Israel's center-left needs the ultra-Orthodox
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to suspend the plan for a Western Wall pluralistic prayer space must be condemned, but harnessing the ultra-Orthodox into efforts to topple Netanyahu is more important.
Normally, I would have taken this opportunity to express rare agreement with Yisrael Beitenu chair Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman, who said the decision to freeze a plan to establish a pluralistic prayer space at the Western Wall “constitutes a serious blow to the unity of the Jewish people, to Jewish communities and to the fabric of the relationship between Israel and diaspora Jewry.”
Normally I would have described the freezing of the prayer plan as additional proof that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s adherence to power easily trumps his adherence to principles, values and commitments. I would have cited his pledge to participants of the November 2015 Jewish Federations of North America assembly to invest in strengthening Reform and Conservative communities within Israel. And with that his hope that “We will soon conclude a long overdue understanding that will ensure that the Kotel (Western Wall) is a source of unity for our people, not a point of division.”
Normally, I would have underscored the following warning issued in the 2016 report of the Jewish People Policy Institute: “The more liberal, Reform, Reconstructionist, Conservative, and secular parts of the American Jewish community may become more distant as Israel demographically becomes more Orthodox and nationalistic.”
But these times are far from normal, about as far as Netanyahu is from being willing/able to unshackle Israel from its 50-year occupation of Palestinian territories that is turning it into a pariah apartheid state.
