Thankfully, these types of scenarios are unthinkable in Israel. After all, Israel was created so that Jews would not have to hide their Jewish identity for fear of persecution. But Israel was also created to be a country for all Jews, not just religious, Orthodox Jews.
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