израильская политика
Dec. 7th, 2010 07:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
avvaДесятки муниципальных раввинов в Израиле подписались под религиозным постановлением, которое запрещает сдавать квартиры в аренду неевреям. (англ.)
Нет слов.
(... и ведь все эти мерзавцы, что интересно, все эти "муниципальные раввины" - государственные служащие. Все они живут на в том числе и мои налоги).
Понятно, что нормальной реакцией на это было бы немедленно уволить всех подписавших это письмо. Понятно, что в нашей стране, к моему сожалению и стыду, это не случится. Но какое-то локальное приближение к этому должно существовать. Как-то в этом направлении надо пытаться двигаться. Я не знаю в точности, как. Может, поощрять своими голосами те партии, которые обещают бороться с этой дрянью. "Шинуй" в свое время разбазарила свой политический капитал и почти ничего не сделала; возможно, пришло время для еще одной попытки, не знаю. Но что-то пытаться делать надо. Потому что если закрывать на все это глаза, то через какое-то время мы действительно будем жить в Иране, не преувеличивая.
P.S. Для не-израильтян, немного конктекста: речь идет о прокламации, которая с точки зрения закона никого не обязывает. Религиозные евреи, которые уважают подписавшихся под ней раввинов, могут считать ее для себя обязательной.
Нет слов.
(... и ведь все эти мерзавцы, что интересно, все эти "муниципальные раввины" - государственные служащие. Все они живут на в том числе и мои налоги).
Понятно, что нормальной реакцией на это было бы немедленно уволить всех подписавших это письмо. Понятно, что в нашей стране, к моему сожалению и стыду, это не случится. Но какое-то локальное приближение к этому должно существовать. Как-то в этом направлении надо пытаться двигаться. Я не знаю в точности, как. Может, поощрять своими голосами те партии, которые обещают бороться с этой дрянью. "Шинуй" в свое время разбазарила свой политический капитал и почти ничего не сделала; возможно, пришло время для еще одной попытки, не знаю. Но что-то пытаться делать надо. Потому что если закрывать на все это глаза, то через какое-то время мы действительно будем жить в Иране, не преувеличивая.
P.S. Для не-израильтян, немного конктекста: речь идет о прокламации, которая с точки зрения закона никого не обязывает. Религиозные евреи, которые уважают подписавшихся под ней раввинов, могут считать ее для себя обязательной.
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no subject
Date: 2010-12-08 07:00 am (UTC)I register your anger, but I do not quite see what do you suggest as a remedy and why is it a remedy. The opinion of these rabbis is not law, it is not legally binding, it is just an opinion, and this opinion is important only to the self-selected group heeding to these rabbi's advice. They cannot force anyone to follow. Fascism is forcing one's opinions onto the others rather than merely expressing one's opinions. If these rabbis would not be paid by the state, they will be supported by their congregations, but they still will be able to express opinions some people do not like. Freedom of expression applies to rabbis just like it applies to anyone else.
Now, as you give the US for comparison, here is something you might not know, as you do not live here. If a black American is refused a lease by his white landlord, this man can suspect whatever he wants and file whatever lawsuit he wants but that will get him nowhere if the landlord is exempt from Fair Housing Act, see http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/uscode/42/45/I
This exemption includes owner-occupied buildings with no more than four units and single family housing sold or rented without the use of a broker. In other words, it is legal to refuse to rent out an appartment to a black man in one's own house. Call this fascist, discriminatory, racist, but such is the federal law. It is still a free country where you are not obligated to rent one's property to people you do not want around. People are entitled to their likes and dislikes.
no subject
Date: 2010-12-08 07:12 am (UTC)Вы уже несколько раз написали, что нет способа заткнуть рот этим раввинам или заставить их изменить свою точку зрения. Но я ни разу не призывал сделать ни первое, ни второе. Я не призываю заставить их отказаться от своих слов или убеждений; я призываю их УВОЛИТЬ.
