Religion
Related: About this forumWho’s a Jew?
An old religious argument once again rears its angry head
May 18th 2013 | JERUSALEM |From the print edition
WHEN is a Jew not a Jew? When hes a Karaite. Or so says Israels chief rabbinate, which, after 65 years of relative harmony with an ancient Jewish sect, is reopening an old and bitter schism. In recent months, rabbis working for Israels ministry of religion have deemed Karaite marriages invalid, fined their butchers for claiming to be kosher, and demanded that Karaites marrying Orthodox Jewish women should convert, sometimes having to undergo tavila, or baptism. We are already Jews, protests Moshe Firrouz, a computer engineer who heads the Karaites Council of Sages. The rabbinate is denying us our religious freedom.
For over 1,300 years Karaites have battled with Rabbanites (adherents to mainstream Judaism) over their rejection of the Talmud, the corpus of an oral tradition that Rabbanites claim God gave Moses with the written Torah on Mount Sinai. Clinging to the biblical word alone, Karaites regard skullcaps, phylacteries (little leather boxes containing Torah scrolls), matrilineal descent and non-biblical festivals, such as the Festival of Lights, as pagan accretions. Like Muslims oras they prefer to saylike Temple-era Jews, they prostrate barefoot on carpets. The Orthodox add and the Reform take away, says a recent Karaite convert. It is only we who follow the Torah.
Once almost as numerous as Rabbanites, todays Karaites make up less than 1% of Israels 6m Jews. Persecution has whittled their number down. The greatest classical Jewish theologian, Moses Maimonides, denounced them as minim, or heretics, and banned them from public prayer; others termed their children bastards, since their parents married in weddings which diverged from the Orthodox rite. The rabbinate recently slapped a fine of 1,000 shekels ($280) on a Karaite butcher for calling his meat kosher. The chief rabbinate, Israels state religious authority, reluctantly began legitimising their marriages again after a recent order by Israels Supreme Court, but it continues to argue that since Karaite rites are not Jewish, Karaites have lesser Jewish rights, too. Israel is a Jewish state and Jews have superior rights, says the chief rabbinates spokesman. But the Karaites are not Jewish.
Threatened by a two-pronged assault of assimilation and intolerance, Karaites have begun building up their own defences. Though they have no yeshivas, or religious academies, they have begun studying at home. Elders have sloughed off their skullcaps and stopped lighting candles on Friday nights, in line with a biblical injunction against burning flames on the Sabbath. At a packed seminar at Bar Ilan, Israels religious university near Tel Aviv, Mr Firrouz called on Israels prime minister to free Israel from the Orthodox yoke. To the harmony of an all-male Karaite choir, the Karaite sage asked the Israeli state to recognise his Bet Din, or religious court, so that he could license marriages and be paid a salary.
http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21578098-old-religious-argument-once-again-rears-its-angry-head-whos-jew
Cary
(11,746 posts)Amongst my fellow Reform Jews we have an old joke: put 2 Jews in a room and you get 3 opinions.
I have also engaged in discussions along the lines of the idea that if we didn't have so many enemies we would have killed ourselves off a thousand years ago.
And too in my experience there are no more brutal conflicts anywhere than there are between the various Orthodox communities, when they disagree on some sort of dogma or another.
In other words, we're human.
MAD Dave
(204 posts)To persecute a sect or religion because it is not what you believe is ridiculous. This is happening in Iran everyday. If Israel ever hopes to maintain stability within the Middle East they should be the most carefull regarding basic human rights. The treatment of this sect of Judaism and the Palestinians makes them shine out as a beacon of hate.
You clearly don't understand Israel.
MAD Dave
(204 posts)I do not understand Israel. I never will.
Thank you for pointing out my ignorance.
Cary
(11,746 posts)She is a sovereign nation. It isn't important for you to under her.
Have you ever heard of national self determination? It's kind of the cardinal principle upon which modern international law is built.
Humanist_Activist
(7,670 posts)when it comes to human rights and freedoms, and no, national borders shouldn't matter in this.
I don't understand Israel in this regard the same way I don't understand France's burkha ban, or Uganda's persecution of gays, or Saudi Arabia's requirement for burkhas for women, or honor killings, FGM, and numerous other cultural and religious practices that persecute, maim, victimize, and persecute innocent people and make them unequal to others in the eyes of the laws of their respective countries.
Cary
(11,746 posts)Certain recidivist sects have taken it upon themselves to be the ultimate deciders. I think this is typical of recidivists. Others don't recognize this self assumed power and there is a question here too about who gets to decide who is a Jew.
Seems to me it's an internal issue whether its between Jews, in general, or the State of Israel.
Human_Activist how is this in any way the same as France's burkha ban, or Uganda's persecution of gays, or a practice that maims, persecutes or victimizes? Are you suggesting that Jews can't decide who is Jewish? Where do you get the right to make that claim?
Humanist_Activist
(7,670 posts)and frankly they are calling each other heretics, heretics! In a modern state, modern officials, and arms of that state are supposed to decide this type of shit? This is straight up medieval and primitive tribalism, and such judgments, through state policy and enforcement, can, and usually does, have an oppressive effect on their targets.
Oh, and yes I make that claim, people have the right to define themselves. Are you saying they don't have that right? More importantly, why should it matter to the government and state?
Cary
(11,746 posts)Are you saying that Israel has no right to declare that Jews are automatically citizens?
It's very disconcerting that people are so quick to judge Jews, and so eager to second guess and disallow us to make our own decisions.
Currently there are something like 12 million of us. But for the pogroms, Holocausts, inquisitions, and the various and sundry other attacks that have been made on us over the past 2 or 3 thousand years there would be somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 million or so of us.
Maybe you should stop attacking us? That is if you're so interested in human rights and all. We've had quite enough of your intrusions.
Humanist_Activist
(7,670 posts)race, or religion, nor should they be deprived of equal rights according to the same. If you think this is an attack, I have nothing further to say to a racial segregationalist.
ON EDIT: Actually I'm wrong, I do have much to say, the fact is that two wrongs don't make a right, oppression and discrimination are inexcusable.
Cary
(11,746 posts)You are only a rude poster on an internet board. You don't actually matter.
Humanist_Activist
(7,670 posts)LostOne4Ever
(9,290 posts)I thought being Jewish was both a religious sect as well as an ethnic group. Does Israel not recognize the ethnic component?
Either way, its ridiculous. People just can't tolerate a difference in opinion.
rug
(82,333 posts)Phillip McCleod
(1,837 posts)here he is at the wailing wall for his son's bar mitzvah..