Opinion

Perhaps we should stop looking for peace

OPINION PIECE BY ROBERT FESTENSTEIN

I read an interesting article earlier this month about the bombing of the Sbarro pizzeria in Jerusalem 20 years ago where 15 Israelis and tourists, including seven children, in the restaurant were killed by the explosion and 130 injured, some with appalling life changing injuries.

The bombing was part of the Second Intifada which in turn prompted the building of the security barrier. Following its construction, the number of attacks fell dramatically and as matters stand there is no desire for it to be removed. The Sbarro atrocity was accompanied then by open calls from Palestinian leaders for the destruction of Israel. Whilst the attacks might have reduced since then, sadly the demands for Israel’s demise have not.

The withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 was intended to allow the Palestinians to create a ‘Hong Kong in the Middle East’. Instead, the territory was taken over by Hamas who since then, have been determined to shun every opportunity to make peace with their neighbour. It seems odd that a territory which is so poor, and which could so easily be wealthy seems determined to stay poor. Similarly the West Bank, where the Palestinian Authority remains implacably wedded to their ‘pay to slay’ policy so that terrorists or their families are rewarded if an Israeli is injured or killed as a result of the terrorist attack.

What makes the Sbarro bombing significant, is that nothing appears to have changed in the last 20 years. Hamas are determined to kill Jews and destroy Israel, and the Palestinian Authority are as far away as ever from coming to the negotiating table.

In simple terms, Israelis want peace and Hamas/PA don’t. Little wonder then that the issue of this particular conflict did not feature particularly highly in the recent Israeli elections, simply because most Israelis recognised that for as long as the Palestinians are not interested in peace there is little point in trying to do anything about it other than contain the situation as best they can.

Yet despite the clear evidence, the demands for Israel to give concessions in exchange for peace remain shrill and urgent on both sides of the Atlantic even though the only demand from Hamas and the PA is the destruction of the Jewish state. The push for concessions amongst some UK Jewish groups ignores the reality that as matters currently stand, no concession is going to bring about peace. As a community we need to come together and recognise this. Instead of bringing pressure to bear on Israel, the pressure needs to be directed to those who are the real barriers to peace, Hamas and the PA as well those who fund them.

There needs to be a rethink amongst the groups who are blaming Israel for lack of peace and the development of a strategy which addresses the real issues. It is simply unrealistic to expect Israel to give away land as part of a peace process when that process simply doesn’t exist. All that this does is give support to those who hate the Jews and pushes the prospects of a settlement further away. For as long as the Palestinians refuse to even try and get involved in a peace process, we will remain stuck in August 2001 and the hatred that brought about the deaths and injuries at the Sbarro pizzeria will go unchecked.

Hamas are determined to kill Jews and destroy Israel, and the Palestinian Authority are as far away as ever from coming to the negotiating table.

Robert Festenstein is a practising solicitor and has been the principal of his Salford based firm for over 20 years. He has fought BDS motions to the Court of Appeal and is President of the Zionist Central Council in Manchester which serves to protect and defend the democratic State of Israel.

FJL Students meet with President Herzog and Chief Rabbi Lau

Participants of the Forum for Jewish Leadership (FJL) Summer Programme had the distinct privilege to meet with Israel’s President Isaac Herzog and Chief Rabbi Lau during their summer experience. 45 students from the UK, USA and Canada embarked on a once-in-a-lifetime journey of two growth-filled months in Israel dedicated to cultivating young Jewish leadership.

The Q&A session at the President’s residence, was a highlight of the programme at the end of an incredible day dedicated to meeting a host of Jewish leaders including Founding Director of Momentum, Lori Palatnik, as well as Founding Director at Palestinian Media Watch, Itamar Marcus, Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi David Lau amongst others. The various scholars and experts equipped the students with a passion to lead proud Jewish lives and the tools to combat antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment back at home.

Director of FJL, Ben Thwaites, said, “FJL range of courses and programmes provide an in-depth understanding of the theory and practice of Jewish leadership as well as Jewish perspectives on a host of legal,

FJL Students’ Q&A with President Herzog

political and social issues associated with the modern world. Despite the extra Covid-related challenges faced this year, FJL has provided these young people with the skills and confidence they will need to become effective and committed leaders of the Jewish community.”

During the programme, participants undertook internship placements in a range of industries including hi-tech, law, finance, media, engineering and more. The combination of professional and educational opportunities enabled the students to understand the centrality of Jewish values in one’s career pursuits. At weekends, the students spent Shabbat with their new friends in community-hosted experiences in the cities of Ra’anana, Efrat, and Jerusalem. The Shabbat experiences provided an opportunity for students to reconnect after a busy week of work, gain inspiration from FJL Educators, and plug into the magical atmosphere of Shabbat.

The weekends were topped off with travel up and down the length and breadth of Israel’s ancient and modern sites partaking in powerful and important experiences, including: a visit to the Sodastream factory in the Negev to see Jews and Arabs working together; recommissioning broken wheelchairs for third world countries; and a tour of the former Pussycat nightclub in Tel Aviv where they learnt how the venue has become a centre for supporting activism and training for at-risk groups, including women from troubled backgrounds.

One participant said, “I’ve been on trips to Israel before but nothing compares to the opportunities on FJL to simultaneously gain important career experience and also transform my understanding of my Jewish identity and connection to Israel.”

