Criticizing Israel is hard work

In last week's NY Times, columnist David Brooks noted that Israeli public culture "is one
long cacophony of criticism. The politicians go at each other with a fury we can't even fathom in the US. At news conferences, Israeli journalists ridicule and abuse their national leaders. Subordinates in companies feel free to correct their superiors."

In his essay, he confesses that he finds Israel by turns exhausting, admirable, annoying, impressive and foreign. Finally, he suggests that Israel's argumentative culture nurtures a sense of responsibility.

I have recently come under serious criticism for my outspokenness against abuses in the Israeli rabbinate. I have not hesitated to raise my voice against what I perceive to be the injustices being meted out to converts, or the fact that burial authorities capitalize on the vulnerability of mourners in their darkest hour to impose upon them either financial or religious burdens. I am vocal about the way in which new immigrants (and those seeking to emigrate) are treated by the Ministry of Interior and I do not tolerate the inability of the Orthodox community to open its doors to the non-Orthodox.

I find it hard to be silent to the cry of the widow or the agunah or the plight of the convert. I have been told a number of times that in my outspokenness, I am undermining the image of Israel and discouraging Jews from around the world from believing in its future.

In one sense, I accept this criticism. For all of its faults, Israel is the greatest Jewish experiment in more than 2000 years, and to a large extent, it must be recognized as a work in progress. To highlight Israel's Jewish weaknesses is to dull its accomplishments and achievements.

However, I feel an equal responsibility to improve Israeli society, and specifically, to raise these issues in the public sector, in order to increase the public debate about them. Those who remain silent when seeing injustice become accomplices, and the Jewish world that I would like to see in Israel is a world characterized by what Maimonides called justice and peace, not anguish and alienation.

So, as Israel reaches sixty-one, I stand with Brooks in feeling exhilarated and enthused, even as I am frustrated and anguished.

And as I reflect on how much we have accomplished, I know how much farther there is to go.

We didn't wait for 2000 years to have a Jewish State devoid of Jewish content. But we cannot wait another 2 minutes if the Jewish dimension of the State is undermining the fabric of its moral character.