Crossroads

Despite their vastly different headlines, Hebrew-language newspapers on Monday continue to grapple with the rift between Israel and Diaspora Jewry brought about by two recent controversial government moves.

The front page of the main papers are markedly different: Britney Spears’s upcoming show, a freshly paroled ex-prime minister and a shocking scandal involving a pedophilic elementary school teacher. But inside, the fallout from the rift dominates, suggesting that Israelis are far more concerned by the widening rift with Diaspora Jewry than perhaps meets the eye.

Yedioth Ahronoth leads its front page with the latest developments in a pedophile case involving a substitute teacher from Tel Aviv who is suspected of abusing dozens of second-grade students even as he was under investigation for a prior sex abuse offense.

Also earning space on the front page is the princess of pop, Britney Spears, who arrived in Israel yesterday for her show in Tel Aviv tonight. Yedioth attempts to cleverly tie the superstar’s visit to the ongoing heatwave gripping the country with the dad joke-esque headline: “Heat me baby,” alluding to Spears’ most famous single.

Cool dad joke, @YediotAhronot pic.twitter.com/MUfdGtrprB

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— Joshua Davidovich (@Josh_Davidovich) July 3, 2017

But inside the paper, the debate over the recent cabinet decision to shelve a deal for pluralistic worship at the Western Wall and the coalition’s initial approval of a bill that would cement the ultra-Orthodox monopoly on conversions, rages on.

Yedioth, Israel’s most widely read paid daily, publishes an open letter to Jewish Agency chairman Natan Sharansky signed by nearly 200 of the organization’s Israeli emissaries abroad expressing concern the recent government moves are damaging ties with the

“We are greatly concerned that these decisions are harming the delicate bonds between our two communities,” says the letter signed by 177 emissaries. They describe the response to the moves in North American Jewish communities as “rage, insult and astonishment.”

“These actions cause irrefutable damage to our collective future as a united Jewish people, to Israel’s security and economic interests, and to the very essence and character of the Jewish nation state,” they write.

In his regular column, Yedioth contributor Nachum Barnea criticizes both the government and US Jewish leaders, and attempts to offer some perspective.

Barnea predicts the government will capitulate to the demands of US Jewish leaders and will re-instate the agreement to create a pavilion for egalitarian worship at the Western Wall. But he criticizes the major American donors and organizations who have threatened to pull their funding to Israel in protest of the decision as inherently racist, comparing it to an infamous order by a British general in 1946 who prohibited his troops from interacting with local Jews as punitive punishment for the blowing up of the King David Hotel by Jewish militias.

“The threats from donors are based on the same premise: That Israelis are unable to withstand a blow to their wallets, and so they will back down,” he writes. “And so the uproar that has gripped Netanyahu and his government is evidence that this is an effective weapon.”

“The current Israeli government is influenced by burning speeches about our national pride, but this pride goes out the window the second you wave dollars around,” Barnea charges.

Barnea also levels harsh criticism of the Israeli government and of the ultra-Orthodox establishment for failing to embrace all streams of Judaism.

Ultimately, he concludes, the spat over egalitarian worship at Western Wall is a battle over real estate.

Barnea argues that all streams of Judaism want a place at the Western Wall simply because it’s there. He points to the hundreds of years of in-fighting between various Christian denominations over the ownership of the nearby Church of the Holy Sepulchre. He says the fact that a Jewish, Israeli government is forced to administer the holy site because of division in the Church could offer a solution to the crisis.

“Perhaps there is no other solution other than to transfer the authority of the Western Wall to the Muslim Waqf,” he concludes.

Meanwhile, the pro-Netanyahu Israel Hayom tabloid overlooks the ongoing spat in favor of praising the historic visit of Narendra Modi, who is set to become the first Indian prime minister to visit Israel when he arrives on Tuesday.

Its first six pages are dedicated to Modi’s visit, including an interview by Israel Hayom’s editor, who traveled to Delhi to interview the Indian leader.

Its columnists however, seem to be less forgiving.

A stinging op-ed by Rabbi Seth Farber, a prominent activist for religious pluralism in Israel, slams the Israeli media coverage of the controversial moves and the subsequent rift they sparked.

“The freezing of the conversion bill makes it seem as if the American Jews have won, when in fact Israel has much more to lose if the law would pass,” he writes.

Farber says passing the conversion bill in its current form risks creating “two distinct subgroups within Jewish society that are forbidden from marrying each other.”

He says the numerous American Jewish leaders and organizations who vocally opposed the measure in recent days were not driven by specific political or religious considerations, but rather it was an effort on behalf of all Jews.

“These are not ‘the Americans,’ that are fighting the political battle, but rather it’s us, the Jewish people in the land of Israel,” he says.

Monday’s Haaretz paper gives less room to the spat, but its coverage is biting nonetheless.

https://twitter.com/mitwersky/status/881741167817355264

Haaretz contributor Odeh Bisharat harshly criticizes Netanyahu as a cynical and hypocritical leader for “attacking civil society organizations with the same energy as the Iran nuclear deal.”

He argues the prime minister is “waging an all out war” on left-wing groups, such as the New Israel Fund, that receive significant funding from the US. While he mostly avoids the bickering between liberal and ultra-Orthodox lawmakers and groups, Bisharat echoes the frustration at Netanyahu over what he says is the prime minister’s “cynical show of support” for liberal, US-funded groups.

On page 2, above Bisharat’s column, a cartoon by Amos Bickerman depicts a group of young American Jews returning from a Birthright trip to Israel. Asked what they learned by a kippa-wearing man greeting them on the tarmac, the group responds that during their trip to Israel they learned that “we are not Jews.”