Alana Newhouse of Tablet has a piece on the Times Op-Ed page expressing fury at the Knesset bill that would grant final say over Jewish conversions to a group of Orthodox rabbis.
Even if you are Orthodox — and especially if you are Modern Orthodox — your rabbi probably doesn’t make the cut. (Don’t believe it? Go ask him.)
Maybe I was supposed to skip that line? It’s undoubtedly an important issue and another example of the discrimination being pushed forward in Israel, but Newhouse really might have opened up the discussion to other forms of Israeli discrimination. I guess what’s happening to Palestinians is on some sort of different plane?
Newhouse says that a Jewish identity formed by mutually-reinforcing communities in the Diaspora and Israel is critical to the Jewish future. I think that’s the problem; a Jewish identity rooted in power politics that ignores the oppression of others.