no subject
Date: 2010-12-08 07:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-08 08:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-08 01:03 pm (UTC)A private person, yes, but not a person on a public post, paid by the state. In your example from the american federal law, the private landlord can (with many limitations, by the way) refuse to rent his appartment to an undesired neighbor. I don't know if we have such a law here, but de facto a landlord can easily refuse anyone a renting with some simple excuse or with none at all, even in a large house, even if the neighbors don't object, and I can't imagine a potential leaser filing a lawsuit aginst him. However, it would be different if a such a prescription – or a prohibition - comes from a municipal servant. The least which will be made in this case is firing him immediately, and that's what I suggest.
Your suggestion "to explain" seems to me inefficient, because the people who blindly obey this sort of rabbies are unlikely to be convinced by an outsider, and those who can (quite a consideable part of conservative jews!) will not obey anyway. The problem is not with that group, but with people hardly concerned with philosophical and theological questions, but rather obtaining a legitimate excuse for their xenophobia.
no subject
Date: 2010-12-08 03:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-08 04:23 pm (UTC)Ситуация здесь и теперь - как мне кажется - принципиально отличается не только от той, что была во времена Рамбама, но и от той, что была при Мартине Бубере. Отличие очевидно и Вам - доминантная религия, не отделённая от государства. К моему большому сожалению, это перестало (или почти перестало, или перестало для многих) быть религией и философией, а стало политикой. Отделение религии от государства, увольнение - не одного рабби, а любого человека на государственной должности, который позволяет себе дискриминирующие высказывания, - как мне кажется, может помочь превращению второго в первое.
И да, конечно, было бы очень здорово, чтобы появились раввины таланта и силы Рамбама, которые не только имели бы альтернативное мнение, но и смогли бы убедить в нем своих верующих. Такие попытки делаются (Амселлем), но, опять же к большому сожалению, успеха, по-моему, не имеют. И именно из-за того, что целевая аудитория больше заинтересована в политических и экономических выводах, а теология является для них лишь предлогом. Так что я не высокомерно предлагаю перестать объяснять, а лишь высказываю пессимизм по поводу успеха предприятия. Хотела бы я ошибаться.
Кстати, я совсем не "обзываюсь". Я говорю только о сравнительно небольшой группе людей, которая ежедневно, многими способами подтверждает то, что я о них говорю. Остальные соблюдающие (к которым я и себя частично отношу) вызывают у меня уважение, а многие - и восхищение. Вы совершенно зря спорите со мной как с человеком, враждебным этой религии и не желающим разбираться. Именно потому, что она мне близка, и что я считаю её своей, мне так обидно, когда она используется для нечестных целей.
no subject
Date: 2010-12-08 06:27 pm (UTC)It will achieve nothing. You can fire a million rabbis and still the idolaters will not be considered on equal footing with the Jews. Exemplary punishment does not work and it never worked. People politicize not only from top down, but also from bottom up, and their opinions do not require the royal seal. Worse, zero tolerance is immediately abused, because any view can be presented as discriminating against some group. This is a recipe for PC rather than any real change. I tell you why.
This US federal law I've mentioned was from 1968. The degree of segregation hardly changed in the passing forty years. My city is the same patchwork of ethnical enclaves it has always been. The only tangible achievement was mass exhodus of white folk to the burbs resulting in the decay of the inner city and misery of the very people it was supposed to benefit. There are integrated neighborhoods (I live in one of them, with 60% blacks). The degree of integration in my neighborhood would be exactly the same w/o this law (it was integrating long before 1968; actually,it slowed down since the early seventies when the hood became surrounded by all-black ghettos). I do not believe in PC and legislative approach to improvement of human nature, and I've heard enough sermons on racial harmony coming from all-white suburbs to become cynical about such preaching. The imagination is expended on inventing feel-good laws for other people to obey and spectacles of targeted fury rather than moving back and trying to live together. I am yet to meet a black person who would not see through it.