Why Israel’s Kashrut Reform Bill m atters for the Diaspora

OPINION PIECE BY RABBI DAVID STAV

In mid-July, Israel’s Minister of Religious Affairs proposed a bill that would introduce a reform to the country’s kashrut industry. While this is a development that most directly affects Israeli businesses and consumers, by definition as the center of the Jewish world, it will have both practical and broader implications for Jews all across the globe.

As this is a complex and nuanced development, I welcome the chance to explore its ramifications and better explain why it’s so historically significant.

Perhaps the next time you come to Israel (and may we be blessed to see the full re-opening of our borders very speedily,) or even when you purchase products manufactured here, you might be initially confused by these new developments. It is therefore important that you understand that the ramifications of this process will be that there will be increased effectiveness and greater integrity while always promising that the ultimate commitment remains steadfastly to preserving halachic standards and ethics which are at the very heart of our tradition.

Beyond the practical aspects of this reform, it deserves to be heralded as a major step forward in making Jewish observance in Israel something which can be embraced by all its people as food is so central to celebrations and family gatherings. It therefore , alongside many other aspects of daily Jewish life, cannot be something which is held hostage or controlled based on political or personal considerations in the hands of one agency or rabbinical group. Rabbinical services and those aspects of Jewish life that are defined by our ancient traditions must be transparent and open. It is for this reason that this reform is so important for the very future of our Jewish nation and for Judaism in general.

In many ways the passage of this bill should be viewed as a victory for all people who have long sought-out this more transparent, effective and competitive kashrut infrastructure – but also for those who strive for a more inclusive and just Israeli Jewish society.

While such a structure is something which exists in other parts of the Diaspora, here in Israel kashrut has always been managed under one centralized monopoly - in the form of the Israel Chief Rabbinate. Such a centralized system by definition leads itself to inefficiency and sadly even corruption. A widespread presence of such irregularities were the conclusions of a comprehensive report on Israel’s kashrut industry issued several years ago by Israel’s State Comptroller.

It is important to stress that such corruption and operational failures are not because the Chief Rabbinate is intentionally seeking to impose anything other than a high level of kashrut. But when you have a system with no competitors and limited oversight, it is only natural that it will lead to cutting corners, improprieties, increased costs and sadly a truly broken system.

It is also well worth pointing out that many within Israel’s ultra-orthodox community recognize this and even the very individuals who are involved with overseeing the Rabbinate’s kashrut don’t trust it when it comes to the foods they will eat. Israel’s High Court has found that the current system is problematic because of the existence of illicit compensation relationships between business owners and supervisors. Operationally, the very structure where local rabbinates are meant to be supervising local businesses is also broken . At present there are some 30 municipalities, including major cities like Tel Aviv and Haifa, where for several years there has been no local rabbis overseeing the religious councils- an absurdity that lends itself to lax kashrut standards and supervision.

In business, no one would accept such a scenario. So it is hard to believe that the people of the Jewish State should accept it when it comes to one of our most important and sacred traditions.

In February of 2018, following an intensive review of the report and the options under the law to begin to introduce kashrut reform, the Tzohar Rabbinical Organization which I founded and Chair, opened a program to act as a kosher supervising agency. Due to restrictions under the law to keep the Rabbinate’s power centralized, we were prohibited from using the word kosher in our certification. While we faced intense political, public and communal pressures, we knew that this was a process that needed to take place if we wanted to increase the level of integrity of kashrut in Israel.

The Reform Bill introduced in July has now taken that vision for alternative kashrut supervision and intends to make it the operating standard. Should the bill be passed into law, multiple agencies, fully committed to strict halacha, would be able to provide kosher certification

It is once again critical to explain that despite the ill-informed criticisms that are launched against the proposed changes by political rivals, this process will in no way weaken halachic standards – in fact quite the contrary. The very structure of the bill ensures that the halachic oversight and regulation will remain in the hands of members of the local rabbinates – people who I know to be G-d-fearing advocates of strict halacha whose entire goal is to ensure that kashrut observance is accessible and managed in a reliable, professional and transparent way.

While the details are complex to the point that they cannot be fully explained in this forum, on a technical level, the way this reform will take place is that it will allow groups of qualified city chief rabbis to certify independent kashrut organizations to provide kashrut across the country. The practical significance of this change in the law is that independent agencies – like Tzohar kashrut but certainly others that we look forward to welcoming into the marketplace- will now be able to provide full kashrut services all over the country. The key point is that there will be a clear separation between the role of the rabbis, who will set the standards , and the independent organizations who will certify the eateries.

That transparency, competition and integrity that we spoke about above will become the accepted form of supervision throughout the system. Costs will be reduced and as importantly de-centralization will allow for far better oversight that translates to enhanced efficiency from both the operational and halachic perspectives.

I know that there are those who fear that such a move delegitimizes the Chief Rabbinate or will lead to reduced stringency in kashrut supervision. But as explained above, the effect will be just the opposite because it will preserve the standards of the Chief Rabbinate as the halachic regulator while promising that the operational implementation will be placed in more competent hands.

For Jewish life in Israel to be observed in a way that respects all, it ultimately needs to be conducted in a manner that is first and foremost driven by real Jewish values- values only possible when they are guided by integrity, justice and respect. This is an understanding that deserves to be embraced by every Jew- regardless where on the globe we find ourselves.

Rabbi David Stav is the Chair and Founder of the Tzohar Rabbinical Organization in Israel.

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