8 | The Jewish Press | March 4, 2022
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Fake yellow stars
There is so much to unpack here, I’m not quite convince anyone you would have stood up for the ANNETTE VAN DE KAMP-WRIGHT sure where to start. There are no COVID-19 meas- Jews during WW II? Jewish Press Editor Christian veterans’ protest outside Jewish politi- ures that can be compared to what the Nazis did, Let me speak an unpopular truth: sometimes cian’s home as pastor compares vaccine mandates to and it’s a sad world where that has to be spelled when government gets big, it is a good thing. WearNazis, one JTA headline read. Oh great, another one out. On the simplest level: mask mandates and vac- ing your mask during a pandemic is a good thing. of those protests with the fake yellow stars and par- cine requirements are meant to save lives, not end Keeping your family, friends and neighbors safe is ticipants who think that by calling themselves vic- them. Being refused entry somewhere because you a good thing. tims, they will get sympathy. What’s not a good thing is Do we really need another story brainwashing your followers about people comparing COVIDinto thinking it’s okay to bring 19 measures to Nazism? We really your Holocaust-imagery-abusdon’t. And yet, we have to look. ing protest nonsense to a JewThe article tells the story of ish family’s front door. It’s church members in Ohio, who funny, how we continue to have staged a protest outside the home such trouble educating people of state Rep. Casey Weinstein. about the Holocaust, yet the igAccording to the church’s pastor, norance so often shows up in Jeff Tauring, “his church’s motivathis context. Too many people tion for the rally was their opposidon’t know enough about the tion to vaccine mandates and Holocaust; they just know other government public health A group of men protest outside of Ohio Rep. Casey Weinstein’s home. Credit: Cleveland enough to pervert it. policies, which he likened to Ger- Jewish News Finally, claiming the Holomany before the Holocaust. He added that it was won’t wear a mask is not the same as having to caust might not have happened if only everyone the obligation of the church to speak out, much as hide in a cellar from soldiers (and a regime) who back then had acted like you, Pastor Tauring, is a it should have done against the Nazis in Germany. want to kill you. Having to show a vaccine card be- pretty bold statement. I see your arrogance and I ‘Government is too big,’ he said. ‘We see the exact fore you can enter a restaurant is not the same as think you should ask yourself: is it perhaps possipattern that happened to the Jews in Germany in dying in the gas chamber. I can go on, but why ble that, instead, you could have made it even World War II, we see the exact pattern happening would I? worse? Stop equating your situation with that of here. And so we feel like if somebody would have The more bizarre idea of how protesting against the victims of the Holocaust. Stop cheapening the stood up for the Jews earlier, and it should have COVID-19 measures equals ‘standing up for the memory of the six million. Stop using others’ pain been the church, if they would have done that ear- Jews’ is harder to fathom. You’re using Nazi com- for your own political gratification. It’s shortlier … I’m not sure if the catastrophe would have parisons while protesting in front of a Jewish politi- sighted, it’s ignorant, it’s irritating and never, ever happened.’” (JTA.com) cian’s private residence. How can that possibly acceptable.