What works is different from what is being advertized as a solution. A photo of a little girl escorted to her school did more for changing the mood of this country than all of these laws put together, and a book about an old Negro living in a cabin ended centuries of slavery. It works when it is from the heart. There are problems that simply cannot be solved by firing municipal rabbis. That so many people believe otherwise is a far greater concern that the one discussed in the post.
no subject
Date: 2010-12-08 08:36 pm (UTC)Кроме того, ситуация у нас сильно отличается от ситуации с неграми в 60-е. Там, как мне кажется, было более ясное разделение на страдающую и причиняющую страдания стороны, так что можно было помочь действиями "от сердца". Здесь сердцА гораздо более ожесточены, слишком много крови, слишком много страстей, чтобы рассказ о хижине дяди Тома или фотография девочки могли сделать революцию; потому, например, вот эта отвратительная фотография произвела мало впечатления на израильтян. Увы.
Oh, so true
Date: 2010-12-08 09:34 pm (UTC)There were previous complaints of this kind. I have seen this people, too, and Moses had a point.
So you think our American folk are a sentimental lot. Well, maybe they are... That's an interesting view, I have not thought about it this way. They certainly wept over the book, but when the discussion ended and all opinions were tallied, there were 700,000 bodies rotting in the ground. It could've been worse, but still. Dealing with stiffnecked people has its frustrating moments but, behold, everyone is alive and well. Not a small achievement, I think.
Re: Oh, so true
Date: 2010-12-08 09:45 pm (UTC)Re: Oh, so true
Date: 2010-12-08 10:16 pm (UTC)Re: Oh, so true
Date: 2010-12-09 12:45 am (UTC)Xenophobia usually means the division into us and them. Sorry, but I've seen enough of it in the comments to this post to fuel a platoon of the most stiffnecked municipal rabbis. The overall impression is deep seated animosity and mutual mistrust, with the occasional Arab dragged into the conflict that has little to do with Arabs and will be as bitterly pursued (perhaps even more bitterly) had there were no Arabs around. I guess it is no better on the other side of the divide.
BTW, xenos has double meaning in Greek: a stranger and a friend bound by the ritual of xenia. I wonder what kind of xenophobia you really have in Israel.
Re: Oh, so true
Date: 2010-12-09 01:17 am (UTC)Простите, но это чистейшая демагогия. Наверняка, не будь никакой войны и террора, остались бы ксенофобы и националисты с врождённой, глубинной и ничем не вызванной враждебностью, но их было бы на много порядков меньше. Утверждение, будто реалии не имеют к этой ненависти отношения, не очень честно и показывает не очень глубокое знание этих реалий.
(А здешние комменты, кстати, не показательны, потому что среди русскоязычных евреев категоричность, непримиримость и экстремизм гораздо больше, чем у евреев вообще.)
Насчет ксенофобии смешно, и у нас, конечно, встречается "связанность ритуалами дружбы" - желание оправдать еврея потому, что он свой-друг, а не потому, что он прав. Но всё-таки не у большинства; мы стараемся быть честными и непредвзятыми:)
Re: Oh, so true
Date: 2010-12-09 01:32 am (UTC)Re: Oh, so true
Date: 2010-12-09 06:22 am (UTC)Re:
Date: 2010-12-09 06:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-09 09:39 am (UTC)You say no one has the right words, the words coming from the heart, the words that make real difference, the words that change everything: the words for the stiffnecked people. I know where to find these words. These words have been copied generation after generation, and you can read these words. Centuries of toil were spent on making certain that the same thing would not happen again.
What I observe from my remote location is that it is happening again.
Whatching from a safe place far far away there is another pair of eyes. Knowing, knowing. Seeing, seeing. And the time is ticking, ticking.
no subject
Date: 2010-12-09 08:46 pm (UTC)There are different aspects to this story. The aspect of the long-term ethical discussions between Jewish theologists seems to me the less important one. I do not know about this, but since not all rabbis agree with this advice we condemn, perhaps mean racist bigotry is not such an essential a part of Judaism as you portray it.
