By Rabbi Dow Marmur
JERUSALEM — There’s talk of elections in Israel in 2012. One indication is that the primaries in Likud – the party of Prime Minister Netanyahu that in the end will decide when to call an election if it’s ahead of the four-year mandate, as it would be in 2012 – have been advanced to January. Among other telling signs, one deserves special attention.
The reports that Prime Minister Netanyahu is going out of his way to tell the nation that he’s appalled at the discrimination of women by Orthodox extremists and that he has instructed the public security minister to order the police to act quickly and decisively is a significant sign. After all, more than fifty percent of the voters are women.
An added reason for courting women voters now is that the leaders of two of Likud’s main rivals are women: Tzipi Livni of Kadima and Sheli Yachimovitch of Labor. To appear less concerned about women’s rights than they would be unwise. As at present neither Kadima nor Labor seem to have much traction in Israel, it may be possible for Netanyahu also to tell women that he’s the only one who really cares for them.
Though it’s tempting to see all this as a cynical move by the Prime Minister to stay in power, it would have been terrible if he had not reacted to the recent cases of harassment of women by ultra-Orthodox thugs and the silence of their rabbis. This time he may really mean it, perhaps (as some might say) because his wife has instructed him.
The widely publicized incident last week when a woman refused to move to the back of a bus on her way from Ashdod to Jerusalemis only one of many instances currently discussed by the Israeli public. Another topic is the many incidents of spitting on women who’re deemed to be insufficiently “modestly” dressed. A recent victim, for example, was an eight-year old girl. Part of the town of Bet Shemesh in the environs of Jerusalemis a hotbed of this display of sick and toxic piety.
There’re suggestions that the police are prone to turn a blind eye. Thus in the case of the woman on the Ashdod-Jerusalem bus, a police officer tried to talk her into moving to the back instead of dealing with the offenders. Other instances of that ilk are also being cited, e.g., tolerating separation between women and men in the streets of Bet Shemesh.
So far, very few arrests have been made. One arrested person was set free by a judge within 24 hours. On one level there may have been no reason to keep him in jail while awaiting investigation, but on the other letting him go was a message to his fellow felons that the risks of behaving outrageously and violently are worth taking.
Why such leniency by the police and the judiciary, both largely secular establishments? Perhaps it’s a reflection of the old habit by Israeli secularists to display improbable forbearance to the Orthodox for at least two seemingly contradictory reasons: First, because they believe that all authentic religion has to be extremist, intolerant and violent; that’s why they still have so little time for us liberals. Second, because by misrepresenting religion as obscurantist, secularists find yet another compelling reason for shunning it. Colluding with extremism becomes a form of aversion therapy.
However, in view of the public outcry to which the Prime Minister responded, the authorities that hitherto may have colluded have clearly got it wrong. About time, too: more resolute action may now be expected; Israel’s soul needs it. Perhaps in the end, the thugs’ rampages and the rabbis’ silence will have performed an important service.
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Rabbi Marmur is spiritual leader emeritus of Holy Blossom Temple in Toronto. He now divides his time between Canada and Israel. He may be contacted at dow.marmur@sdjewishworld.com