Religion in Israel: Too black and white?It may only take an hour to get from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv (provided your bus doesn’t break down), but the two often feel more like different planets than neighboring cities. In Israel, the animosity between secular and Orthodox is palpable and growing, but according to an article in yesterday’s J-Post, the emerging Jewish Renewal movement is targeting even the most “hard-core” secularists, and attempting to bring Jewish traditions back into modern Israeli life by finding the gray areas within religion.

The ambivalence about Judaism in Israel became clear to me one night as I sat drinking in an alleyway bar in Tel Aviv with my Israeli friend Omer. Omer has been studying abroad in Germany for the past few years, and admitted that he felt disconnected there, and had started attending a Friday night dinner with other Jewish students. “My father would disown me if he knew I was lighting Shabbat candles,” said Omer guiltily. “We come from a long line of staunch Tel Aviv atheists.”

In order to counteract this deep rooted aversion to religion, the Jewish Renewal movement (different from the 1960s American movement of the same name) takes a more flexible approach, focusing on ritual, tradition and spirituality rather than outright faith. While the term “secular synagogue” may seem like an oxymoron,to proponents of Jewish Renewal, it’s the basis of their ideology.

Dr. Asher Cohen, a senior lecturer at Bar-Ilan's Political Science Department who recently wrote a paper on the failure of the Reform Movement to muster a significant following in Israel, said the movement lacked many of the drawbacks of Reform Judaism.

"First of all, there is no God," said Cohen. "Jewish Renewal is not a religion. So it does not turn off adamantly secular people."

Though the Jewish Renewal leaders identify their movement as distinctly Israeli, it’s hard not to sense that the trend mirrors the ever evolving definition of American Jewish identity. The search for cultural connections has taken many Americans beyond their local congregation or JCC. It is the reason why Jewcy exists, why small alternative congregations like Romemu are springing up across the country, and why birthright is quickly becoming the new bar mitzvah. For many, the search for meaning no longer revolves around the existence of God; it's about the need to find a comfortable, inclusive community.

Daily commentary on the ADL/Armenian Genocide uproar

LUFTMENSCHEN VS. REALISTS: David Kelsey of Jewschool has published “The Luftmenschen of Jewcy,” a post in which he criticizes Jewcy for valuing “moral consistency” over the tough-minded realpolitik that Israel’s current situation demands. The cost of acknowledging the Armenian Genocide, Kelsey points out, is alienating Turkey, “a crucial Israel ally.” But what is the benefit, he asks. He answers his own question: “The benefit is that Joey Kurtzman and the whole Jewcy mishpacha get to look like badass idealists willing to challenge the Jewish 'defense' organization status quo, and show they are very big universalists not confined to shtetl-like thinking.”

“Jewcy and friends,” he says, “should have done a cost-benefit analysis before going apeshit. If they did, then they clearly harbor a most unsympathetic view to the Jewish state and her needs. If they didn’t, then they are classic, irresponsible, Diaspora Luftmenschen.”

Kelsey’s not alone in thinking this way. The Forward has published an astonishing editorial titled “Of Genocide and Morality,” arguing that with the furor over the Armenian Genocide and Israel’s recent expulsion of Darfuri refugees, we witness the end of the “post-Holocaust era in Jewish history.” American Jews must outgrow their post-Holocaust fetish with simplistic moralizing and “re-examine the moral principles we have created for ourselves in the wake of the Holocaust, and consider whether they reflect the realities of today’s cold, hard world.” “Remembering genocide is important, but not as important as saving lives today.”

I’m afraid this won’t fly, folks. The Jewish community has worked very hard to instill in its young the sense that bearing witness to genocide is virtually a sacred responsibility, that denial of genocide is the final step of genocide, that the “criminal indifference” of the world to the genocide of European Jewry was a cataclysmic moral failure that must never be repeated, and that only by remembering the past can we prevent its repetition. So no, you don’t get to switch horses now that recalling someone else’s genocide conflicts with a strategic goal.

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The J-Post on why another summer war is unlikely: 

Olmert and Peretz do not want a large-scale operation in Gaza. Any response to the continued Kassam attacks will be an effort to slightly impair Hamas's ability to perpetrate attacks, as well as demonstrate to the public that there is a government after Winograd and that it is doing something.

The pinpoint operations approved during the security assessment at Olmert's office Wednesday afternoon will not succeed in stopping the Kassam rockets. At the most, Israel can hope they will make it more difficult for terrorists to reach their launch pads in northern Gaza.