But please try to register a different aspect. My wife and I live here in Haifa next to Arab neighbors. Some of them are wonderful people and most of them are just normal law-abiding ones. They are all different people - individuals, just like everybody else. It is wrong to see them just as "Arabs" and not as individuals. They are cruelly discriminated against on many levels here, even if they are equal by law. They find hatred, prejudice and lack of basic decent human sympathy everywhere and this is quite undeserved for most of them. True, only very rarely it results in deaths. But daily attacks on self-respect can be quite painful - I as a Jew am quite aware of that, perhaps you are too.
Some of them teach their children to try to ignore the insults, overcome difficulties and take the opportunities that are open for them in our vibrant society. And some others teach hatred. It is very important to me and to my children, that the first kind would remain the prevalent. This practical argument is in addition, of course, to the racist discrimination being morally wrong.
These government officials (that happen to be rabbis) abuse their position to add to the hatred. They do not want co-existence, they want war. They destroy my future. I do not care much about their reasons, although I strongly suspect they are purely political, not religious. But whatever the reasons, the result of their move is surely political. And it is wrong to present them as naive scholasts - they know their political power, they are fully responsible for what they do. They think they cannot be touched because they are protected by the corrupt "religious" political power. They should lose their jobs. To approach this modern political issue from the point of view based on a 2500-year-old religious analogy is just not helpful. Please understand - this is not the question of "improving human nature", as you have preached to my wife. It even has little to do with Judaism. It is a question of stopping some thugs.
no subject
Date: 2010-12-09 10:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-10 03:24 am (UTC)Let me answer you just on facts, leaving aside the preaching aspects.
> If the Arab is a Muslim, this Talmudic law against renting to the idolaters does not even apply to his family. How can it "racially discriminate" against your neighbors that are presumably Muslim? Nowhere does the Talmud teach that the Ismaelites should be insulted, harassed, or persecuted. Let's not make things up.
Do you believe for a minute their letter deals with Talmudic aspects, specifing that it concerns only "idolaters"? "Dozens of Israel's municipal chief rabbis have signed on to a new religious ruling that would forbid the rental of homes to gentiles in a move particularly aimed against Arabs. The rabbis' letter, which was first published months ago and reprinted in October, urges Jewish owners of apartments to reconsider renting their properties to Arabs since it would deflate the value of their homes as well as those in the neighborhood.
"Their way of life is different than that of Jews," the letter stated. "Among [the gentiles] are those who are bitter and hateful toward us and who meddle into our lives to the point where they are a danger."
You still don't see "how it can racially discriminate against our neighbors", whether they are Muslims, Christians or ateists? Don't you think that "deflating the values of our homes" has nothing to do with Talmud?
Now, the letter originates from Safed, "a city that has seen an increase in its Arab student population that is enrolled at the town's local college". So, it's not just aimed against Arabs, but mainly against that part of Arabic community which we would strongly prefer to prevail over those who teach their children hatred and misery. How is such incitement consistent with Torah?
Don't you see how it can evoke a bloodshed, at least in the long run?
> Then their inadequacy as rabbis is legitimate concern.
Oh yes it is. But do you still believe it's the only concern about them, considering that they occupy municipal posts?
They cause hatred not only against Arabs. Ostracizing one's neighbors and acquaintances (Jews) who sell or rent to an Arab, reporting them to the community, distancing themselves from them, refraining from doing business with them, denying them the right to read from the Torah etc. - how about that? Do they help our "people to come together and to forget all discords" as you'd like us to do?
>Jews are demonized for being Jews in Israel, this does not look good
Do you still think these rabbies are "demonized" and, if they are, they are demonized just for being Jews?
>...they explain Rabbinical law to their congregation (and this law can disagree with the popular mood - there was no age in history when some part of it did not)
Unfortunately, it - or whatever they pass off as the Rabbinical law - quite agrees with the popular mood. That's a problem.