Israel’s never-ending, and very human, ‘Who is a Jew?’ saga ANDREW SILOW-CARROLL JTA Jared Armstong has an emotional story to tell, and he told it in an oped I edited last week for our opinion section. Armstrong made headlines recently when the Israeli government refused his application for citizenship. Armstrong, a recent college graduate from Philadelphia, says he grew up Jewish, as did his mother. His grandmother, he said, embraced Judaism as an adult. For all those reasons he was shocked when Israel rejected his initial application for aliyah, but he agreed to undergo a conversion with his rabbi, Rabbi Michael Beals, of Wilmington, Delaware. He completed a nine-month conversion course under Beals, a Conservative rabbi, and the rituals that normally seal a conversion. When he tried again to become a citizen under Israel’s Law of Return, he was again turned down. Armstrong suspects the government said no because they thought he only wanted to play basketball for a pro team in Haifa. Others note that his rabbi was Conservative, and that the Orthodox establishment that oversees most lifecycle and Jewish identity issues in Israel is adamantly dismissive of Judaism’s non-Orthodox streams. Armstong is also Black; who can say how his background played into the government’s decision. What was doubly painful about editing Armstrong’s article was noting his surprise and disappointment about a process that a lot of Jews in Israel and the Diaspora already know can be painfully but necessarily intrusive — or discriminatory, depending on your point of view. Armstrong is not the first Diaspora Jew to have his Jewish identity challenged by Israel’s gatekeepers. But sometimes it takes someone new to Jewish communal politics to make jaded veterans take notice. Close Israel-watchers know why Israel, and Jews, put up barriers to conversion and citizenship. It’s about identity. It’s about peoplehood. It is about theology. It is about politics. But as Armstrong wrote, “This was my identity we’re talking about here; my life they were doubting.” The “Who is a Jew” issues wax and wane as a communal priority; at the moment it appears to be waning. A coalition government in Israel that does
not depend on the Orthodox religious parties to are being considered,” said Frank. govern raised hopes among non-Orthodox Jews There will be strong opposition to the bill, which that the Orthodox grip on conversion and other touches both on political power and some heartfelt identity issues might be eased. On the flipside, it concerns about Jewish unity. Defenders of the curmay have eased Diaspora urgency about the issue. rent system say a single standard for conversion But some action is afoot. Today – literally today leaves no confusion in the minds of adherents – an Israeli ministerial committee will consider a about who is and who isn’t a member of the tribe. bill that widens the possibilities for conversion within Israel. Currently, the system is exclusively under the control of the Chief Rabbinate. The bill would allow Israel’s 150 municipal Orthodox rabbis to establish their own conversion protocols and standards, breaking the rabbinate’s monopoly on the process and ostensibly democratizing the process. The bill is supported by those in Israel, Orthodox and otherwise, who want to ease the process for many of the 400,000 or so people, mostly from the former Soviet Union, who qualify as citizens under Israel’s Law of Return but are not considered Jewish by the rabbinate under Jewish law, or Jared Armstrong, left, took part in a Birthright Israel halachah. Tani Frank, director of the Center for Judaism trip in 2021. Credit: Jared Armstrong and State Policy at the Shalom Hartman Institute, Opponents say it consolidates religious and politidiscussed the bill during a webinar Thursday. He cal power in the hands of the few, and narrows the said the current minister of religious affairs, Matan possibilities of belonging to the Jewish people. Kahana, “understands that there is a problem when Bezalel Smotrich, the leader of Israel’s Religious you present yourself as a Jewish and democratic Zionist Party, recently flew to Europe to meet with state and you don’t allow different views of Judaism Orthodox leaders. He was trying to drum up oppoto be fulfilled through the conversion system.” sition to proposed changes to Israel’s religious staThe bill, which would increase autonomy for tus quo, from conversion to the agreement for conversions among Orthodox rabbis, would not ex- non-Orthodox worship at the Western Wall. pand the possibilities for non-Orthodox conver- (Britain’s Board of Deputies, a Jewish communal orsions to be performed and recognized in Israel. In ganization, called him a “disgrace” and told him to March 2021, the Israeli Supreme court ruled that go home.) Israel must grant citizenship to Jews who conThe bill won’t change anything for Jared Armverted to Judaism in Israel under non-Orthodox strong. It is meant mainly to help current citizens auspices. The ruling did not, however, make them who are part of the Zionist enterprise become part Jewish under halachah. That won’t change. of the Jewish people. But who knows: maybe allowStill, the liberal-leaning Hartman Institute, with ing “as many Jewish perspectives and views as posfeet in both Israel and the Diaspora, took a major sible” will become a habit. part in shaping the new legislation. “We wanted to Andrew Silow-Carroll is editor in chief of The make sure that we are part of the legislative New York Jewish Week and senior editor of the process, and we wanted to make sure it was safe Jewish Telegraphic Agency. being shaped in a manner that allows as many JewThe views and opinions expressed in this article are ish perspectives and views as possible and we those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the wanted to make sure that liberal Judaism’s values views of JTA or its parent company, 70 Faces Media.
