Shavuot, which begins Sunday night, is much more than a cheesecake and blintzes festival. It is, in a sense, the festival of converts to Judaism because the Book of Ruth, centered on one of the most celebrated and best-known of converts, is read during Shavuot synagogue services.
It is ironic that Ruth, who was the great-grandmother of King David, would not be accepted today by the majority of rabbis who decide whether or not to accept a would-be convert into the faith.
Unfortunately, conversion in our times is often tainted by bureaucracy, politics, and the personal ideologies of certain rabbis.
While it is legitimate for the rabbis to make it very tough for people undergoing conversion to test their sincerity and whether or not they intend to keep specific Jewish laws, it is not legitimate to deprive them of religious and national status if they choose to live in Israel and have all the right qualifications for conversion.
An article by Sheila Fried in Yediot Aharonot this week disclosed that hundreds of people who have completed the conversion process and whose sole requirement is final official approval have been left in limbo because of a coalition dispute as to who will be appointed as the official arbiter.
Apparently, no one can take this on as an interim appointee, meaning that the people waiting to be approved and recognized as Jews cannot receive citizenship nor marry a Jew. They are also deprived of other rights that come automatically to the most secular of people who were born Jewish. Such situations often go on for years and shatter lives. Surely, it’s time to change the rules to allow for interim appointments.
Apropos King David, who is credited with making Jerusalem the capital of the Jewish people, despite some of his great achievements, he was human and not without flaws. Shimon Peres, when he was foreign minister, alluding to King David’s adulterous affair with Batsheva, whom he impregnated, commented that King David would not meet the standards of the present-day haredi (ultra-Orthodox) community.
The religious MKs were so incensed that they filed a motion to bring down the government, though the motion was defeated. Presumably, devout Christians would be equally angry if King David’s sin was mentioned in the same breath as Jesus, who, according to the New Testament, was one of his descendants.
Getting back to Ruth, she was a Moabite who was forbidden to an Israelite husband unless she first converted. In her famous declaration to her widowed mother-in-law, Naomi, it is obvious that Ruth is not yet Jewish.
For that matter, when she lay with Boaz to conceive, she was still not Jewish because, other than Naomi, there had been no Jewish witness to her declaration. Some rabbis have explained that even though there is no absolute record of her conversion, she did convert before she lay with Boaz.
■ THE FOURTH annual Friendship Cycle, on behalf of the South Jerusalem Friendship Circle, which works for the social inclusion of children with disabilities and special needs, takes place this morning, Friday, May 30.
Visitors to the capital who may want to join should be at Jerusalem’s First Station early in the morning. Cyclists will take off at 8 a.m, and at 12.30 p.m., there will be a Holy Bagel lunch and party at the Jerusalem Aquarium with sporting events led by American-born former professional basketball player and coach Tamir Goodman. The Friendship Circle pairs teenage volunteers with children with special needs, offering them camaraderie, a variety of activities, and, most importantly, a sense of inclusion.
CONGREGANTS AT Jerusalem’s Great Synagogue will have a particularly festive Friday night service this evening. Cantors Netanel Cohen, Yehiel Nahari, Asher Ben David, and Ahiad Hodafi will sing songs in praise of Jerusalem in honor of Jerusalem Day, which is being celebrated more or less between its Hebrew and Gregorian calendar anniversaries. Congregants will include Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion, who is somewhat of a cantor himself, and Deputy Mayor Arieh King.
Eli Hurvitz Conference on Economy and Society
■ SPEAKING IN Jerusalem this week at the annual Eli Hurvitz Conference on Economy and Society, Prof. Suzie Navot, vice president of research at the Israel Democracy Institute, in relating to how assaults on Israel’s democracy have affected credit ratings, said that the world at large is not blind to what is happening in Israel.
She noted that credit rating companies have mentioned the justice minister’s attempts to change the justice system and his refusal to convene the committee for appointing new judges. The method of government in Israel is changing rapidly, she said, adding that this is not a warning for the future but a vision of reality.
Navot also referred to changes in hiring and firing, specifically with regard to the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), and mentioned the government’s efforts to gain control of public companies.
■ AFTER MONTHS of campaigning, the eligible Zionist organizations in the US have elected their delegates to the 39th World Zionist Congress (WZC), which is due to take place in Jerusalem in October.