…
no subject
Date: 2010-12-10 04:12 am (UTC)In my view, yes, this is the only concern. If you want rabbis rubber-stamping popular opinions, do not have rabbis at all. You badly need just such rabbis. If you think that the prophets were popular, you are quite mistaken. Isaiah, for example, was sawn in half while alive. If the rabbis are demonized because they are rabbis teaching the sections of Gemara that are not to the liking of secular Jews, of course, this is demonization. Being a rabbi does not mean catering to liberal attitudes. If these rabbis are expected to change their verdicts because they are paid from municipal taxes, such rabbis are not needed to anyone. So it is only about one thing: are they correct from the stanpoint of Rabbinical law. If they are improvising on the fly, they are bad rabbis and should be let go.
We have a somewhat similar situation with some judges appointed for life. If they interpret law correctly nothing can be done about it, and they are paid from our taxes. Unlike rabbis they make decisions for everyone. Their opinions can be very unpopular and even unjust, but such is life. Some things cannot be helped.
I do not see how is their ruling "agrees" with the popular mood. You guys are crying bloody murder for the third day. I imagine what happens when there are disgreements!
As for the chosen method: ostrakism, I agree with you. This seems inappropriate and unwarranted. To tell you the truth I do not think these are very good rabbis. But that is not what irked me. Just looked how many people said that even if the ruling were specifically about idolters they would still hate the gut of these "haremongering" rabbis. So it is not the detail of the verdict (which is what I find important) it is the very fact that rabbis did not produced the expected opinions which is found heinous. There was I guy openly saying that he faults rabbis for not selectively reading the Mishnah. I.e., the rabbis were indeed faulted just for being rabbis. Maybe you don't do that. The others just did.
no subject
Date: 2010-12-10 07:39 am (UTC)>If you will be that, there will be no problem with the Arabs.
I am sorry, I do not get your meaning. What do you mean by "problem with the Arabs"? Our inability to provide full de-facto equality to Arab citizens? The terrorism problem? The wars with the totalitarian regimes around us? You see, there are some Arabs I have no problem with. And some others that I do. And still others that have a problem with me. These are all different people and different problems. I do not see how stamping out "differences among Jews" may help any of these problems. I rather see how it might do the opposite.
>The "thugs" you want to stop are your brothers on whose love your future is entirely dependent.
I disagree. Our jails contain murderers, rapists, ugly despicable people. Did you know, we have a proper mafia in Israel, with criminal dons, contract killings and passer-by casualties. Do I also depend on their love?
Please understand, I have nothing against Judaism and rabbis. This is not about rabbis or Talmud teachings. If you build your impressions about Israel from "talking to your Israeli friends" or perhaps from blogs such as avva's, then your view is not balanced. We have many Jews here that are willing to hear incitement about Arabs and act on it. In contrast to you, they do not care about the incitement being theologically correct. BTW, my Arab neighbors are mostly Christian, and this does not matter to me one bit. Unfortunately, this also does not matter to our thugs, despite the Talmudic teaching. Their hatred is purely xenophobe and nationalist, nothing religious about it, the religiosity here is just a pretense. These rabbis use it for their political power. It is not the question of them being theologically right or wrong. They are bad rabbis because they abuse their status for political gain.
no subject
Date: 2010-12-10 04:31 pm (UTC)There is no problem with the Assyrians. There is no problem with the Babylonians. There is no problem with the Greeks. There is no problem with the Romans. There will be no problem with the Arabs.
>>Do you depend on their love?
Like you do not know the answer. Like you do not know that you are not going to treat the Arabs better than you are treating each other.
I've been to Israel and I've seen what I've seen. I do not need any extra material than the last paragraph of your comment. If you guys will keep ascribing lowly motives to each other and accuse each other of xenophobia, hatred and what not, then the romantic nonsense will be done with. All of it, to the last stone.
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Date: 2010-12-08 01:08 pm (UTC)