In Australia, the voting has just commenced. In outlining voting rules and eligibility, Alon Cassuto, the Jerusalem-born CEO of the Zionist Federation of Australia, was obviously aware of the voting scandals that marred the American elections.
There is little doubt that, scandals notwithstanding, the record number of voters was influenced by the escalation of antisemitism and the geopolitical situation in the Middle East. The 38th Zionist Congress in October 2020 was attended by some 700 people. More are expected this year following the huge turnout for the recently held World Jewish Congress, which was also held in Jerusalem.
The British elections to the WZC are due to take place between June 8-12.
Some of the delegates who own apartments in Israel will probably come for the High Holy Days, which begin on September 22, and stay until after Sukkot.
Traditionally, Evangelicals from around the world flock to Israel for their annual Feast of Tabernacles, which takes place during Sukkot, so the combination of WZC delegates and Evangelicals will be very good for Jerusalem’s hotel industry.
The WZC, founded by Zionist visionary Theodor Herzl in Basel on August 29, 1897, is among the most veteran Jewish organizations.
■ FEW THINGS are more painful to a national hero than being called a traitor. Democrats chairman and former MK Yair Golan, who displayed extraordinary heroism in response to the Hamas assault, has, on more than one occasion, both as a senior officer in the IDF and as a civilian politician, allowed his mouth to run off, forcing him to retract statements.
But the things that people say publicly are impossible to erase, no matter how often they apologize or admit that they overstepped the mark.
However, the basic issue, with or without Golan, puts many Israelis and Diaspora Jews in a bind. To remain silent when confronted by photographs of parents weeping over dead Gazan children, to be acutely aware that humanitarian aid was being withheld from Gaza, to know that very few Palestinians are now permitted to work in Israel, to see Palestinian crops destroyed by ideologically and emotionally whipped-up Israelis and to remain silent is a form of complicity.
Anyone who doesn’t speak out against such things is thought to be in agreement. Elie Wiesel used to say that the greatest enemy of injustice is indifference. Taken a step further, indifference leads to silence and permits injustice to continue and to triumph.
In his controversial remarks, Golan was relating to injustice, not only in the way that Gazan civilians are being treated but also injustice to Jewish beliefs, which have prompted unjustified attacks of retaliation against Jewish people, Jewish houses of worship, and other Jewish institutions.
To call Yair Golan a traitor or to abuse Arabs in the Old City of Jerusalem, as was done during Jerusalem Day celebrations on Monday, is playing straight into the hands of the enemy. When Martin Luther King Jr. urged people to speak out against persecution and the denial of civil rights to African Americans, he said, “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends.”
■ AS PART of its centenary celebrations, the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, in partnership with Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, has announced the launch of the YIVO – Ben-Gurion University Fellowship in Jewish Studies.
This inaugural fellowship, made possible by the generous support of US attorney Max Gitter and his wife, Elisabeth, is designed to advance original research in Jewish history, literature, or religious studies, utilizing the unparalleled collections of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York City.
The YIVO Archives and Library house the world’s largest collection of Yiddish-language works and a vast array of manuscripts, rare books, and archival materials in other languages documenting the history and culture of Central and East European Jewry and the American Jewish immigrant experience.
The first fellowship will be awarded in 2025. The recipient will receive a stipend to support three months of research at the YIVO Archives and Library in New York City. Upon completion of this research, the fellow will present his/her findings to the public in a program hosted at YIVO, which will also be broadcast globally.
This new fellowship underscores YIVO and Ben-Gurion University’s shared commitment to fostering innovative scholarship in Jewish studies and supporting the next generation of researchers.
“BGU is delighted to enter into this partnership with YIVO, facilitated by a dear friend of both institutions, Max Gitter. We hope that this collaboration is the first of many with YIVO,” said BGU Rector Prof. Chaim Hames.
“For many years, YIVO has sought ways of strengthening ties to Israeli institutions, and we see this partnership with BGU as an essential part of this effort that will broaden understanding of our shared Eastern European heritage. We are indebted to Elisabeth and Max Gitter for their generosity and vision,” said Jonathan Brent, YIVO CEO and executive director.
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